Catholic Archbishop Onaiyekan slams Tinubu’s reforms, says middle-class becoming poor

The former Archbishop of Abuja Catholic Archdiocese, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, has called for a policy review to minimise the current economic hardship in the country, pointing out that “you can’t tell someone to be patient with poverty while we see the people who are supposed to address our poverty live flamboyantly.”

He made the call in an interview with journalists on the sideline of a Marian Concert organised to mark the 2024 feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Abuja, reports NAN.

Onaiyekan said, “There is a limit to what people can handle. You can’t tell someone to be patient with poverty while we see the people who are supposed to address our poverty live flamboyantly, building huge mansions and having fleets of cars without caring how they are fuelled, whereas the rest of us are queuing to get a few litres of fuel.

“There’s a need to review some of the policies that are giving rise to the kind of pain and poverty that we are not familiar with. We are not used to this. The middle class is now being completely wiped out. Everybody is now becoming poor.”