By KEMI KASUMU
Barely 16 months after issuing a Christmas message of December 2020 that erupted the anger mostly of Muslims and some Christians who refused to be carried away by spirit of religious sentimentalism disparaging Islam as a religion with pool for violence as well as inciting coup against sitting President Muhammadu Buhari, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Rev Matthew Kukah, has again, accused the President as showing more interest in the welfare of terrorists than in the good of law abiding citizens of Nigeria.
Kukah, said to be have undeservedly been allowed to have more chances raining unguarded utterances of division and destruction on Nigeria part of which has been blamed for insecurity that the country suffers, spoke in another Easter message of 2022 in which he accused the Buhari administration of having shown far greater commitment to integrating so-called repentant terrorists than getting school children and thousands of others back from kidnappers or keeping Nigerian universities open.
Some Nigerians, especially die-hard believers in huge achievements and effort of the Muhammadu Buhari administration while reacting to the latest accusation of the bishop, complained that the likes of Kukah should not be allowed to collapse Nigeria as, according to them, the interest they serve is foreign not local.
Recall several Islamic and ethnic groups including the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria and the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) had called for Bishop Kukah’s arrest and prosecution over the message in which, by interpretation, he was believed to have linked Islam with blood letting and incited a military coup against the democratically elected government after accusing Buhari of nepotism. The bishop had said there could have been a coup if a non-northern president did a fraction of what Buhari had done, although until the still fresh Easter message, he was yet to provide explanation for what Buhari did to deserve a change of government.
2020 Christmas message
In a statement on Monday December 28, 2020, Yerima Shettima, the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum’s National President, said Kukah’s comments were inciting a “treasonable felony against the Nigerian state”. Shettima said the bishop was using “nepotism as a weapon of calumny against the government and people of Nigeria,” adding that it was an attempt to “set the south against the north in order to destabilize our country and further complicate matters”.
“Such a reckless statement by Kukah betrays something much more sinister against both the North and the nation as a whole because Nigeria is at a stage that it requires responsible advice for attaining peace and stability, not deliberate attempt to mischievously compound our problems,” he said.
“If Kukah wants to play politics, he should not do so on the pulpit and he should keep the bishop’s office aside and choose any Nigerian political party platform to contest for the president in 2023 and stop all the pretences.” The AYCF president said Kukah should be reminded of the struggle to rid the country of military dictatorship. “We will not allow opportunists who did make any contribution to scuttle the democracy achieved through the sweat and toil and the sacrifice of our liberty,” he vowed.
In his reaction to the December 2020 Christmas message, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) attacked the Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Rev. Fr. Matthew Hasan Kukah, over his suggestion that there would have been a coup had a Southerner occupied the Nigerian seat of power in the last five years
MURIC described the Bishop as a first class blackmailer in a press statement issued to sent to the media including The DEFENDER on Monday December 28, 2020 signed by Professor Ishaq Akintola, its director of the organisation.
The group had berated Kukah, wondering why the cleric never attacked former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who it accused of mass land donation to churches during his time in office, saying it was shocked by the vitriolic attack on Islam as a religion by Kukah, accusing the Catholic Bishop of referring to Islam as a violent religion.
“Kukah referred to Islam as violent but his fellow faithful, Gana, has been training terrorists and killing Muslims in Benue for years. Kukah lives in the heart of Islam and he has never been attacked. But how dare you mock the North? Are you not part of that geographical entity?
“We can understand Kukah’s frustration. Import duty waivers on every imported good, including private jets, are no longer available. Neither are billion naira contracts at the snap of a finger. A new Sheriff is in town. This is why Kukah has turned to a blackmailer nulli secundus.
“Kukah knows those who engage in favouritism but he has chosen to be a pot calling the kettle black. Rev. Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) inadvertently revealed the special favours rendered by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to Christians when he was president.
“The revelation was made at Orita Mefa Baptist Church, Ibadan, on Saturday, November 21, 2020 during the funeral service of Obasanjo’s two-term Pastor, Rev. S. T. Ola Akande.
“The CAN president poured encomiums on Obasanjo for favouring Christians during his regime. Among the special favours mentioned were the mass land allocation to the Baptist mission at Kubwa, Abuja; another land allocation to the Baptist in Festac town, Lagos; yet another land allocation to the church in Satellite town and another at highbrow Ikoyi, also for the church.
“No Muslim leader or Islamic organization has accused Obasanjo of favouritism to date. Perhaps Kukah thinks God was asleep during the regime of Obasanjo. But the garrulous bishop now has the temerity to remind Nigerians that God does not sleep.
“Kukah’s reference to a coup is a Satanic innuendo. We are aware that civilians have always been involved in coups in the past. Kukah’s interest is therefore not something new,” this way Kukah’s “provoking” Christmas message of December 2020 was reacted to by MURIC among several other groups both in the North and South of Nigeria on Monday December 28, 2020.
This news message
On Sunday April 17, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Most Rev. Matthew Hassan Kukah, took the swipe at President Muhammadu Buhari, saying the President has not only destroyed every aspect of life in Nigeria but allowed corruption to thrive and grow.
“With everything literally broken down, our country has become one big emergency national hospital with full occupancy,” the Bishop said in an Easter message to his congregation in Sokoto.
“Our individual hearts are broken. Our family dreams are broken. Homes are broken. Churches, Mosques, infrastructure are broken. Our educational system is broken. Our children’s lives and future are broken. Our politics is broken. Our economy is broken. Our energy system is broken. Our security system is broken. Our roads and rails are broken. Only corruption is alive and well.”
Kukah, a staunch critic of the Buhari-led government is known for his courage in speaking truth to power. Last year’s Easter, April 3, 2021, he delivered a blistering condemnation of the current administration, saying the government had failed and turned the country into a massive killing field.
But this year’s message appears to be even stronger with the cleric saying, “Nigerians can no longer recognise their country which has been battered and buffeted by men and women from the dark womb of time. It is no longer necessary to ask how we got here. The real challenge is how to find the slippery rungs on the ladder of ascent so we can climb out. Yet, we ask, ascend to where?”
He continued, “One would be tempted to ask, what is there to say about our tragic situation today that has not been said? Who is there to speak that has not spoken? Like the friends of Job, we stare at an imponderable tragedy as the nation unravels from all sides.
“The government has slid into hibernation mode. It is hard to know whether the problem is that those in power do not hear, see, feel, know, or just don’t care. Either way, from this crossroad, we must make a choice, to go forward, turn left or right or return home. None of these choices are easy, yet, guided by the light of the risen Christ, we can reclaim our country from its impending slide to anarchy.
“The greatest challenge now is how to begin a process of reconstructing our nation hoping that we can hang on and survive the 2023 elections. The real challenge before us now is to look beyond politics and face the challenge of forming character and faith in our country. Here, leaders of religion, Christianity and Islam, need to truthfully face the role of religion in the survival of our country. The Nigerian Constitution has very clearly delineated the fine boundaries between religion and politics. Yet many politicians continue to behave as if they are presiding over both the political and the spiritual realms in their states rather than governing in a Democracy.”
He called on all religious leaders in Nigeria to urgently come to the country’s rescue.
“Religious leaders must face the reality that here in Nigeria and elsewhere around the world, millions of people are leaving Christianity and Islam,” Mr Kukah said. “While we are busy building walls of division with the blocks of prejudice, our members are becoming atheists but we prefer to pretend that we do not see this. We cannot pretend not to hear the footsteps of our faithful who are marching away into atheism and secularism. No threats can stop this, but dialogue can open our hearts.”
