Nigerians much more divided than ever before, says Methodist prelate

Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Dr. Samuel Kanu-Uche, on Sunday said Nigeria is currently more divided than ever.

According to the clergy who was recently kidnapped by bandits in Abia State, President Muhammadu Buhari would become a hero if he is able to unite the country before the expiration of his regime next year.

Kanu-Uche spoke to Punch in Umuahia during his valedictory visit to the Methodist Archdiocese of Umuahia.

He said, “It may not be his (the President’s) fault as a person, but he may have bad advisers.

“He has almost nine months to correct the ills, and he can fix security, the economy, generate employment, and ensure that there is no division in the area of religion, or in the area of tribe and ethnicity.

“If he unites Nigeria, he will be the best leader ever. However, Nigeria is more divided than ever before.”

Kanu-Uche regretted that some faith-based universities are beyond the reach of the faithful who funded the universities.

He added, “In our own university, we are the first faith-based university that charges only N250,000.00 per session and upon that, we still have more than 1/5 of our students who are from indigent families, which we placed on scholarship. What the parents do is to buy for them books and other things.

“These people are exempted from school fees. That is why it seems we are finding it difficult to run the university because, we are not exploiting people, but we see it as a social service.

“This way, the Methodist church moulded characters like Nnamdi Azikiwe of Africa, Michael Okpara, Obafemi Awolowo, who attended our school, and even Osinbajo, who attended our joint school with the Anglican Church, that is Igbobi College, Lagos.

“Many of our products are everywhere in Nigeria. They can attest to the fact that we gave them the best of education and care, and we were not exploitative and did not run education for gain, but we saw it as a social service.”