Bishop Mathew Kukah of Sokoto Diocese has accused the federal government of being silent on the plight of students under captivity in the country.
Kukah, in his Christmas message titled: ‘A Nation Still In Search of Truth And Vindication,’ said that after over seven years, “over one hundred Chibok Girls are still marooned in the ocean of uncertainty. Over three years after, Leah Sharibu is still unaccounted for. Students of the Federal Government College, Yauri, and children from Islamiyya School, Katsina, are still in captivity.
“This does not include hundreds of other children whose captures were less dramatic. We also have lost count of hundreds of individuals and families who have been kidnapped and live below the radar of publicity.
“Tales and promises about planned rescues have since deteriorated into mere whispers. Nothing expresses the powerlessness of the families like the silence of state at the federal level,” he said
The bishop, however, asked: “Does the President of Nigeria not owe us an explanation and answers as to when the abductions, kidnappings, brutality, senseless, and endless massacres of our citizens will end?
“We have before us a government totally oblivious to the cherished values of the sacredness of life.
According to him, “the silence of the federal government only feeds the ugly beast of complicity in the deeds of these evil people who have suspended the future of entire generations of our children.
Bishop Kukah, called on the President, in collaboration with the Governors who were doing their best to preserve and protect their people to develop a more honest, open and robust strategy for ending the humiliation of our people and restore social order, noting that, “We have borne enough humiliation as communities and a country.
He also chided religious leaders who use their position for self aggredizement aggrandizement.
“We must learn to take occasional rejection as part of our mission.
“We are often not necessarily better off than those we condemn. There is a lot in our personal and public lives that does not honour the Gospel.
“The very idea that today, we are measuring the efficacy of our apostolates by the size of human structures or the level of our material prosperity is in sharp contrast to the mind of Christ the one who was born in a manger, rode on a borrowed donkey, had nowhere to lay his head, ate the last supper with his disciples in a friend’s upper room and was buried in a borrowed tomb
“We have heard complaints from politicians whom religious leaders love to castigate that even they cannot tell the difference between real preachers and merchants simply using the gospel for self-enrichment, ” he alleged.
He called on the National Assembly to quickly take notice of the observations made by the President on the issues of Direct or Indirect Primaries and return the Bill to the President for assent.
“I believe that the President’s heart is still in the right place and we should focus on the serious issues,” he said.
He called on religious leaders to join hands and rescue religion from the clutches of those who were simply keen to use it to feed their ambitions for power.
