Common Good

[Jibrin Ibrahim]

Governance and the Search for the Common Good



Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 27th February 2026



My column today simply outlines the call of the Catholic Bishops
Conference of Nigeria for governance to be based on the search for the
common good. This was articulated in a communique issued this week
following their annual conference. They pointed out that the season of
Lent this year coincides with Ramadan, the Muslim period of fasting.
They considered this not as a mere coincidence but God’s invitation to
work and live together in harmony and mutual respect as Nigerians use
the opportunity to intensify their prayer life, works of charity,
refrain from sin, and repent, all contributing to good neighbourliness
and a better society.



They argued that the Church has always taught that the good of
individuals is bound up with the good of the community. The Common
Good, therefore, is both the good which is meant for all and the
totality of conditions that make possible the flourishing of life.
Common Good therefore is a social good meant for all people by the
fact of human existence. The Common Good presupposes respect for the
dignity and rights of everyone. These are actually clearly spelt out
in Chapter Two of the Nigerian Constitution. It involves the social
welfare and development of one and all in the society and the
government has the responsibility to ensure all Nigerians enjoy them.



I completely agree with the affirmation of the Catholic Bishops that
in every society, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and
participation in political life is a moral obligation. This message is
particularly important as more Nigerians are giving up hope and
adopting apathy, refusing to participate in elections while lamenting
that democracy has died forgetting that democracy dies only when the
spirit of citizenship in the people dies as well. Nigerians must
resist the urge to adopt Bola Ige’s famed “sidon look” attitude.



Nigerians are giving up hope because every government that has emerged
in the Fourth Republic – Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan, Buhari and
Tinubu has turned out to be worse than the one before it. In the minds
of many Nigerians, this has wiped out the hope of future progress and
this can be very destabilising. Successive leaderships have shown
themselves to be corrupt and self-serving. This is destabilising
because as the Catholic Bishops argue, leadership is the platform for
working for the Common Good. It is the responsibility of public
authority to ensure that the citizenry has access to what is needed to
lead a truly human life: food, clothing, health, work, education,
culture, suitable information, the establishment of a family, etc.



The Common Good also requires peace, stability and security of a just
order. The obligation of government to the Common Good must not become
the usurpation of the rights of the governed. It must be carried out
without repression or tyranny because each sector of society as well
as individuals have their proper contributions to make, and the
government must respect and encourage these contributions. This
approach paves way for the participation of all in politics and, most
especially, contributes to leadership effectiveness at all levels of
society. Indeed, effective leadership means the prioritization of the
Common Good over selfish and sectional interests.



The Catholic Bishops lament the persistent insecurity and loss of
lives in the country. Nigeria, they point out, continues to experience
tragic events of senseless massacre, mass burials, endless tears, and
grief. There are incidents of mass murders in different communities,
particularly in Woro and Nuku villages in Kwara State, where over 200
people, both Christians and Muslims, were gruesomely massacred by
scores of Islamist jihadists for refusing to embrace fundamentalist
Islam. Most recently, in many parts of the country, particularly in
the Northern region and the middle belt, there are cases of attacks
and mass killings involving many students, pupils and worshippers.
Still more, while many farmers cannot go to their farms for fear of
being injured or killed, many other persons are still displaced from
their homes and business areas, owing to the activities of insurgents
and bandits. In all, the gunmen operate brazenly, freely and
unchallenged.



On the socio-economic front, they point out that conditions are tough
and government policies sabotage the Common Good. Nigeria is richly
blessed with abundant mineral resources. With good leadership, these
resources would have been contributing significantly to our national
economic growth and development. In our country, the ownership of all
mineral resources is vested in the Federal Government, which also
regulates their exploration and exploitation. Yet, trillions of Naira
are annually lost to bunkering and illegal mining owing to banditry,
kidnapping and other organized crimes in parts of our country. Often,
these criminal groups use proceeds from the sale of minerals, such as
gold and lithium, to fund terrorist activities across the country.
Yet, the Nigerian government has continued to borrow huge sums of
money without much to show for the welfare of citizens. Furthermore,
taxes paid by individuals and businesses are not adequately utilized
for the Common Good.



To stem the tide of economic sabotage, especially in relation to
illegal mining and stealing of our mineral resources, with the
attendant environmental degradation, the Catholic Bishops enjoin the
government to devise a more aggressive approach to fighting these
illegalities across the country. For instance, the “Mining Marshals”
deployed by the government to secure mining sites and arrest
unlicensed miners have not been fully effective in covering the vast,
remote, and difficult terrains, where illegal miners operate. The
efforts of these Marshals should be complemented by using drone
technology and artificial intelligence (AI) for monitoring remote and
high-risk mining sites. Again, rather than importation of food as is
currently being done by the government, to lower the prices of food,
which invariably has negatively affected the local farmers, we demand
that the government provide adequate security and grant sufficient
subsidies to the farmers to enable them to produce enough food for the
nation.



The Catholic Bishops are correct in making the argument that the major
cause of our problem as a nation is poor leadership and the wrong idea
of politics. Where politics is erroneously understood only as rigging
of elections and stealing of other people’s mandate, leadership is
unfortunately taken as the amassing of illicit gains or engaging in
other fraudulent activities. Bad leadership in our nation has caused
systemic damage showing up in a worsening economy, widespread and
persistent insecurity, and extreme poverty, despite the blessing of
rich human and natural resources. This situation has fuelled
corruption, infrastructural decay, high rate of unemployment and a
deep lack of trust in government institutions.



The Catholic Bishops concluded on the positive note that a better
Nigeria is possible if we all contribute to building our nation with
the objective of serving the Common Good. We must ensure that those
who occupy positions of leadership in our land, at both the national
and sub-national levels, are people with track records of probity,
competence and commitment. I endorse this pathway to correcting the
evil in the land and establishing the type of government we would all
be proud of.




Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17