Buhari slipping the North into anarchy through deliberate negligence
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Matthew Kukah, the conscience of the North, has again sounded the alarm about how Northern Nigeria is slipping into ‘Arewanistan’ fostered by Muhammadu Buhari who is junketing the world and across the country, neglecting to do his job.
The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto insisted that the President owes Nigerians explanations on rising abductions and killings.
“At about this time last year when I raised the alarm about the perilous state of affairs in northern Nigeria, all kinds of accusations were levelled against me especially by my northern brethren.
“When the Catholic Bishops protested openly against the killings of our people in March 2020, we were accused of acting against government with religious motives being imputed to our noble intentions.
“Now, we are fully in the grip of evil,” Kukah lamented.
He told Buhari to “develop a more honest, open, and robust strategy for ending the humiliation of our people and restoring social order to our people. We have borne enough humiliation as communities and as a country.”
Kukah, a man of unquestionable integrity, has spoken undiluted truth to power in both civilian and military regimes all his life as a dedicated Christian cleric, including Buhari’s draconian junta in the 1980s.
He testified before the United States Congressional Human Rights Commission on July 13, 2021 that religious violence against Christians in Nigeria has risen steadily in the past 10 years.
He said Buhari is not interested in dealing with terrorists, failing to deliver on his campaign promise to tackle insecurity, which got him elected to Aso Rock in 2015.
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Buhari and his sycophants
Buhari sycophants sprang to his defence with denials, distortions, and falsehoods. They called Kukah names. Yet the concern of the inspired man of God has been borne out all these months and years.
Between January and November this year, more than 3,125 people were killed and 2,703 abducted by Islamist Jihadists in the North.
Others have also called on Buhari to face up to his responsibilities as President. But he keeps quiet most times, preferring to speak through surrogates, false prophets who massage his ego with lies – and then insult even senior citizens.
Goodluck Jonathan was an incompetent President who scored a D-. Buhari is worse than mediocre, scoring F-. He revels in incompetence, mental laziness, and a callous heart.
Buhari – through his incompetence, laziness, sleaziness and lies, nepotism and wickedness – has singlehandedly rolled Nigeria’s progress back more than 60 years, to pre independence.
Now he lazily whiles away his time taking every excuse to travel around the world or across Nigeria, burning up hard currency to garner false applause for himself. He ignores protests against insecurity by normally placid Northern youths.
Buhari’s junket to Istanbul on December 16 was his ninth overseas in the past three months alone. There, he celebrated his 79th birthday with his wife, six ministers, and two other senior officials who supposedly went with him for a Turkey-Africa Summit.
Exactly a week later, he jetted off to Maiduguri on December 23 to receive another round of false accolade, this time from the Shehu of Borno, Abubakar Elkenemi, another sycophant who said security has improved in the state under the President.
Islamist terrorists ushered Buhari into Maiduguri that day with three bomb blasts. Five people were killed and others injured. That swiftly exposed Elkenemi’s lie.
“Buhari has done his best. That is what he can do. If we are expecting anything more than what he has done or what he is doing, that means we’re whipping a dead horse and there is no need …,” former President Olusegun Obasanjo said on December 13.
“How do we prepare for post-Buhari? Buhari has done his best. My prayer is that God will spare his life to see his term through.
“What should we do to make post-Buhari better than what we have now? That is our responsibility now, because it concerns all of us.”
Re-enter Kukah
Kukah, in his 2021 Christmas Message titled, ‘A Nation Still In Search of Truth & Vindication’, also slammed his “northern brethren” who had accused him when he earlier raised the alarm about insecurity in the zone, per The PUNCH and www.today.ng
Kukah (from Kaduna) warned Buhari (a fellow Northerner from Katsina) that he must move quickly “before Arewa, our beloved Arewa, descends into Arewanistan!”
“Arewanistan” is a coinage from Afghanistan where the Taliban took over in August following the withdrawal of American forces from the landlocked Asian country.
The Islamist terrorists took over the war-ravaged country of 39 million people, forcing President Ashraf Ghani to flee Kabul and take refuge in the United Arab Emirates.
Kukah said: “Today, a feeling of vindication only saddens me as I have watched the north break into a cacophony of quarrelsome blame games over our tragic situation.
“A catalogue of unprecedented cruelty has been unleashed on innocent citizens across the northern states.
“In their sleep, on their farmlands, in their markets, or even on the highway, innocent citizens have been mowed down and turned into burnt offerings to gods of evil.
“Communities have been turned into gulags of misery, death, pain and perfidy. We must move quickly before Arewa, our beloved Arewa, descends into Arewanistan!”
Shame that can’t be wished away
Kukah reiterated concern about killings and kidnappings, the moral scar of which brings shame “on our face and cannot be wished away”.
He added: “Tales and promises about planned rescues have since deteriorated into mere whispers. Nothing expresses the powerlessness of the families like the silence of state at the federal level.
“Today, after over seven years, our over one hundred Chibok Girls are still marooned in the ocean of uncertainty.
“Over three years after, Leah Sharibu is still unaccounted for. Students of the Federal Government College, Yauri, and children from Islamiyya School, Katsina, are still in captivity.
“This does not include hundreds of other children whose captures were less dramatic.
“We also have lost count of hundreds of individuals and families who have been kidnapped and live below the radar of publicity. We have before us a government totally oblivious to the cherished values of the sacredness of life.
“The silence of the federal government only feeds the ugly beast of complicity in the deeds of these evil people who have suspended the future of entire generations of our children.
“Every day, we hear of failure of intelligence, yet, those experts who provide intelligence claim that they have always done their duty diligently and efficiently.
“Does the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria not believe that he owes parents and citizens answers as to where our children are and when they are coming home?
“Does the President of Nigeria not owe us an explanation and answers as to when the abductions, kidnappings, brutality, senseless, and endless massacres of our citizens will end?
“When will our refugees from Cameroon, Chad or Niger return home? We need urgent answers to these questions.
“While I commend the efforts of our security men and women, I call on the President, in collaboration with the Governors who are doing their best to preserve and protect their people to develop a more honest, open, and robust strategy for ending the humiliation of our people and restoring social order to our people.
“We have borne enough humiliation as communities and as a country.”
Environmental justice
Kukha also dwelled on environmental justice and demanded concrete action in addressing climate change as well as justice for Niger Delta people.
“Nigerians have continued to ignore the existential threats posed by the environmental disaster that we face.
Nigeria established an Ecological Fund way back in 1981 while the Obasanjo administration set up the Ministry for Environment in 1999.
“We have heard of plans, projects, huge budgets to resolve the threats to our environment.
“Air and water pollution, waste management, deforestation, desertification, erosion, and flooding, continue to threaten agriculture, aquaculture and the welfare of citizens despite all these grand plans.
“Over time, we have seen long, good promises caught in the web of bureaucratic fraud ….
“There is an urgent need to reverse the effect of our sins against the Niger Delta and to quickly embark on local and national initiatives to ensure the future by full environmental restoration.
“We cannot afford to continue with the reckless pollution of our environment that is destroying aquatic, terrestrial, and human lives. The clock is ticking.”