Human goodness, or holiness has no correlation to capacity to govern at any level, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah has said.
Kukah, spoke Thursday at a talk shop organized by the Platform Nigeria in Lagos to mark Nigeria’s independence.
The cleric contended that what Nigeria needs is not a messiah but men with conscience and political will.
According to him, most of those in political offices tagged leaders are not leaders because there is a distinction between holding office and being a leader.
Kukah who described the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari as a ‘defining moment’ said “good governance is not about good men, good women or bad men, bad women”
He cited the case of prosperous China, where most of it citizens don’t attend church or mosque.
The Bishop regretted that “if you go back to history, every group that staged a coup always say they took power because of corruption, but in the end we come out worse”
Kukah who said the anti corruption crusade of Buhari must be supported, and that a moral benchmark must be set asked ” if corruption is so evil why are we, at peace with it, why is it like the MTN slogan, corruption, everywhere you go”
The cleric blamed the broken system and weak institutions for rot saying ‘if you take a Nigerian president to be US president, he won’t be able to steal $50,000, in his whole term, but if you bring the British prime minister, or US president to run Nigeria, the system would corrupt him”
Other speakers include, Professor Pat Utomi, Professor Pius Adesanmi, US based, Judy Smith and Bolanle-Austeen Peters