Bishop Hassan Kuhkah
By HABILA BINNIYAT –
From the title of Mahmud Jega’s piece, it would appear that the columnist would have preferred that Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah plays the ostrich over the current situation in Nigeria, or that even if Kukah is going to say something about it, he should couch it in obsequious ambiguities or resort to slavish metaphors so as not to hurt some.
Incidentally, Bishop Kukah must have envisaged this kind of reactionary logic when he at the beginning of his message quoted the Prophet Isaiah as saying: “For Jerusalem (Nigeria’s sake), I will not be silent until her vindication shines forth like the dawn…..No more shall people call you forsaken, or your land desolate, but you shall be called my delight and your land espoused.” (Is. 62:1, 4).
That premise ordinarily should have saved Jega the needless journey into the infamy of trying to dispute what clearly were not issues in the Kukah message, but because he intended to be mischievous, he went ahead and in the process, conjured barefaced lies to suit his purpose.
He, for instance, lied that Bishop Kukah, at any point, struggled to explain what he said in his Christmas Message.
Anybody that watched the media images that Jega was referring to, would not agree that there was any struggle on the part of the Bishop. There may have been a little hesitation on the part of the Bishop while explaining, but it was understandable as he was being recorded and there’s the need to be circumspect.
At worse, the Bishop can only be said to be choosing his words; but the part about struggling was entirely the imagination of Jega.
Even on these two premises alone, one can see that Jega got the foundation for his piece entirely and totally wrong because if the Bishop explained why he chose not to keep quite when the nation is burning and it is established that he was not struggling while explaining his point, then the need for him to adhere to the advice of the 30th President of the United States, Calvin C. Coolidge, which Jega quoted thus: “If you do not say something, you won’t be called upon to explain it,” and all the others issues do not arise.
The most absurd for example, is to say that the Bishop could have spoken within the confines of his church or delivered his homily in Latin, so that only a few people in Nigeria could hear it, or that he could have devoted his message entirely to how people could enter paradise.
If I may ask, under what authority is Jega trying to dictate to the Bishop what he should say, where he should say it and how he should say it?
It is even ridiculous to make such suggestions because even if the Bishop had chosen to say it so the laity, with the advancement in info technology, how does that restrict the spread?
Besides, when Bishop Kukah in the past, used similar platforms and even written secular books out of the pulpit, why didn’t Jega notice that it was not his own expectations of a Bishop and told him so? It is hypocritical of Jega to have absorbed the deliveries and manners of delivery of the Bishop in the past only for him to offer to censor him only now for reasons best known to him.
By this, Jega has delved into an area he knows only little about when he tried to make a distinction between Catholic homilies and Pentecostal and concluded that only few Catholics venture into addressing social justice. In case Jega does not know, the Catholic Church in Nigeria has always stood for social justice and in fact has an organisation dedicated for that purpose and its purpose is not hampered by the tendency of any its leaders at a particular time.
So to describe the intervention by Kukah as one of such few from the Catholic Church is displaying crass ignorance.
Jega took his mischief a notch higher when he chose to denigrate the Bishop and referred to him as Counterfeit Sin after Jaime Cardinal Sin, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila who called himself the Original Sin.
There’s no record to show that Kukah has ever referred to himself as the Cardinal, hence it is insulting to on the basis of jaundice and malice try to denigrate him in such derogatory terms.
If Jega is an intellectual as he claims, he should have known the Manila Cardinal was only being humorous when he insisted that he should be referred to as the Original Sin. This is because everybody knows that that is the term used to describe the sin committed by Adam and Eve and the Cardinal was only being humorous when he tried to claim precedence over what happened before he was even born.
But even if the Cardinal refers to himself as “the Original Sin,” those who take after him should not and cannot be referred to as counterfeit. The most appropriate word should have been either ‘follower’ or ‘student.’
With all the things happening in Nigeria, why should anyone expect
Kukah’s Christmas Day message had to come with humour as Jega is saying? People are dying every day and someone chose to make the government see the gravity of the crises and someone says such messages should be couched in humour?
By recalling Romero’s 1980 assassination, Jega says he is not calling for the assassination of Kukah because Kukah himself said that just because he mentioned ‘coup’ in his Christmas message did not mean he was calling for one. Well, it is amazing that Jega who disagrees with Kukah in the logic for writing the Christmas Message, his approach and diction and every other thing, now chose to give the Bishop the benefit of doubt on a matter that translated, implies pronouncing a Fatwa on the Bishop. That’s really serious!
It is easy for Jega to try and deceive his gullible readers that though Nigeria is a dangerous place right now, but it is so not from state-sponsored agents. How did he know that?
As far as one can see, the insurgency in Nigeria today is a Frankenstein Monster. One can recall that those who were in the opposition then promised to make Nigeria ungovernable.
Is it a coincidence that Yobe and Borno States, which have always been hostile to the then ruling party, became the base for insurgency?
So Kukah was right when he said, “The spilling of this blood must be related to a more sinister plot that is beyond our comprehension. Are we going to remain hogtied by these evil men or are they gradually becoming part of a larger plot to seal the fate of our country?”
Jega is wrong to think that the Middle Belt faces the same dilemma as the North with respect to the possible break up of Nigeria or perhaps worse, to know how wrong he is, Jega should take a look at the map of the middle belt again and see.
Yes, Bishop Kukah’s Christmas message varied substantially in tone and substance from that of Pope Francis, but it is not without reasons.
The Pope and the Bishop were addressing different audiences just as other Bishops in other countries can as well choose to speak on other topics different from that of the Pope.
But it is wrong to say that they messages differ substantially.
Though the Pope belongs to the Jesuit order of the Catholic Church, his message is in many ways similar to that of the Bishop.
They both spoke on remedies to peculiar challenges and called on the people to unite and they both prayed for all!
So to say that Bishop Kukah did not pray for an end to suffering in Borno IDP camps, Katsina, Zamfara, Taraba, Benue or even Southern Kaduna State is not sincere.
Here’s what the Bishop said, “Like Abraham, we must plead for the Lord to save our nation because we have more than ten righteous men (Gen. 18: 16ff). Like Moses, we believe that as long as our hands are held up in prayer, the Lord will be on our side (Ex. 17:11).” So to say that the Bishop did not pray for solw.when he prayed for the nation and even mentioned Dapchi, Chibok Kankara and other places is dishonest.
Jega will do well to try and understand issues before writing on them.
· Binniyat wrote in from Lagos.