Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Catholic Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja, has rejected the Presidency’s criticism of his public account of a meeting between Catholic bishops and President Bola Tinubu.
He insisted that neither his age nor the government’s reaction would stop him from speaking frankly about Nigeria’s condition.
The 82-year-old cleric said he went on television to present what he believed to be the truth about the engagement with the President, rather than to curry favour with the government or anyone else.
Onaiyekan made the remarks in a video shared by Symfoni TV on Wednesday.
This came days after the Presidency faulted his decision to publicly discuss aspects of the bishops’ meeting with Tinubu.
The latest exchange followed a meeting between a delegation of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) and President Tinubu at the State House in Abuja on July 28.
The delegation was led by the CBCN President, Archbishop Matthew Man Oso Ndagoso of Kaduna, and included Onaiyekan, Cardinal Peter Okpaleke, Bishop Matthew Kukah of Sokoto and other senior Catholic clerics.
The bishops used the meeting to raise a range of national issues, including economic hardship, insecurity, democracy and preparations for the 2027 elections.
They also discussed religious freedom and the return of mission schools.
Three days after the engagement, Onaiyekan appeared on Arise News, where he publicly recounted the bishops’ interaction with the President and spoke about their concerns over the state of the nation.
His remarks subsequently triggered a response from the Presidency.
President Tinubu’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, criticised the public disclosure of details from the engagement.
He described it as inappropriate on the grounds that the meeting was a private interaction.
But in the video, Onaiyekan explained that “I didn’t go to Arise to please the government, or to just please people, but to tell the truth. That’s all I stand for”.
The cleric dismissed any suggestion that the criticism could embarrass, intimidate or silence him
He stressed that he had reached an age where he had little reason to be afraid of consequences.
“I cannot be embarrassed. I’m 82 years old; nobody can embarrass me. And I’m not afraid of anybody,” Onaiyekan declared.
“Nobody, at this stage now, are they going to arrest me, carry me to where?”
Onaiyekan also warned Nigerians against taking the country’s remaining space for public criticism for granted, saying the situation was considerably more restrictive in some other African countries.
“And we are still lucky in this Nigeria that we can still talk. We shouldn’t take that for granted. There are many countries in Africa where no bishop dares to talk like we do here”, he said.
The former Abuja Archbishop further sought to correct any impression that his televised comments represented a personal disagreement with the government or an individual position he had independently adopted.
According to him, the concerns he expressed were collectively agreed upon by the Catholic bishops who participated in the engagement with the President.
“No, mind you, I didn’t talk on my own now. I spoke on behalf of my fellow bishops,” he said.
He explained that the bishops had prepared a joint statement containing the issues raised during his television appearance.
“We drafted a statement which contained all that I said in the interview. So, all the bishops of Nigeria spoke that way. It was their voice I was echoing,” Onaiyekan stated.
The cleric said the bishops remained entitled to express their concerns within their respective dioceses, while noting that several other religious leaders had also raised concerns about the country’s current situation.
“I cannot speak on behalf of other religious leaders. Everybody has their own job to do, but many of the other religious leaders have supported us,” he said.
Turning to the broader national situation, Onaiyekan said the hardship confronting Nigerians was too widespread to be reduced to a disagreement between religious leaders and government officials.
“When it comes to what is happening to Nigeria, the poverty, the suffering, we are all in the same boat now, abi?” he asked.
