Bishop Kukah

Bishop Kukah: One Letter Too Many

Adamu Tilde

Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah chose to remember the unfortunate incidence that happened the night of January 15, 1966 by writing an open letter to the two most prominent sons of Arewa that fell victims to Major Kaduna Nzeagwu’s bullets. Before then, there was an open altercation between him and the ace columnist, Muhammad Haruna. Malam Muhammad Haruna assumed Bishop’s position that Northern Nigeria elites cannot claim ‘clean hands’ about what led to the birth of Boko Haram as not only an ‘attack’ on the region’s Muslim elites, but also of the Islamic faith. I do not entirely share Haruna’s position, even though the Bishop has a penchant for hiding behind the veneer of ‘criticizing’ Northern political establishment to express his disguised contempt for Islam and its Northern Nigerian manifestation.

Last Sunday, January 17, Media Trust published an open letter written to Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Premier of Northern Nigeria by Bishop Kukah. In an otherwise beautifully-crafted, well-scripted and nostalgic letter — which touches on the very fabric of our collective malaise — the Bishop eulogize the late Premier to the high heaven.

However, beyond the superficial celebration and praises, there are thinly veiled notes of contempt and reproach — as can be established later — harbored by many on some ahistorical occurrences that characterized what an acquaintance, Semiu tagged “The Psychology of Minority”. For the record, I find nothing wrong with the way we individually choose to understand historical events, but I find everything wrong with shallow, selfish and one-sided revisionism. I believe no matter how our individual opinions may differ, we should display the courage to accept the fact no matter how unpalatable, and we should not allow the truth to be sacrificed on the altar of ethnic chauvinism. Such outright distortions of history to satisfy a pre-determined narrative only serves to breed more hostility and postpone the chance of inter-faith and inter-ethnic rapprochement.

Understandably, the first republic leaders were not saints, they never claimed so. They have their imperfections like other humans. But holding a brief to an action (allegedly done by Sardauna) which, if fairness has not eluded us, has the universal trait of every movement- be it religious or political; from Nazism, Fascism, Maoism, Stalinism, Communism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Democracy and now Imperialism - is the height of academic injustice.

I labored hard to understand the import of this statement in a supposedly ‘befitting tribute’: “When you look back now, I believe even you will realize that your controversial Conversion campaigns laid the foundation for mistrust in the house that you had built earlier”. To further drive home his message, our dear Bishop added that “Since then, there has been increasing distrust among our people and the chasm has grown even deeper”.

For an amnesiac society like ours, this is a revelation that must be cherished by all of us to probe past so that we can avoid its pitfalls. On a second look, and conversant with existing realities, it is safe to assume, if, as espoused by Bishop Kukah, Sardauna laid the ‘foundation for mistrust in the house’, then, our Bishop and his likes ‘erect the building of distrust among us that led to the spilling of so much blood around the north through their continuing controversial conversion—and here, it is not only persuasive, inducement and subtle coercion are part of the bargain—in and around the hills of Gwoza and the crevices of Tudunwada in Kano State.’

If in Sardauna’s letter Bishop Kukah’s has subtly referenced the ahistorical cause(s) of mistrust and distrust in Northern Nigeria as part of the Premier’s uninspiring legacies — notwithstanding its absurdity — then, in Sir Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa’s letter, which was published on The Leadership of January 24, we have seen how everything was cloaked in the garb of selective patriotism to give it a superficial appearance of being pan-Nigerian.

Reading these provocative statements that “we hardly hear any (sic) very significant and robust mention of your name when the north is being celebrated” and that he (Tafawa-Balewa) is always on the periphery”, as if that is not enough, our Bishop, in his unenvious sophistry, further posed a rhetorical question thusly…. “I wonder, what is it about you that they seem to resent or ignore? Is this the result of just sheer carelessness, or is there something deeper?” I am left with little option than to suspect a sinister motive behind this conclusion.

But looking at their backgrounds and trajectories (Sardauna being at the forefront of northern politics years before Balewa), it is inevitable that Sardauna will occupy a different place not only in northern Nigerian history, but that of Nigeria as attested to by many of their colonial and Nigerian contemporaries. To attempt to compare the two will be intellectually futile and historically unfair. But that notwithstanding, apart from the premier, no northern leader – from Kashim Shettima to Aminu Kano - was remembered and immortalized more than Balewa. His name graced everything name-able: a university, a sports stadium, a tertiary hospital, a national park and many more.

Two scenarios caught my attention in the Bishop’s letter to Sir Tafawa-Balewa. One, what befell Rifkatu Danna and two, the emergence of Yakubu Dogara as the Speaker, House of Representative. In what appeared to be a remarkable improvement in our nascent democracy, Bishop chose to look the other way.

What happened to Rifkatu was wrong, it stands unreservedly condemned. But, considering the Bishop’s calling as a bridge-builder between the not-so-romantic relationship of Muslim and Christians in the north, he could have been more charitable with words and narrated to Sir Tafawa-Balewa that, his hometown, Tafawa Balewa, that produced the first female and Christian member of state assembly, has no standing Mosque. The Muslim Community that existed for about three (3) centuries was forcefully and violently displaced because dominant Christians couldn’t stand the call of Azan. In that, we will see a sincere call and a letter written in and for mutual coexistence. And Sardauna’s controversial conversion campaign obviously had nothing to do with it.

Perhaps, the charge by Muhammad Haruna that the Bishop is prompt to controversies and has always find solace in ‘attacking’ Islam hence Muslims on everything that befell Northern Nigeria may hold water. But the Bishop is way too smart in his attack. It takes deeper reflection and reading between the lines to be spotted- for it is always laced in half-hearted praises and mild-mannered sarcasms.

The Bishop was pleased to inform Tafawa-Balewa that “Today, from the ashes of Mrs. Danna’s murdered dreams in the State Assembly, God has raised your Sayawa kinsman and grandson, from your home Local Government of Tafawa Balewa, the Right Honourable Yakubu Dogara who was born one year after your death, to the enviable position of the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives and the fourth citizen of Nigeria!” One will be tempted to ask what on earth is wrong with this pronouncement. There is nothing wrong with the pronouncement at face value.

Beyond the surface, one can safely accuse the Bishop of selective narrative. Just last week, the Bishop informed Sardauna how Tambuwal, his grandson “was the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives with the help and support of Southerners” but couldn’t muster same sincerity and let Tafawa-Balewa that the ascension of his grandson, Dogara to Speakership, was master-minded by the same descendants of Sardauna he tried to calumniate. And they neither look at Dogara’s Christian faith and Sayawa’s roots nor did they attempt to convert him, the same way that the Sardauna never considered the ethnic identities of his close comrades, from Sunday Awoniyi to Ishaya Audu.

As I earlier mentioned, there’s more to this animosity. It is historical and has always been the rallying-point of appeal to the sentiment of ‘the psychology of minority’ (my apologies, Semiu). I have no problem with what Bishop Kukah believes to be History. I am worried because of Bishop’s deliberate distortion of historical facts or evading them, as the case may be, or being economical with the truth, casting aspersions here and there, all of which smack of snobbery, mischief and utter malice.

As self-acclaimed bridge-builder, who, in his words, “have consistently made efforts to promote respectful relations and deeper mutual understanding and collaboration between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria and worldwide”, courtesy demands a balanced presentation of facts. In an effort to build bridges, we don’t demonize one based on his assumed imperfections and put a blind eye to the other’s atrocities. What is good for the Christian goose in Bauchi state is also good for the Muslim gander in Plateau state.

Conveniently, our Bishop was very alert to remember the ‘controversial Christian conversion’ of Sardauna, which, in his line of thinking, ‘laid the foundation of discord and mutual distrust between Muslims and Christians in Northern Nigeria.’ But then, how our dear Bishop could have forgotten some of the very spectacular incidents/writings/reportage/interviews that happened directly or indirectly to him and under his nose that helped in watering the seed of mistrust, distrust, discord in interfaith relationship is very unsettling.

Suffice to remind our dear Bishop of his confession to Dr. Miller. Then, I will leave the readers to make their conclusion on who, between Sardauna and Kukah, actually sow and still sowing the discord between Muslim and Christian relationship.

“Dr. Usman Kane reported in his book titled, “Muslim Modernity in Post-Colonial Nigeria, p.19. Dr. Kane was narrating what Bishop Kukah told Dr. Walter Miller, who was described by Ayandele (1966) as “the most fanatical and perhaps the most dedicated Christian missionary in Northern Nigeria”. What did Bishop Kukah tell Dr. Mille? He said to him, “I remember when I was a kid, if I was eating too quickly my grandmother used to say, “why are you eating as if you are running from Hausas?”

Adamu Tilde writes in from Budapest and can be reach on adamtilde@gmail.com