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Buhari Tagged Kukah’s Easter Message As Ungodly

THE Presidency has replied Matthew Hassan Kukah on his recent statement that addressed critical and strategic concerns in the country.

Kukah, who is Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, had, in his reaction to the ravaging insecurity in parts of the country on Sunday, expressed worries that Nigeria had become a killing field.

He lamented that both the government and citizens had become helpless in the face of incessant cases of banditry, kidnapping, terrorism and armed robbery across states in the country.

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“Traumatised citizens are tortured daily by bandits. The nation has since become a massive killing field, as both government and the governed look on helplessly,” Kukah said.

He noted that there was now a collective fear in Nigeria as to whether the glory of the country was about to depart due to the killings by the Boko Haram terrorist group, kidnappers and ‘other merchants of death.’

He blamed lack of empathy by the Buhari- led administration as reasons for the several deaths in the country.

Reacting in a statement in the late hours of Sunday, Senior Presidential Spokesperson  Garba Shehu described Kukah’s ‘bashing’ of his boss as ‘ungodly.’

While noting that citizens were permitted to hold their opinions, Shehu said the spiritual leader’s personal ideology and views should not stand in the way of facts and fairness.

He added that some of the comments were no more than a sample of the unrestrained rhetoric Kukah traded in, which he often did in the guise of a homily.

“All citizens have their individual ideologies, even their own versions of truth. But if you profess to being a man of God, as Father Mathew Hassan Kukah does, ideology should not stand in the way of facts and fairness,” he said.

“Father Kukah has said some things that are inexplicable in his Easter message. But, in saying that the Boko Haram terrorism is worse than it was in 2015, he did not speak like a man of God.

“Kukah should go to Borno or Adamawa to ask the citizens there the difference between 2014 and 2021.”

Shehu said the creation of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development was part of the president’s efforts to address the concerns of displaced persons whom Kukah said  the government had abandoned.

He urged well-meaning citizens to continue to support the ongoing efforts by the Buhari’s administration to secure the country and move it forward.

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