Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah,
of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, has warned President Muhammadu Buhari to adjust his style of
leadership.
Kukah said this in his Easter message titled: ‘Easter Message to Mr. President And All Nigerians’.
“Mr. President, you are too distant from your people.
“There is a sad feeling that you do not share in the pain and
suffering of your people. You must very quickly find a way of connecting
with your people before the devil takes over the space,” the cleric
said in the letter.
The Bishop reminded Buhari: “This is no ordinary Easter, because
these are no ordinary times for our country, Nigeria, over which you
preside.”
He noted that the country “is so split both vertically and
horizontally today that all of us must honestly identify our many sins
of omission and commission, so that we can honestly seek a solution.”
According to him, “This is a time for us to genuinely face what looks
to me like an impending calamity. The gathering clouds are clear for us
to see. And even those who cannot see can hear the rumbling and rolling
sound of thunder. We ignore them at our own risk.”
Kukah regretted that although Buhari “rode into town like a knight in
shining armour…the bogeyman of religion, region and ethnicity, which we
thought we had overcome by the sheer nature of your support base, have
come back with a vengeance to haunt and threaten the very foundation of
our existence.”
He told the President: “You have a date with history and divine judgment.”
The bishop criticised religious leaders for being “as divided as the
people” they lead, saying: “We have been seduced by powerful politicians
and have allowed politics to corrupt the sacred spaces of religion.
“Thus we have lost our voices and no longer seem to have the capacity to interrogate power, as we are called to do.”