Interview With Bishop Matthew Kukah, Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Sokoto

Bishop Matthew Kukah NG@60

The Bishop started by appreciating the convener of The Platform for the opportunity to speak. He said he would put away his notes and just speak. He started by saying that the first mistake we make as Nigerians is thinking that identities don’t matter. We are a nation of competing citizenships and identities and this has been further buttressed by the things happening in the country in the last 5 years.

He also stated that citizens across board are looking for ways to protect themselves. This is because the bureaucracy that has been set up in the country has made people feel like they need to “fight” their way to survival and this fight for survival can be carried out anyway people see fit.

If there are policies that favour certain genders and tribes, people will start getting the impression that the government was created for a certain group of people.

We live in a nation where people do not believe in the reward systems of government. For instance, we do kit know who would become the next president or governor and that’s because this is not dependent on who works the hardest.

He cited an example with the time when the President, Senate President and Speaker of House of Assembly were all Christians and a group arose and ousted the Speaker of the house because they felt marginalized that the leadership was taken over by Christians. However, in this dispensation, we have all these leaders as Muslims and people are saying religious or ethnic identity doesn’t matter.

Unfortunately, the process of recruitment into public service in Nigeria has been so skewed that we cannot trust the quality of people in its civil service.

When he was asked the question, “where did we derail?” He had this to say:

Military rule destroyed the foundations of Nigerian democracy. The years of suspended democracy is still haunting Nigeria till date. Then, the discovery of oil made matters worse because false border lines were created as compensation to certain people.

Secondly, we’ve had a deficiency of leaders with the mental capacity to take the nation to where it is supposed to be. It’s one thing to have integrity but it’s another thing to be able to create a mental road map for the nation and be able to drive it. This is where Nigeria has been lacking in leadership.

One of the most important sectors of any country is the quality people in the civil service. Unfortunately, the process of recruitment into public service in Nigeria has been so skewed that we cannot trust the quality of people in its civil service.

He concluded by stating that if the nation would make any tangible development in the near future, we need to get people to start thinking again.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *