The convener of the National Peace Committee, Bishop Matthew Kukah, has stated that politicians who boast about their kinsmen’s extensive tenure in power are only concerned with looting public funds.

Kukah said this at the 8th House of Justice Summit and Burgundy Ball Banquet in Kaduna on Friday with the theme ‘Electoral Accountability and Democratic Stability’.

He expressed criticism over instances of Nigerian politicians boasting about how long they will remain in power.

“When somebody tells you, ‘Muslims will be in power, Igbos will be in power, Yoruba will be in power, Hausa will be in power’, the only reason they are making that point is that they are just saying, ‘Our people will continue to steal from Nigeria and we will continue’ because without stealing, you cannot win elections,” he said.

“These characters who are telling you, ‘We will be in power for this period of time,’ are just saying, ‘We will continue to control the stealing box.'”

According to Kukah, when politicians speak of their communities’ prolonged dominance in power, it is a veiled endorsement of a culture of corruption and electoral manipulation, where the primary focus is on sustaining a system that allows for the misappropriation of public resources.

In his address, the bishop highlighted what he described as the arrogance of politicians who, having designed systems to favour them, confidently project a 16-year grip on power.

The cleric took aim at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which held power for 16 years until former President Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat in the 2015 presidential.

“I think that at the height of their arrogance, after they had designed this thing to suit them, they now said we would be in power for 16 years,” he said.

“They didn’t anticipate that Jonathan would come and drop the ball and say, ‘No, I am a gentleman.’ Now, the shoe is on the other foot and you are going to continue to watch this feeling of arrogance: ‘We have it; we will hold it for this number of years."

[Channels TV]