Shehu Sani, a former senator of Kaduna Central said Catholic Bishops have tradition of speaking truth to power and have never been partisan.
His comments are coming on the back of statements made by the Cardinal and former Archbishop of Abuja, John Onaiyekan, on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration amid a dispute, Sunday Trust reported.
Onaiyekan, who spoke on Arise Television’s Prime Time programme on Friday, said the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) reminded President Tinubu during a recent meeting at the State House that the country’s economic crisis was taking a severe toll on the impoverished Nigerians.
He also said the president was not being properly briefed on the genuine challenges facing the country.
The cardinal said the president is determined to win the 2027 general election “by all means” and warned that the government’s access to state resources might compromise the integrity of the voting process.
But in an X post supporting his principal, Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Policy Communication, Daniel Bwala, slammed Onaiyekan’s views as politically driven.
Bwala said the former Abuja Archbishop was advocating exclusively for Catholics and not all Christians, adding that the cardinal was “more political than spiritual.”
He also backed Tinubu’s answer to the bishops’ appraisal of the economy, adding that the president’s position was based on facts and numbers.
But Shehu Sani, a public pundit, said in a post on his X handle Wednesday that the Catholic Bishops have always spoken truth to successive governments from the era of military dictatorship.
The Catholic Bishops have a history of telling truth to power, from the time of military rule to the time of civilian governments.
He said: “The bishops have never been partisan in their relationship with political leaders. To every president they visited they have always taken bitter kola instead of olive oil.”
They have never been politics. They go to every president and give him a present of Bitter Kola instead of Olive Oil,” Sani stated.
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