Ignore Bishop Kukah, he is ‘Mischievous’- Buhari media warns US Congress

The Buhari Media Organization, BMO, has warned US parliamentarians to beware of Bishop Mathew Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto.

The group in a statement sent to POLITICS NIGERIA, branded the clergyman as ‘mischievous’ over his recent virtual testimony at the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the United States of America’s Congress.

Kukah made a presentation criticizing the Buhari administration and revealing alleged government-sanctioned persecution of Christians in Nigeria.

However, in a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, the group accused Kukah of ‘deliberate mischief’.

“Like many Nigerians, we were aghast to watch Bishop Kukah, a key leader of the National Peace Committee (NPC), making a presentation before a US Congress commission about alleged government-sanctioned persecution of Christians that is clearly at variance with the realities on the ground.”

“We make bold to say that issues of banditry and insurgency in some parts of Northern Nigeria are pure criminality, not necessarily sectarian, and we are seriously concerned that Kukah who admitted in his testimony that Muslims have also been targeted, would even attempt to present criminal matters as religious cleansing or systemic persecution of Christians.”

“In fact, all indications point to the Muslim community suffering more attacks from criminal elements in the North than the picture the Catholic Bishop painted to the Americans about a worse situation for Christians in the past 10 years.”

“More worrisome is the suggestion by Father Kukah that the Buhari administration is not only helpless but also not willing to deal decisively with bandits. Our position is that this line of thought can only be pushed by an unrepentant government critic who has deliberately refused to acknowledge the work that the administration and the military have been doing to stem the tide of banditry and other security challenges in the land.”

“We simply wonder how someone who lives and works in Sokoto would not be aware of the several bombing raids by the Nigeria Air Force on bandits’ locations in neighbouring Zamfara State, including the most recent one that killed at least 120 bandits in Sububu forest the day before his skewed testimony before the US Congress.”

“Bishop Kukah’s case is not that of innocent ignorance. It is deliberate mischief because there is no way a public affairs analyst like him would not know that no administration has done more than the current one in 20 years to boost the operational efficiency of the Police and other security agencies”.

“We want to advice American Parliamentarians to be wary of the Catholic Bishop who, although he is the Secretary of the National Peace Committee (NPC), he has hardly done anything to facilitate national peace. Rather, he takes regular potshots at the Buhari administration.”