In a Christmas message delivered in December 2020, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah raised concern about what he called \u201cthe much pain, sorrow and uncertainty\u201d 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 \u201cto stratify and institutionalise northern hegemony by reducing others in public life to second class status.\u201d 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bishop Kukah\u2019s Christmas message resonates across most\nof the country. Indeed, his message spoke the minds of most Nigerians who have continuously\nworried about President Buhari\u2019s utter disregard for national sensitivities and\nnational unity. At no other time in Nigeria\u2019s history, except perhaps, just\nbefore the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War in 1966, had Nigerians questioned the basis\nof their co-existence. President Buhari has by his actions and words shown\ncontempt for the feelings of the various ethnic and religious groups that\nconstitute Nigeria, leading to loud cries for national restructuring. Of\ncourse, there were a few voices, apparently beneficiaries from Buhari\u2019s rule\nthat have characteristically, as they have done with other critics of Buhari,\ncalled for Bishop Kukah\u2019s head. A group, Muslim Solidarity Forum even called\nfor Bishop Kukah to vacate Sokoto. Although the Presidency was to issue a\nstatement reaffirming Bishop Kukah\u2019s right to live in any part of the country\njust like any Nigerian, that statement did not fail to add disingenuously that the\ntolerance of the Sultanate for people of all faiths aided Bishop Kukah\u2019s stay\nin Sokoto. What is clear however, this time, is that President Buhari\u2019s rule\ncontinues to divide rather than unite the country. Add this divisiveness to\ncitizens\u2019 economic desperation, frustration and anger, and you have a country\nsitting on a tinder box. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a Christmas message delivered in December 2020, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah raised concern about what he called \u201cthe much pain, sorrow and uncertainty\u201d 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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[199],"class_list":["post-1862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bishop-kukahs-criticism-of-buhari-exposes-nigerias-divisiveness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1873,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1862\/revisions\/1873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}