Kukah’s view on what Buhari was elected to do

In the Monday, June 15, edition of the Vanguard, an interview granted the Vanguard by Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, was published in which, unlike the beloved bishop I know him to be, he astonishingly claimed that “we elected a President not to look for scapegoats. We elected the President to get a job done.”


As a Catholic who understands his faith very deeply, I am quite happy to completely disagree with Bishop Kukah and indeed I go so far as to condemn his submission as not only shamefully inappropriate but indeed entirely out of tune with the blessed theology of the Holy Roman Catholic Church of God.

In the first place, I was quite taken aback by my beloved Bishop’s choice of language which unmistakably resembles that of a politician than that of a reverend man of the cloth. I wonder how Bishop Kukah constructed what President Buhari was elected to do. I very much doubt that Bishop Kukah voted for Buhari and I therefore find his pretension as one of those who voted for him utterly shameful.

At any rate even if he did, he is not the only one who voted for Buhari and the vast majority of those of us who made him our President certainly voted him to amongst other things fight corruption, something Bishop Kukah, against Catholic theology, is determined must not happen!
Clearly, like many ridiculously clueless individuals with a laughably poor conceptualization of proper governance, Bishop Kukah’s understanding of what it will take to reform Nigeria is faulty. That is the best I can do for my bishop; otherwise, I would accuse him of knowing the truth and for reason’s best known to him, he has chosen to embrace falsehood.

I am simply sick and tired of the enemies of Buhari’s government who keep insisting on lecturing our President and the rest of us what we elected him to do. What are our President’s main credentials anyway? If Buhari will not fight corruption, what else is he supposed to do?

Any President who refuses to fight corruption is a failure, a nitwit and a bastard and by shamelessly trying to sell this dummy, Bishop Kukah is obviously trying to hoodwink our President into failing so that in 2019, he, Kukah, can turn back and scold us for not returning former President Jonathan as President.

I am not fooled by my beloved Bishop’s pretensions. He is obviously a Jonathan supporter unable to key into seeing the hand of God in even the least likely place. If ever Kukah voted, he would not have voted for Buhari and I have many such friends who proved unable to grow up and maturely eschew sentiments to vote for change. That of course is their right. What no one is entitled to do is to pontificate from a position of prejudice pretending to be an unbiased friend.

If there is a particular thing President Buhari was elected to do, it is to fight corruption. That is why we voted him. We know that if no one else will tackle this national cancer, Buhari will certainly not shy away from that divine duty. How will he make himself popular with the common people if he does not catch them the thieves who robbed them blind, deaf, dumb and speechless? What will be left of Buhari’s credibility if he behaves like the very comical Obasanjo, the unfortunately lackluster Yar’Adua or the utterly clueless Jonathan? How might change be effected in Nigeria if corruption, the number one impediment to change, is not removed?

What in the world does my beloved Bishop, Kukah mean by insisting the President must deliver without fighting corruption? Who can deliver in Nigeria without tackling corruption? Fighting corruption to the barest minimum equates to delivering in this corruption ravaged land and it is a bizarre shame that anyone, much more a bishop will appoint himself a public defender of corruption!
I insist that Bishop Kukah did not vote for President Buhari. As for those of us who insisted he must be our President when it mattered most, it is certainly our forte to lecture the likes of Bishop Kukah, exactly what we elected our beloved President to do. We made him President to fight corruption and by so doing to plug the garish loopholes in the system that makes it impossible for our people to have light, education, healthcare, food, security and sundry other fundamental human rights. It is not for Bishop Kukah of all persons to tell us what we elected our own President to do. We are the ones to tell him.

For your information, dear Bishop, we elected President Buhari to seek ye first the defeat of corruption that all other things may be added unto us by sweet Jesus our Lord and God. By dissuading him from this heavenly duty, Bishop Kukah has merely exposed himself as a religious bigot uncomfortable with a Muslim as his President. If nothing else, rising above such prejudice against others is the test of being a Catholic and I am quite proud to be such a Catholic whether Bishop Kukah likes it or not.