Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari’s method of prosecuting his highly publicised anti-graft war, has been questioned and scrutinized by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto diocese.The Bishop of Sokoto Diocese of the Catholic Church, Matthew Kukah, has faulted President Muhammadu Buhari’s method of prosecuting his anti-graft war.
The cleric said it is worrisome that the president has not changed the approach he used when he took over government in a military coup in 1984.
Kukah also said some of the president’s ‘new friends’ in the All Progressives Congress (APC) were those he sent to jail, when he served as military head of state.
“I have known Buhari for a while but I don’t want to claim I am close to him but he is a man I have tremendous respect for.
“My worry is that President Buhari thought and probably still thinks corruption is stealing money, and the people stealing money are largely bureaucrats or government officials, which was what happened in 1984.
“Buhari simply went around and arrested all the people who were holding government offices. The only thing we feel very sad about Nigeria is our collective amnesia. There are people who are key kingpins in APC today who were sentenced to various years of imprisonment by Buhari in 1984, some up to 100 years.
“But, since this is Nigeria, many of them have finished serving their 100-year jail term. They have come back, joined APC and are active members of the party.
“Buhari was not brought into power by angels. We know the nature of the vehicle that would bring anybody to the presidency of Nigeria.”
Kukah said he was not in the position to access the Buhari administration, but maintained that the president still had the time to make right his wrongs. I am not the one to measure Buhari’s competence.
It will take us four years to decide if Buhari is the man for the job or not. Or we have the National Assembly; if they are serious and up to their job, they can stop an incompetent president mid-way. Buhari is going to be president for four years. We are just gone past the first half. And, like the game of soccer, until the final whistle is blown, you can’t say who has won.
“It is quite conceivable that he might probably do something quite spectacular. For example, he is going to the South East, which I think is quite unfortunate because it came so many years too late.
“But, notwithstanding that, I think with a certain kind of smartness, and if the president has the ability to look back and say what could we have done differently, and, if he can take his attention away from some of the hypocrites around him, and who actually want to borrow his voice and think that anybody who is critical of his government has a motive. I think Buhari is free to step forward and say he wants to run for the 2019 election,” he said.
Short of writing off the government as a failure, Kukah said after over two years in the saddle, it would be difficult to point to what it has achieved.
“If I ask you to point at one department of government that is so upbeat about what people have achieved, I think it will be hard to find out any. We must get our people to a point where they appreciate when the value of their life is depreciating. And that is what is happening to us now.
“For me, these are some of the issues and that is why I say Buhari himself is not happy… except a few ministers, but even the ministers themselves are unhappy because they didn’t imagine that they would be going through the difficulty that they are going through.” (Tori)