By Emeka Alex Duru
Flustered by leadership failure at all levels, dwindling moral values and neglect of the citizenry by the government, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Hassan Kukah, has likened Nigeria to a ship stranded on the high seas, rudderless and with broken navigational aids, warning that the country is on the crossroads with its future hanging precariously in a balance. He blamed the trend on the years of hypocrisy, duplicity, fabricated integrity, false piety, empty morality and fraud which have caught up with the country.
The cleric made the remarks in his homily at the funeral Mass of Seminarian Michael Nnadi at Good Shepherd Seminary Kaduna. Nnadi, in his first year of training, was among the four Seminarians abducted by suspected members of the Boko Haram, alongside wife of a Kaduna-based medical doctor, recently. Three of the Seminarians were released but Nnadi and the wife of the medical doctor were killed by their captors.
Lamenting the circumstances that led to the death of the young seminarian and other Nigerians in recent times, Kukah observed that the country is at a point where the citizens must call for a verdict. According to the Bishop, “There must be something that a man, nay, a nation should be ready to die for”, adding however that 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 her.
He blamed President Muhammadu Buhari for contributing to the problems confronting the country by allowing petty considerations affect his criteria for selecting people for national offices. He wondered how the President who ran his campaign on the wings of integrity and moral probity, would on coming to office, bring nepotism and clannishness into strategic sectors of the national being, including the military and the ancillary security agencies, to the point of his government being marked by supremacist and divisive policies that are pushing the 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”, Kukah lamented.
He added that even with the administration running the most nepotistic and narcissistic government in known history, there are no answers to the millions of young children on the streets in northern Nigeria, stressing that the north still has the worst indices of poverty, insecurity, stunting, squalor and destitution.
The Bishop decried the persecution of Christians in the North, blaming the northern Muslim elite for the trend. In his words, “By denying Christians lands for places of worship across most of the northern states, ignoring the systematic destruction of churches all these years, denying Christians adequate recruitment, representation and promotions in the State civil services, denying their indigenous children scholarships, marrying Christian women or converting Christians while threatening Muslim women and prospective converts with death, they make building a harmonious community impossible”.
He charged Christians to rise and defend their faith with all the moral weapons they have, exhibiting the values of love and non-violence. He preached against anger, vengeance and violence, arguing that though they can appeal in some instances, they ways of the unredeemed and are hardly helpful in nation building.
According to him, “Through Violence, you can murder the murderer, but you cannot murder Murder. Through violence, you can kill the Liar, but you cannot kill Lies or install truth. Through Violence, you can murder the Terrorist, but you cannot end Terrorism. Through Violence, you can murder the Violent, but you cannot end Violence. Through Violence, you can murder the Hater, but you cannot end Hatred. Unredeemed man sees vengeance as power, strength and the best means to teach the offender a lesson. These are the ways of the flesh.”
