In a Christmas message delivered in December 2020, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah raised concern about what he called “the much pain, sorrow and uncertainty” in Nigeria. The revered bishop lamented the degeneration of the country, the apparent inability of government to deal with it and the levels of violence and bloodletting. He accused President Buhari of deliberately sacrificing the dreams of those who voted for him and embarking on a programme “to stratify and institutionalise northern hegemony by reducing others in public life to second class status.” He further stated that Buhari was pursuing a self-defeating and alienating policy at the expense of greater national cohesion. In conclusion, Bishop Kukah pointed out that there was no way any non-northern Muslim president could have done a fraction of what President Buhari has done by his nepotism and gotten away with it. There would have been a military coup long time ago or we would have been at war, he concluded.
Bishop Kukah’s Christmas message resonates across most of the country. Indeed, his message spoke the minds of most Nigerians who have continuously worried about President Buhari’s utter disregard for national sensitivities and national unity. At no other time in Nigeria’s history, except perhaps, just before the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War in 1966, had Nigerians questioned the basis of their co-existence. President Buhari has by his actions and words shown contempt for the feelings of the various ethnic and religious groups that constitute Nigeria, leading to loud cries for national restructuring. Of course, there were a few voices, apparently beneficiaries from Buhari’s rule that have characteristically, as they have done with other critics of Buhari, called for Bishop Kukah’s head. A group, Muslim Solidarity Forum even called for Bishop Kukah to vacate Sokoto. Although the Presidency was to issue a statement reaffirming Bishop Kukah’s right to live in any part of the country just like any Nigerian, that statement did not fail to add disingenuously that the tolerance of the Sultanate for people of all faiths aided Bishop Kukah’s stay in Sokoto. What is clear however, this time, is that President Buhari’s rule continues to divide rather than unite the country. Add this divisiveness to citizens’ economic desperation, frustration and anger, and you have a country sitting on a tinder box.