In a deeply emotional Easter message, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto issued a powerful call to action, urging President Bola Tinubu to rescue Nigerians from the growing burden of suffering, hunger, and insecurity.
Addressing the state of the nation on Easter Sunday, Bishop Kukah painted a bleak picture of life across the country, lamenting what he described as widespread despair, pain, and a nation teetering on the edge. “Mr. President, hunger, sickness and desolation stalk the land,” he said, stressing that while the removal of fuel subsidies was a difficult but necessary step, the hardship it triggered has yet to be meaningfully addressed.
Kukah questioned the impact of recent government efforts aimed at cushioning the economic blow for citizens, warning against reducing national dignity to handouts. “The distribution of palliatives diminishes the dignity of our people,” he cautioned, calling instead for structural changes. “Make food security a fundamental human right to all citizens,” he urged.
On the issue of national security, the cleric did not hold back. He decried the entrenchment of violence and terror across the country, describing how banditry and insecurity have been allowed to take deep root. “Today we have watched as the cancer of insecurity and violence have metastasised,” Kukah said. “Now, this cancer threatens the very foundation of our common humanity.”
He traced the origins of this security crisis to political manipulation, alleging that groups now unleashing terror were initially empowered as tools for political gain. “Bandits, who were brought into the country as a strategy for upstaging the government of the day, have become embedded in every sphere of the lives of Nigerians,” he warned.
Kukah painted a chilling reality of daily life in Nigeria, where “a dark pall of death hangs languidly from north to south,” and kidnappings, killings, and displacement have become routine. “It is impossible to find a home, a family, or a community that has not been caught in the cusp of this savagery,” he lamented.
While acknowledging that Tinubu inherited many of the nation’s challenges, Kukah stressed that the burden of leadership now rests squarely on his shoulders. “Mr. President, we all admit that you neither erected this cross nor did you affect our collective crucifixion. Notwithstanding, Nigerians have been dangling and bleeding on this cross of pain and mindless suffering for too long.”
In a final, passionate plea, the Bishop appealed for urgent and transformative leadership:
“With a greater sense of urgency, hasten to bring us down from this cross of evil.”
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