Bishop advises Nigerians to be their neighbours’ keeper

By Kehinde Akinpelu, Ilorin

 Bishop of Catholic church, Ilorin diocese, Most Reverend Ayo-Maria Atoyebi, has urged believers to be sensitive to people around them to help reduce increasing cases of suicide in the society.

Speaking when he led members of the social communication team of the diocese to the Correspondents’ Chapel of Kwara state council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Ilorin on a courtesy visit, the cleric said that isolation is the major cause of increasing cases of suicide in the society.

Represented at the occasion by director social communication of the diocese, Reverend Father Christopher Atoyebi, the Bishop said that social media network had done more harm than good among people.

“I don’t want to believe that poverty is really the cause of high rate of suicide among people nowadays, because many of the victims were from well to do homes. I think it is isolation sometimes and it is also part of what the church will address in the coming World Communication Day.

“Now, people just focus on their phones. We don’t discuss with other people.Even this happens between husband and wife. You will see the wife on her own and the husband on his own, also the children. Nobody knows what’s happening. We are just on our own doing things individually.

“We encourage isolation when people keep to themselves. So, it can be the cause for things like that. We are members of one another. We should move from social network community to human community. What we really need to do is to be sensitive to people around us,” he said.

Also talking on the level of insecurity in the country, Most Reverend Atoyebi advised President Muhammadu Buhari to go outside his aides to know the real security situation in the country, saying that all is not well.

“On the insecurity, if I have the privilege to be with the President one on one, what I will make him to know is that all is not well. Actually, all is not well. When you look at the rate of killings, kidnappings and the rest of them; what I will advise the President is that he just needs to go outside of the people around him

“I think one of the things I will have to tell the President is that he should not just listen to people around him alone because the human beings that we are, we are just concerned where our bread is buttered, sometimes the interest is not there. The President cannot see everything.

“The truth is not being said to those in authority and it can happen anywhere actually. People want favour from those in authority. They will say you are doing okay; you are our man, whereas, things are not okay.

“Once the President and others accept that things are not okay, then we now begin to work together. That is the way I will look at it. Since I’m not a security personnel I cannot go deep on issues of insecurity,” he said.

Talking on the theme of the coming World Communication Day, the cleric said that social media network has taken away human relationships.

“The church appreciates all these ICT and social media network on our android, the phone everything. Today, the church has discovered that people misuse it. Also, it is discovered that it is taking away human relationships. So, we’ll look at how we can do this thing properly to promote human relationships,” he added.