Why Nigeria’s democracy is declining — Kukah

The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has given reasons for the decline of democracy in Nigeria.

Kukah made this known as a programme of Lagos State-based church, Covenant Nation: “The Platform Nigeria.”

At the event on Wednesday in Lagos, the cleric said: “What is missing in our conversation is that unlike where the principles of democracy were founded on the thinking of several philosophers from Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, etc, our democracy has paid very little attention.

“We have been involved in intellectual conversations about democracy, but modern liberal democracy as we understand it today benefitted extensively from the work of people like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.

“It is also quite significant that Joe Biden even in his presidential address had to quote St. Augustine and it means therefore that it is the teachings and philosophies and theology of some of these scholars that led the foundation to what we call democracy today.

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“Unfortunately, our democracy is in decline, and is in recession precisely because it is evident to us that what we are working with is not something that comes from our own historical, cultural or even anthropological experiences.”