Bishop Kukah
Bishop of Sokoto Diocese of the Catholic Church, Matthew Kukah, has
faulted President Muhammadu Buhari’s method of prosecuting the
anti-graft war.
The cleric said it is worrisome that the president has not changed
the approach he used when he took over government in a military coup in
1984.
Kukah also said some of the president’s “new friends” in the All Progressives Congress (APC) were those he sent to jail, when he served as military head of state.
“I have known Buhari for a while but I don’t want to claim I am close to him but he is a man I have tremendous respect for.
“My worry is that President Buhari thought and probably still
thinks corruption is stealing money, and the people stealing money are
largely bureaucrats or government officials, which was what happened in
1984.
“Buhari simply went around and arrested all the people who were
holding government offices. The only thing we feel very sad about
Nigeria is our collective amnesia. There are people who are key kingpins
in APC today who were sentenced to various years of imprisonment by
Buhari in 1984, some up to 100 years.
“But, since this is Nigeria, many of them have finished serving
their 100-year jail term. They have come back, joined APC and are
active members of the party.
“Buhari was not brought into power by angels. We know the
nature of the vehicle that would bring anybody to the presidency of
Nigeria.”
Kukah said he was not in the position to access the Buhari
administration, but maintained that the president still had the time to
make right his wrongs. I am not the one to measure Buhari’s competence.
It will take us four years to decide if Buhari is the man for the
job or not. Or we have the National Assembly; if they are serious and up
to their job, they can stop an incompetent president mid-way. Buhari is
going to be president for four years. We are just gone past the first
half. And, like the game of soccer, until the final whistle is blown,
you can’t say who has won.
“It is quite conceivable that he might probably do something
quite spectacular. For example, he is going to the South East, which I
think is quite unfortunate because it came so many years too late.
“But, notwithstanding that, I think with a certain kind of
smartness, and if the president has the ability to look back and say
what could we have done differently, and, if he can take his attention
away from some of the hypocrites around him, and who actually want to
borrow his voice and think that anybody who is critical of his
government has a motive. I think Buhari is free to step forward and say
he wants to run for the 2019 election,” he said.
Short of writing off the government as a failure, Kukah said after
over two years in the saddle, it would be difficult to point to what it
has achieved.
“If I ask you to point at one department of government that is
so upbeat about what people have achieved, I think it will be hard to
find out any. We must get our people to a point where they appreciate
when the value of their life is depreciating. And that is what is
happening to us now.
“For me, these are some of the issues and that is why I say
Buhari himself is not happy… except a few ministers, but even the
ministers themselves are unhappy because they didn’t imagine that they
would be going through the difficulty that they are going through.”
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