Hours after expressing worry that the Nigerian Government was mysteriously investing billions of naira in rehabilitating purportedly repentant Boko Haram members while human life hemorrhaged severely in the country, the presidency has slammed the Catholic Archbishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Mathew Kukah, saying there were inexplicable things in his Easter message to Nigerians.
Kukah had, among other issues, in a message delivered on Sunday said Nigeria drifts irreversibly into a dark tunnel and things are falling apart with unnerving rapidity because those who govern have only a pact to protect their interests.
“Recently, according to the World Happiness Report, we are one of the unhappiest nations in the world. This is unacceptable but understandable. Our clay-footed fight against corruption has not moved the needle of transparency forward. Of course, being the poverty capital of the world comes with its rewards such as banditry, violence, death, sorrow, blood, poverty, misery, and tears. Our cup of sorrow is permanently full; hence the exponential rise in the frustration curve across the country.
Sadly, human life is hemorrhaging so badly in Nigeria, but the greatest tragedy is the death of empathy from those in power. Mysteriously, the government is investing billions of naira in rehabilitating so-called Boko Haram repentant members and their other partners in crime in the belief that they want to turn a new leaf…
On our national Coat of Arms, we profess our motto to be: Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress. But let us ask ourselves: Is Nigeria united today? Do citizens still have faith in the country? Where are the signs of peace or progress?, Kukah queried.
He added: “Today, before our very eyes, these words have been emptied of their flavour and have lost their resonance and capacity to summon our citizens to patriotism. St Augustine once said: Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? He further said that: A gang is a group of men (and women) under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention.
“This is the fate of our nation today. Day by day, Nigeria drifts irreversibly into a dark tunnel. Things are falling apart with unnerving rapidity because those who govern have only a pact to protect their interests. Politics is merely its conveyor belt of ambition. Nigeria has a date with destiny. If we do not turn around, The axe is already laid to the roots of the tree (Mt. 3:10).
With some chance, we might pull through this, but it is getting tougher each passing day. Does anyone remember where we started and how we got here? On May 29, 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari, at his swearing-in as President of Nigeria, said: Boko Haram is a typical case of small fires causing large fires.
Now, before his watch, the fires are consuming the nation, and in many instances, they indeed start small. The rumblings over the wearing of a hijab in Kwara State suggest that we have not seen the end of individuals sacrificing national cohesion to feed their personal ambitions by starting small fires”.
However, the presidency reacted swiftly, saying Kukah made an ungodly attempt to politicise the nation’s security challenges and the hijab saga in Kwara in his 2021 Easter homily.
Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, said in a statement that Kukah, had said things that were inexplicable in his Easter massage and didn’t speak like a man of God.
He said it was wrong for Kukah to have stated that the Boko Haram terrorism is worse than it was in 2015. “’But if you profess to being a man of God, as Father Mathew Hassan Kukah does, ideology should not stand in the way of facts and fairness. Father Kukah has said some things that are inexplicable in his Easter message. But, in saying that the Boko Haram terrorism is worse than it was in 2015, he did not speak like a man of God. Kukah should go to Borno or Adamawa to ask the citizens there the difference between 2014 and 2021.
On the hijab controversy in Kwara, which Kukah also touched on, Shehu said it was a state matter which the courts of the land had adjudicated on’.
“They are matters that have appeared in several states as far back as the Obasanjo administration. In all of that, when and where did the name of President Buhari feature? He (Kukah) is playing partisan politics by dragging the President (Buhari) into it.
“ An administration that has created a whole ministry, for the first time in the country’s history, appropriating enormous resources to it, to deal with issues of internally displaced persons cannot, in all rightfulness be accused of not caring for them. ’Some of the comments are no more than a sample of the unrestrained rhetoric Fr. Kukah trades in, which he often does in the guise of a homily,’’ Shehu said.
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