In 2023, it was ‘glitch’, we don’t know the word we’ll hear in 2027 – Kukah

•Says it’s madness to say there’s no Christian persecution in Nigeria

• Speaks on his ties to Tinubu

Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, is a fearless clergy, activist and active voice against injustice. As he has been doing even under military rule in Nigeria, Bishop Kukah has continued to speak truth to power and appears undaunted by what frightens others. He does not hide under the table when the need arises for him to counsel, chastise or rebuke all in the quest for a better society for all. In this interview, Kukah examines what works and does not work in Nigeria and offers some ideas to move the country forward.

Are worried about the way things are going in the country?

There can be no satisfaction.  A great man of the church, St Augustine, once said that we, human beings, our hearts are restless until they rest in God. As long as we are humans, we’ll always continue to aspire to new things. You started in your newspaper as a reporter, then you aspired to become other things, then you became a copy editor, sub-editor and editor.  After some time, you may want to be either Director or Managing Director. That’s the way the human mind is constructed. And I think that for us, even as  citizens of Nigeria, I think that is also one of the things that is missing, our failure to understand that this is a journey. I delivered a lecture in Federal University Oye Ekiti, precisely on the seventh of this month and I titled it, ‘They crawled so we can walk: the imperative of inter-generational compensation in Nigeria’. And the point I tried to make was that a similar issue became prevalent during the Obama administration when it was pointed out that the Africans that came to the U.S as slaves crawled in their suffering so that their children would walk. They ensured that these children could walk so that their next generation could run and the next generation could fly. Unfortunately for us in Nigeria, that logic doesn’t have coherence. But if you tell your son now about when you came  to Lagos, how you were sleeping on the floor, he would say, “Daddy, are you mad?” That is because he doesn’t understand the sacrifices that were made. I made the point that we have to develop a much more positive outlook in terms of what we have accomplished because we have accomplished quite a lot.

Are you happy with the progress Nigeria has made as a country?

We are nowhere near where we ought to be. But the past is the past. There’s nothing we can do about it except to use it as a building material for a greater future. I’m not happy that we have been so slow. I’m not happy that corruption still continues. I’m not happy that despite the fight for democracy, people     still feel that the political elites are insensitive to their needs. I’m not happy with the political arrogance that I see. I’m not happy that there is no sense of urgency of fixing the problems of Nigeria but I’m happy that Nigerians are still patiently on this path, realising that the only option we have now is democracy. Now, I am saddened that the political elites have not realised that sense of urgency in order to reward Nigerians for fighting for democracy but I can only appeal to Nigerians and to plead with them to remain restrained. Agitation will continue, but let’s develop enough maturity to know that breaking down  the glasses doesn’t solve anything. Yes, to that extent, I remain quite impressed that Nigerians have continued to relentlessly focus on a future that is not here, but without necessarily becoming collective victims of a violence that is not within our control.

Could we have fared better if Nigeria had adopted a different form of government other than federalism?

You live in Lagos, if you married a Yoruba woman in Lagos, and there is trouble, you might be saying, “Why didn’t I marry from my village? It could have been better marrying from home”. It’s not like that.  First of all, we have to take the mistakes we made as part of our history. When I spoke at Rueben Abati’s 60th birthday, President Obasanjo was there, and I raised a few issues, and the next morning, by seven o’clock, there was a call.  Chief Obasanjo was on the phone, and he was talking about the issues that I had raised because I had raised some really serious issues of concern about the system we are running now, which is not a system we contrived. We had almost literally no hand in Lancaster House agreements and so on. The British had fixed what they wanted. But guess what? It’s like the choice between a woman you married and chose yourself or the one that your parents chose for you. You have to develop the maturity.  This is what you have. It requires sacrifice. We can’t do much about whether it was right from the Westminster parliamentary system. We weren’t consulted before it was given to us. We weren’t consulted when it was taken away from us by the military. But we’ve got something here. We have to try and see how best we can work with it. It appears to me that we have missed our way again since 1999 when democratic governance was reintroduced. We still claim to be a fledgling democracy instead of making steady progress in all facets of national life. Many politicians keep saying that Nigeria is not ripe for most of the things that would make this country to flourish.

But when it comes to the issue of corruption, we are ripe. Yes, that one didn’t take us time to mature. We didn’t have to learn the ropes. We matured very quickly. It is also to say that no country is ripe for democracy, no country in the world. The Americans, if you listened to Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, last week, he admitted that America has been 250 years old but are still working on their democracy. Americans are wondering, seeing Trump in the horizon and perhaps asking the question: Is this what we bargained for? There’s no country in the world that is ripe enough in terms of democracy. Everything is like that.  The priesthood is like that. Marriage is like that. When you look at other people, you say, “Oh, I wish my life were as easy as theirs”, and it’s not like that. Everybody is battling with their own problems.  If I ask you now, which country would you want to be like? I’m sure you have an answer. If you wanted to live in America, you’ll be living in America today. This country, with all these chaos, I’ve had alternatives. I could have been living somewhere else, but I will never trade this country for any other country. I would rather see myself labouring to make this country better than go elsewhere because I have to remind myself that this country has been extraordinarily fair to me. It is because of this country that I have a green passport. It’s because of it that I had my education.

The Catholic Church and my country, I can’t trade them for anything. We have to just develop the maturity to appreciate the fact that the followers are better educated now than those who are ahead of them. The questions are harder, you know. We are having a situation which we, the followers, are better equipped. We are richer. We are better than those that are leading us, as such we have a responsibility of pointing at different directions and different alternatives. That is the essence of governance. You are occupying that chair, but you don’t know everything. Even if you are the the Editor-in-Chief of Vanguard Newspapers, you have to listen to the views of other people. That’s why I said as the media, your contribution is unquantifiable. My contribution is unquantifiable. Everybody has a contribution to make. No country in the world outsources its obligations to other countries. Political office holders should take responsibility play their roles. I just want to continue to encourage Nigerians while we hope that the next generation will be better than ours and benefit far more than from the sacrifices we have made.

What is your honest expectation about 2027 election?

I’m happy with this agitation, but  the problem with us is that when one single issue comes, we will all shout and, after that, everybody goes mute. I can proudly say that I was on the front line in 1995, all through the Abacha years. In the last election, it was ‘glitch’; we never heard that word before. The next thing now, we don’t know which other word we are going to hear in 2027. Our people must remain vigilant. All politics is local. Make sure you have a voter card to be able to vote. Finally, pray that we are counted among the living. Otherwise, we can start killing ourselves now.

Nigeria is a faith-based country. But can we beat our chest and say that the church has done enough in raising the awareness of what the people and government should do?

Whether you like it or not, if you didn’t benefit from a church, you benefitted from a missionary school. Second, I said to a radio journalist who asked me about a similar issue that my responsibility every Sunday, every morning, is  to preach. I preach, I encourage you and give you options about how to live a good life. Everything on Sunday lasts for about an hour and a half. After that, you are on your own for about 22 and a half hours. I’m not responsible for what you do with the moral expectations I’ve given you. As I said, if I preach to you, lecture you about the value of keeping the law, and you step out there and you go and steal somebody’s phone, or you beat traffic light, is it my fault? So many of us, Nigerians, like to outsource our responsibilities. Who will say to me, “Bishop, you know, you people are not talking”. Luckily for me, I’ve been talking for a long time. I have seen many scenarios in this country and it amuses me at times. For example, when Obasanjo was President, his enemies said that I was putting my mouth in politics. When Obasanjo left and they took over, they accused me of doing the same thing. When they come to power, they tell me, “Go back to your church. Leave us alone”. Where are the people who were with Buhari? It is very interesting because for a very long time when Buhari became President, we had nothing personal. I had no less than six meetings with him but there was nothing personal between us. But he always said to me, “I respect your views, because I know you are honest”. The truth is that my business is not to abuse any government or the leader of government. Now, some people are saying that I’m not talking because those in power are my friends. My business is not to abuse government, but to critically present things as I see them. I’m not grandstanding because I want people to clap. This is the mistake people make. There is a difference between speaking truth to power and diplomacy, or even counselling. At the realm of diplomacy, I can say all the things I want to say, for example, about the need for teachers to have more salary and so on. I can shout about the electoral system. But at the end of the day, I have to find a way of being able to access those who matter to say, “Look, this is an alternative”. It’s an engagement we are not doing. It’s about fixing our country.  There’s always nothing personal.  It is the greatness of our country that we seek.

Sometime ago, you were quoted as saying that there is no Christian genocide in Nigeria and it generated heat across the country. Were you misquoted or what?

Your paper was one of the papers that led with the story. It was very interesting. I don’t want to talk about it because, first, nobody can say he asked me a question. What do I  think about genocide? Nobody asked me that question. What do I think about the persecution of Christians? Nobody did too. People took words from my mouth and I think it was convenient because we are at a very combustible stage now in power. People are looking for anything to say and credit Bishop Kukah for reasons best known to them. And, of course, if you say, Bishop Kukah has said there is no genocide in Nigeria, would that not sound like madness? Unfortunately, there is a text because where that conversation came from, I wasn’t talking about genocide. I wasn’t talking about persecution. If it is about that, like I say to people, I would like one Nigerian to tell me if you know where he is, let them stand up. Who has written a fraction of the things I’ve written about the situation they were in? And I said if not madness, how will I say that there is no genocide? I will share with you the text of what I presented, which is where all these conversations that I presented in Rome when I was invited for the release of a 1,270 page report on the persecution of Christians around the whole world. You will see what I said. And my argument then, as now, people say, “Oh, but Bishop Kukah, you were saying that there is genocide and then you stopped”. I said I didn’t stop.  People say, “Oh, you have changed”. I said, “Changed to what?” If you go through and read the things I was talking  about, my greatest agony with Buhari was not only the amount of blood that was being shed, but a skewed process of distributing power that favoured only the Muslims, in my view, the data is there, the facts are there. In the case of Tinubu, what we have now, we must also understand where we have come from. All of us as Christians, people were saying how can we have a Muslim-Muslim ticket? Okay, give Christians credit. We didn’t stop  it, whether we fought it or we didn’t fight it, the fact of the matter is that we have embraced the outcome without fear, without anxiety. It is now left for Muslims in Nigeria to ask themselves whether in good conscience they can accept a Christian-Christian ticket, but we don’t measure by the default or failures of others. And my argument about Muslim-Muslim ticket was that we are aspiring to a country where one day, we may not be alive. Like Martin Luther King said, it is the content of your character as opposed to the mosque you’re worshipping, as opposed to the church you’re worshipping, as opposed to what you believe in. People say, “Oh, you know, Tinubu gave Bishop Kukah position as a Chairman of a Governing Council”. I was Vice Chairman of Governing Council of an  America university for six years.

I was Chairman of Governing Council of Nasarawa State University, I mean, at the time of this appointment, I’m Chairman of the Governing Council of Veritas University here in Abuja. I was carrying burdens I didn’t need to carry, but that’s not the point. The most important thing for me is that whatever will help in the improvement of the quality of lives of ordinary people, I will be there. But to answer your question, I never, I repeat, I never said there was no genocide. (Vanguard)