Catholic bishop of Sokoto diocese, Matthew Kukah, has accused president Muhammadu Buhari of aggravating the fault lines of Nigeria with his clannishness and prejudice when dealing with sensitive and polemic issues that affect the country.
Speaking in Kaduna during his homily at the funeral mass of Michael Nnadi, a student of the Catholic Good Shepherd Seminary, Kaduna, who was abducted and subsequently murdered, Kukah said Nigeria is on the crossroads and its future hangs “precariously” in a balance.
Gunmen had invaded the seminary on January 8, abducting four students, including Nnadi. Three of the students were released after a ransom was paid, but Nnadi did not make it out alive.
Kukah said Buhari’s performance has been pathetic, adding that no one could have imagined that in winning the presidency, Buhari would bring nepotism and clannishness into the military and the ancillary security agencies.
“No one could have imagined that his government would be marked by supremacist and divisive policies that would push our country to the brink.
“This President has displayed the greatest degree of insensitivity in managing our country’s rich diversity. He has subordinated the larger interests of the country to the hegemonic interests of his co-religionists and clansmen and women.
“The impression created now is that, to hold a key and strategic position in Nigeria today, it is more important to be a northern Muslim than a Nigerian.
“Today, in Nigeria, the noble religion of Islam has convulsed. It has become associated with some of worst fears among our people.
“Muslim scholars, traditional rulers and intellectuals have continued to cry out helplessly, asking for their religion and region to be freed from this chokehold.
“This is because, in all of this, neither Islam nor the north can identify any real benefits from these years that have been consumed by the locusts that this government has unleashed on our country.” Kukah said
Bemoaning the nationwide insecurity, Kukah said: “Our nation is like a ship stranded on the high seas, rudderless and with broken navigational aids.”
“Today, our years of hypocrisy, duplicity, fabricated integrity, false piety, empty morality, fraud and Pharisaism have caught up with us,” he said.
“Nigeria is on the crossroads and its future hangs precariously in a balance. This is a wake-up call for us. As St. Paul reminds us; the night is far spent, and the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light (Rom. 13:12). It is time to confront and dispel the clouds of evil that hover over us.
“Nigeria is at a point where we must call for a verdict. There must be something that a man, nay, a nation should be ready to die for. Sadly, or even tragically, today, Nigeria, does not possess that set of goals or values for which any sane citizen is prepared to die for.”