Kukah berates Buhari – You’re leaving Nigerians “far more vulnerable” than when you came in 2015

The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan-Kukah, in his 2022 Christmas Message, titled: “Nigeria: Let Us Turn A New Page”, on Sunday berated  President Muhammadu Buhari, saying that despite his lofty promises, President Buhari is leaving Nigerians “far more vulnerable” than he met them when he became president on May 29, 2015.

In the Christmas message circulated by the Director of Social Communications of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Rev. Fr Christopher Omotosho, Bishop Kukah acknowledged the improvement in the health of President Buhari, which he secured in his medical tours to London, the United Kingdom (UK). Bishop Kukah wished Nigerians could get a fraction of such medical facilities to be healthy within the country.

The clergy also chided President Buhari for the failure to fight corruption, the deteriorating poverty index of Nigeria, as well as incremental nepotism.

Bishop Kukah stated: “Mr. President Sir, a merry Christmas to you and your entire family. I speak for myself and Nigerians when I say, we thank God that He mercifully restored you to good health.

“We know that you are healthier now than you were before. We can see it in the spring in your steps, the thousands of miles you have continued to cover as you travel abroad. May God give you more years of good health.

“However, I also wish that millions of our citizens had a chance to enjoy just a fraction of your own health by a measurable improvement in the quality of health care in our country.

“It is sad that despite your lofty promises, you are leaving us far more vulnerable than when you came, that the corruption we thought would be fought has become a leviathan and sadly, a consequence of a government marked by nepotism.

“In my Christmas Message last year, I pointed out the fact that you had breached the Constitution by your failure to honour and adhere to the federal character provisions of our Constitution. The evidence is all before us all.

“Am I to believe that you knew and could do nothing about the Muslim-Muslim ticket within your Party?

“Still, we pray for a free, fair and credible election.”

Bishop Kukah decried that there are kidnapped “children still in the forests, in the hands of evil men”; he enjoined Nigerians to be “vigilant”; advocating a change of strategy by Nigerians to dethrone arrogant men and women in power who are determined to make Nigeria a jungle.

Bishop Kukah declared: “This is the last Christmas for this present government’s administration. Let us all do our duty as we have a chance to choose new leaders. Do not be cynical. God is not done with us. Choose leaders who, in your view, will love us, will care for us, will cry with us, will laugh with us. Look ahead and do not look back.

“Although, the responses to my messages suggest that, generally, Nigerians listen to our voices in the wilderness. However, the deliberate culture of pauperization and destitution of our people continues. “So, we need a change of strategy so that we can turn a new page. We need a new strategy to confront those who sit on the throne of power in arrogance and are determined to reduce our country to a jungle.

“We need a new strategy that separates men and women of honour from those who have chosen dishonour. We need a new strategy that provides a clearer moral guide for ordinary citizens who, based on the moral strength of culture and religion, are seeking to build a good society, even if with straws.

“We need to stand up and stand firm. We need new mechanisms for saying no to the violence of governance.”

Bishop Kukah also decried the uprisings in the country and the failure of the government to contain violent extremism of jihadists.

According to the revered Bishop, “Before our eyes, the capital letters that spelt Nigeria are falling to the pressures and irruptive forces of primal ethno-religious nationalisms. Before our eyes, a dubious jihadist culture has held our nation to ransom with the government simply looking away.”

Bishop Kukah noted that while those on the seat of power in the presidency accused him of attacking their principal or speaking for the Christians in the north, they have not disproved the facts of his statements, saying, “none of my critics has quarrelled with my facts”.

Bishop Kukah, therefore, declared: “If they accuse me of stating inconvenient facts/truths, then, they can at least give the facts their interpretations.

“For example, who will quarrel with the fact that our glory has departed as a country? Where is our voice respected today even within the African continent which looks up to us for leadership?

“Is being the poverty capital of the world and one of the most violent states in the world an achievement? And our suffocating internal and international debts? And you do not think our glory has departed?”

Kukah reemphasising his change of strategy advocacy, cautioned that every Nigerian knows that promises before elections are sweet, but actions after elections are often bitter. He also noted that Nigerians are already paying the price of the failure to manage country’s diversity for power sharing; lamenting that nepotism is a cancer which has consumed the country in the last few years.

Kukah declared: “I plead with you to co-operate and collaborate with institutions which are tasked with the responsibilities for these elections…Do not further fan the embers of hatred and divisions. Seek to create a vision that can unite our country.

“We have paid the price of nepotism entrusting power into the hands of mediocres who operate as a cult and see power purely as an extension of the family heirloom.”

Kukah further noted that Nigeria has become a tale of two cities with wars between the rich and the poor; he declared: “fixing our country and getting it back requires courage, honesty, truth, humility, trust and firm commitment”.