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Kukah: A Poor Defender By Ibrahim M. Attahir Esq.
When Modupe Foluwa wrote her article “Kukah: This priest has fallen” in Weekly Trust March 25th – 31st, 2006 I thought she was being naughty and over lambasting Father Kukah on his romance with those in the corridors of power referring the genesis of his love for priesthood to materialism. However, I now begin to think otherwise when I read the Rev. Father’s rejoinder (DailyTrust, 22nd July 2006) to Mohammed Haruna’s article that appeared in his Wednesday column (DailyTrust, 12th July 2006).
I appreciate that Father Kukah has right as a citizen to comment on national issues. After all, ours is a free society or as some will say “a no-man’s-land”. However, he seems to be over zealous in defending those in authority and condemning past leaders for reasons best known to him. Modupe Foluwa wrote in her article:
“The evolution of Mathew Hassan Kukah would perhaps never have been worth the bother if he had not strayed so far from his Catholic calling into the corridors of Aso Villa. Now that he is worshiping at the altar of Nigeria’s Lord Temporal, in total disregard of the vehement rejection of such abominable indulgence by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, it is imperative that his antecedents in priesthood be subjected to closer scrutiny and exposure”
She further wrote:
“It is no surprise therefore that Reverend Kukah has been regarded as a priest with a passion for busy-bodying commentaries on contentious political issues for several years. The fact that he has been cunningly driving his childhood truck to political relevance and recognition and that his eyes were set on Aso Villa instead of the Catholic Secretariat in Abuja has only now become obvious, thanks to the helpful historical flashback inadvertently provided by him through This House Has Fallen and, more convincingly by his unabashed romance with the transient powers that be and apologia for the notorious third term agenda”.
Otherwise, why should a man of God preoccupy himself with defending the government or an aspirant? The government has those employed and well-paid for the job (I don’t know whether dirty or clean). Equally, the campaign organization of Prof. Jerry Gana must have persons employed for the purposes of defending the presidential aspirant. Anyway, I don’t know whether Father Kukah is one of them or he is just holding brief for them. It is also surprising that while defending Prof. Jerry Gana, the Rev. Father also extended the defence to the policies of Obasanjo administration. One should think that the professor is on frolic of his own regarding his presidential aspiration, but Father Kukah is making it look like there is a vicarious relationship between the presidential ambition of the professor and the administration.
What baffles me next is how the Rev. Father who prides himself as a scholar ended up defending the professor very poorly or not at all. I believe that Father Kukah as an experienced and articulate public affairs commentator should know that he should have taken-up Mohammed Haruna point-by-point. However, the Rev. Father rather raised his own issues against Mohammed Haruna. I think by that act, he has put public discourse on its head. All the points he raised, if any, against Mohammed Haruna are in futility. It is like stabbing somebody from the back when it is supposed to be a duel.
For those that have not read Mohammed Haruna’s column, he simply raised three issues against Prof. Gana as follows:
1. The professor lacks credibility. 2. He lacks conviction. 3. He manipulates religion to further his political career.
What is bad in raising such issues against a person that wants to be entrusted with the steering of the affairs of our nation of multiple interests of Muslims, Christians and animists? Even the professor I believe knows that he will be subjected to public scrutiny. I also remember that the Rev. Father once wrote on General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) towards the 2003 4-19 election. He even said that he met Gen. Buhari personally to verify whether or not the General made an alleged statement during a book launch on shari’a, which Christians were not comfortable with. What is therefore expected is for the professor or anybody holding brief for him to explain those issues raised against him. It may be that they did not happen at all or that the public misunderstands the situation etc. In other words, the Father should have told us that the professor is not unprincipled by serving every government from that of Babangida to date and turning round to condemn the past ones. Or he may tell us that the live broadcast of president’s service in State House Chapel is not discriminatory, either because adherents of other faiths do not need it or that they were also given the same privilege or that the established practice is that only religion of the serving president should enjoy that privilege. He may equally educate us that the professor, at that time Minister in charge of NTA, has no hand in the whole thing as was being canvassed by Mohammed Haruna.
However, the Rev. Father instead went about telling us that the professor is a Ph D, he is an internationally recognised well-experienced person and that Mohammed Haruna’s criticism was because the professor is a Christian and a minority. This Awoist strategy is no more holding water in the realities of today’s Nigeria. The elections of Chief MKO Abiola on a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the June 12, 1993 election widely accepted as the freest and fairest in our history and the election of Chief Obasanjo in 1999 by all parts of the country even when his kinsmen rejected him are good pointers. It is true that no matter how the proponents of separating religion from the state want it, religion always plays a role in politics of election even in the so-called advanced democracies where even the denomination of a candidate matters. However, the reality of Nigeria is that no single religion, region or tribe can elect a president with their block votes. Therefore, any religion, region or tribe needs support from others to be able to produce a president. I don’t think a seasoned journalist and administrator like Mohammed Haruna will be championing the idea that a non-Muslim or a minority should not be president. I did not see where he said so in his column. He only wrote on credibility and competence that cut across religious, tribal or sectional barriers. General Gowon was once a head of state and he ruled for the longest for that matter. Nobody disliked him because of his religious or minority status. He remains one of the most respected elder statesmen even among the generality of Muslims. I think Father Kukah should know that Nigerians are becoming wiser. He should look for another strategy.
By the way, I doubt if Kukah’s fight for minority rights is genuine for all minorities. He accused Mohammed Haruna of not having Christians on the board of his Citizen Magazine. Well, even if that is true, Citizen Magazine was a private enterprise and not bound by any federal character requirement. However, the Rev. Father was in Nigeria when Obasanjo administration was accused of not appointing a single Muslim minister from the whole of six states of the southwest among the Yoruba tribe. I cannot remember the Reverend Father coming out to support the clamour that Yoruba Muslims deserve a minister. Minorities are minorities, whether they are Muslims, Christians or animists. If, however, his fight is for a particular minority, then he is no better than those he accuses of championing the cause of a particular north.
Now that Mohammed Haruna has debunked all the allegations made by Rev. Kukah against him (DailyTrust, Wednesday 26th July 2006, I also read the second part on the internet) where does the latter stand in the defence of the professor? He has left all the points raised by Mohammed Haruna against the professor intact. The Rev. Father is simply a poor defender. Ibrahim M. Attahir Esq. Abuja Quarters, Gombe.
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