The Presidency has reacted to the Easter message by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Most Rev. Matthew Kukah, saying the he did not speak like man of God.
Kukah had in his Easter message, lamented that the federal government spends billions in rehabilitating so called repentant terrorists while their victims are left to wallow in poverty.
He also said Nigeria is being ravaged by Boko Haram terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, armed robbers, and other merchants of death, stressing that there is collective fear as to whether country’s glory is about to depart.
He said, “retired military and intelligence officers lament over what has become of their glorious profession, as they watch the humiliation of our military personnel. Traumatised citizens are tortured daily by bandits.”
According to him, “the nation has since become a massive killing field, as both government and the governed look on helplessly…”
However, the Presidency in a statement on Sunday evening by Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, maintained that Kukah’s criticism of President Muhammadu Buhari over the security situation in the country was unfair.
According to the statement Kukah’s Easter message was “very ungodly.”
Shehu said, Kukah was playing politics with the message he delivered during Easter Sunday service stressing that the Buhari should not be dragged into his politics.
According to him, the security challenges facing the nation dates back to the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, pointing out that there was no basis to blame the Buhari administration which is less than six years in office.
The statement reads: “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.
“Father Kukah has said some things that are inexplicable in his Easter massage.
“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.
“Furthermore, the Hijab issue in Kwara State on which he dwelt is a state matter which the courts of the land have adjudicated.
“They are matters that have appeared in several states as far back as the Obasanjo administration. In all of that, when and where did the name of President Buhari feature? He is playing partisan politics by dragging the President into it.
“An administration that has created a whole Ministry, for the first time in the country’s history, appropriating enormous resources to it, to deal with issues of internally displaced persons cannot, in all rightfulness be accused of not caring for them.
“Some of the comments are no more than a sample of the unrestrained rhetoric Fr. Kukah trades in, which he often does in the guise of a homily.
“We urge well-meaning citizens to continue to support the ongoing efforts by the administration to secure the country and move it forward”.
