KUKAH BLASTS NORTHERN MUSLIM ELITE, SAYS THEY USE RELIGION TO HOLD ONTO POWER
• Says region remains backward, poorest in the country
The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Kukah,
has accused the Northern Muslim elite of using religion to hold onto power to
the detriment of their people and the larger society.
Kukah also criticised Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna
State for his handling of the bloody violence and destruction of property in
Southern Kaduna in 2017, which resulted in the deaths of several people in that
part of the state.
Speaking in Kafanchan at the burial Sunday of Joseph
Bagobiri, the late Catholic Bishop of the Kafanchan Diocese, Kukah maintained
that despite its access to power for years, the North still remained backward
and the poorest part of the country.
Kukah said: “It is sad that the Northern Muslim elite has
used religion to hold onto power to the detriment of even their own people and
the larger society.
“For despite holding onto power for all these years, the
North is still the poorest part of the country, nearly 15 million Muslim
children are on the streets with no future in sight. We are, as the governor of
Borno would say, the poster child of poverty.”
He said Nigeria was facing a very serious crisis more than
ever before.
According to Kukah, “Death, destruction and destitution have
become our lot and nowhere is this more expressed than in Northern Nigeria.”
He noted that “today, Boko Haram and the herdsmen and
farmers’ clashes are phenomena that are peculiar to the North and Islam”,
adding: “We cannot run away from this.”
He warned that the world was changing and Nigerians have a
country to build, observing: “Even Usman Dan Fodio (Islamic preacher and
founder of the Sokoto Caliphate) said that a society can live with unbelief,
but no nation can survive with injustice.”
Kukah said the late Bagobiri had lived at a time when
clearly the foundation of unity and justice in Kaduna, in particular and
Nigeria in general, seemed threatened, stressing that he fought against the
marginalisation of the Southern Kaduna people.
He declared that no religious leader worth his salt can
stand by in the face of visible injustice, stressing that “it will be a mortal
sin” to remain aloof to the glaring injustice.
According to him, the people of Southern Kaduna had suffered
the injustice of deliberate exclusion from all the rungs of local and national
politics in the current administration.
He said: “They have got to where they are now by the sweat
of their brows. We do not ask for pity or sympathy from anyone. We have come so
far, not through the state, but in spite of the state in Northern Nigeria.
“That is why, as you leave this stadium (in Kafanchan),
whether you are going to Abuja, Jos or Kaduna, please look left and right and
note if you will see one single federal or major state government structure on
the highway.
“All the structures you see as you drive along are the
result of the sweat from the brows of our people.
“The federal and state governments are absent, Bishop
Bagobiri was in the middle of all this.”
He, however, commended the administration of former
President Olusegun Obasanjo and the former governor of Kaduna State, Senator
Ahmed Makarfi, for developing Southern Kaduna, and for appointing qualified
Southern Kaduna indigenes into positions of authority.
He described the late clergyman as a great pastor and a
builder of human capital, adding that Bagobiri made his contributions in the
development of Southern Kaduna by trying to close the gap left by the neglect
of the state and the federal governments.
Recalling his (Kukah’s) role in trying to find solutions to
the killings in the state, Kukah said he had reached out to the National Peace
Committee (NPC) led by former military head of state, General Abdusalami
Abubakar (rtd), following which a meeting was held with el-Rufai, and after
which the committee undertook a visit to Southern Kaduna.
“We wanted to hear from the governor. Essentially, the
thrust of his comment was the fact that he was determined to end impunity and
that for years, people had gotten away with so much.
“But I was taken aback by his (el-Rufai’s) combative mood
and worried if he really and truly understood the issues.
“I had already gotten Gen. Abdusalami to agree that after
seeing the governor, we would go to Southern Kaduna and he agreed… Next, we
went on to Kafanchan the same day and met with a cross-section of leaders from
civil society groups – CAN, JNI, etc. Everyone was quite delighted and offered
very useful suggestions,” Kukah disclosed.
According to Kukah, however, more that one year after the
peace committee had submitted its report, there has been no official response
from the state government.
He said this explanation was necessary to set the records
straight and respond to the allegations made by el-Rufai against religious and
traditional leaders to the effect that they were somehow part of the problem,
stressing that the governor may be right, “but the evidence before me leads to
a different conclusion”.
Kukah also recalled that in an interview with Channels
Television during the crisis, el-Rufai had levelled two accusations against
religious leaders of promoting “a policy of exclusion”.
Kukah said the governor had also alleged that some church
leaders had collected money from missionaries abroad to bury their dead and to
rebuild thousands of churches that had been destroyed.
Speaking further, the bishop said: “I am not sure which
religious leaders he was speaking of, but at least the two of the most
prominent religious leaders in Southern Kaduna would be (late) Bishop Bagobiri
and the Emir of Jema’a.
“It is interesting that when the interviewer pressed the
governor for evidence on the graves and the damaging allegations he had made
against these leaders, he seemed rattled and simply said the security agencies
were gathering the information and that people (who had carried out the
killings) will soon be prosecuted.”
Kukah went on to state that the 2019 elections were looming
and no one was being prosecuted for the violence in Southern Kaduna last year.
“The elections are coming and still we have not commenced
prosecution. As I have said, my encounter and experience with both the Emir of
Jema’a and Bishop Bagobiri led me to a totally different conclusion…
“By his own admission, the governor said that a thousand
churches had been destroyed in Southern Kaduna and that people had lost their
lives.
“This was a clear case of self-indictment by the governor.
First, did he expect that the people of Southern Kaduna would wait for him to
come and supervise the mass burial of their people after burying the Shiites in
mass graves?
“By casting aspersions on missionary assistance, the
governor betrayed troubling ignorance of the causes of the crisis we have
faced.
“The work of missionaries may be a problem for him today,
but for the people of Southern Kaduna, the message of Christ is steeped in
their blood.
“Without the missionaries, they would be no better than
slaves, mere beasts of burden. Without the missionaries, the history of
Northern Nigeria would be pathetic and the region would still be in the dark
ages…
“There is neither retreat nor surrender because this is the
faith of our fathers. It has given us the tools, the courage and the confidence
we require to take our rightful place in our society.
“Apart from Barewa College, which other prominent
institution in Kaduna State does not owe its origin to the missionaries? All
the so-called government schools in Kaduna State are products of the criminal
and unjust takeover of missionary schools by the state government,” he added.
-Thisday
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