The Executive Director and Lead Faculty of the Lux Terra Leadership Foundation that deals with leadership training likened Africa’s most populous nation to the “Animal Farm”, the satirical allegorical novel in which the author, George Orwell, recounts a fable story of a group of anthropomorphic farm animals that rebel against their human farmer in the hope of creating a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy.
“Nigerian society is like the animal farm, a society where we have conspicuously rich people, people who are living in conspicuous consumption and others who are in deplorable, dehumanizing poverty,” the Nigerian Catholic Priest lamented.
He went on to decry the huge economic gap in the West African country, with some earning over 1 million Nigerian naira a month (US$665.00) while others earn just about 60,000 Nigerian naira (US$40,00).
The founder of the Psycho-Spiritual Institute (PSI), a Catholic entity that specializes in psycho-trauma healing, said he found it unfair that someone who earns over 1 million Nigerian naira “can open his mouth to be part of a discussion about the poor getting 60,000 naira.”
“I say anyone who earns up to 1 million naira in the month should keep his or her mouth shut when he hears them debating about the poor taking 60,000 (naira) for a month!” Fr. Ehusani, a member of the Clergy of Nigeria’s Catholic Diocese of Lokoja said.
He further raised concern over the economic challenges the poor people face in the country and the big salaries paid to members of the parliament, describing the contrast as “crime against humanity”.
About Nigeria’s few elite, Fr. Ehusani posed, “How can they go to sleep in good conscience every day? How can they go to sleep in good conscience and come out to sit down in a boardroom to discuss paying 60,000 naira to the poorest of workers?”
The Abuja-based Catholic Priest further lamented, “How wicked! You give 60,000 naira to a poor worker who may have a family of two or three or four, for his feeding, for his accommodation, for his house rent, for his medical care, for his children's school fees.”
“How wicked! How blind! How can we do that? And we think that God will bless our country?” he further decried.
Fr. Ehusani went on to echo other Catholic Church leaders criticizing Nigeria’s shift to the old national anthem used during the country’s independence, questioning, “We think that it is by bringing a new national anthem that God will bless our country? How can you commit this crime against humanity?”
