BY SIMON REEF MUSA
In a nation where praise singers hold the megaphone, cheerleaders in the corridor of power are always engaged in the worship of leadership for survival. Therefore, any form of critical view aimed at serving as a wake-up call is often seen as confronting such leadership. So it is with the Christmas homily delivered penultimate Friday by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah.
Despite over two decades of our nation’s unbroken democratic rule, allowing discourse to thrive without intimidation and blackmail reveals the leprosy in our democracy. The three arms of government seem to be in bed to oppress the electorate. While those who are operators of our democracy continue to enjoy our commonwealth, the poor are brutishly neglected, with insurgents, kidnappers, killer herdsmen, among other lawless elements, left unchecked as they turn our country into hell for citizens.
Delivering his homily on the deplorable state of Nigeria, Bishop Kukah summed up the lamentable portrait of our nation and called on national leadership to do what it should and must do: secure the lives of Nigerians and bring hope to many that are now becoming strangers to hope. Political lackeys who are now the greatest beneficiaries of our collective tragedy have refused to allow our nation’s leadership to ruminate over the cleric’s message.
In a troubling depiction of an ailing nation cascading down the valley of self-destruction, the Bishop not only painted the gory picture of a country seized by demons of criminalities made worse by political nepotism in evolving clearer strategies to contain these enemies of state, he also called on Christians never to give up in the face of threatening clouds of uncertainties.
In line with his over 40-year trajectory of telling truth to power, Father Kukah, as he is popularly called, is never afraid of saying it as it is. In his message that has drawn rage and applauses from many quarters, he said: “Every honest Nigerian knows that there is no way any non-Northern Muslim President could have done a fraction of what President Buhari has done by his nepotism and gotten away with it. There would have been a military coup a long time ago or we would have been at war.”
At the crux of our problems is our refusal to discuss issues that are critical to national unity and development. In the face of despicable nepotistic tendencies that have set tongues wagging, we are always at ease speaking in whispered tunes and pretending all ‘is well”. When the smoke is not put out early in the day, it grows to become a wildfire of destruction.
For many Nigerians, Muslim or Christian, Bishop Kukah’s message is not lost in the spurious arguments of praise singers who remain unfazed by the myriad of forces working towards the final strangulation of our nation. Playing the ostrich, the political class, especially members of the three arms of government, have continued to remain in their world of contrived peace, though surrounded by ominous clouds threatening our corporate survival as manifested in spiraling killings and devastations ravaging our communities.
When the flood of reactions came on the message of Kukah who is our nation’s modern Prophet Jeremiah, the responses proved discordant. The President of the Northern Christian Forum of Nigeria (NCFN), Dr Josiah Nabut, flayed the Bishop and advised him against meddling in politics. The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), led by Prof Ishaq Akintola, called on the Bishop to resign as the Secretary of the General Abubakar Abdulsalam-led National Peace Commission for displaying an open hatred for a particular religion.
Another response on the Bishop’s sermon came from the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) that is headed by Alhaji Yerima Shettima. The group described the Bishop’s message as a call for a military coup and appealed to the government to order his immediate arrest and prosecution.
Various Christian and other socio-cultural groups, including the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), issued statements in defence of the cleric. Spokesman of the Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, has dismissed interpretation of Kukah’s homily as a call for a coup and warned those misinterpreting the message to desist from unleashing emotional blackmail on the Bishop.
The Nigerian Muslim Professionals, led by Professor Mohammed Inuwa, is on the same page with Odumakin as it also warned against attempts at twisting the message as contained in the Bishop’s homily. Those conversant with the trajectory of the priest from Anchuna who served on the Justice Oputa Panel, according to the Muslim group, are obviously aware that the Catholic Bishop would never lend support to any call for a military coup.
The coalition of Nigerian Muslim Professionals in a statement entitled, ‘We stand completely with Bishop Kukah’ made it abundantly clear that: “We strongly condemn the wrong approach taken to respond to a message by a patriotic Nigerian by these incompetent people working to derail the president’s agenda”.
Going down memory lane, the coalition made it clear: “Even during the military era where people dreaded the powers that be at the time, Bishop Kukah, who was then a Catholic priest spoke truth to those at the helm of affairs without fear or favour. He has shown through his actions all the years that he is a true son of Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. We should support him for being bold enough to come out to speak what many Nigerians know is the truth but afraid to speak out for fear of the leadership.”
For those who allege that the Bishop was politically motivated to deliver such a searing message on the state of our nation; they are either ignorant of his footprints on national discourse or engaged in mischief. For a nation that hates truth and its messengers, the brickbats at the Bishop is not unusual. Kukah is neither a religious bigot nor a military apologist as alleged by his traducers. Our modern Prophet Jeremiah’s major problem is found in his inability to keep quiet in the face of our country wobbling down the valley of destruction. The Bishop sees the greatness of a united Nigeria than in a divided country.
As someone I have known for many decades, the cleric has remained true to his calling and stand above the trappings of human compromise. Unlike many privileged Nigerians who find solace in keeping silence in the face of grinding injustice, the Bishop remains an irrepressible voice that is never weary in calling the attention of authorities to the injustices plaguing us as a people.
Even the blind know that our country is passing through one of its darkest periods. What is more horrifying is the total absence of urgency on the part of national leadership to address our problems. With the government getting caught in a pool of stupor and finding it increasingly incapable of evolving strategies to pull out the country from the hole of despair, Bishop Kukah’s homily should serve as a wake-up call on government to introduce a sense of urgency in tackling problems confronting us.
A leadership that listens more to lackeys than patriots can never realise development for its citizens. Nigeria may have experienced annus horribilis in 2020, but Bishop Kukah’s message, if adhered to by the government, has the capacity to make our nation experience annus mirabilis in the future. In the New Year, may our leaders listen to voices of criticism more than the songs of praise singers whose interest is never far from their stomachs.
I wish my readers a happy New Year and prosperous 2021.
