- Shehu Sani to FG – Flog Sultan, Sheikh Gumi like you did Kukah for criticising Buhari
Amidst the furore generated by the 2020 Christmas Day essay of the fiery Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Dr Mathew Hassan Kukah wherein he condemned the flagrant nepotism of President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has asked the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, to refrain from speaking if he found Bishop Kukah’s essay difficult to comprehend.
The organisation in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said Kukah’s Christmas Day essay,merely highlighted the nepotism which characterised the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Meanwhile, Former Senator and President of the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, Shehu Sani, has said the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Muhammad, and Sheikh Ahmed Gumi should equally be flogged for criticising President Muhammadu Buhari.
Sani, in a tweet on his Twitter handle, spoke against the backdrop of the criticism of the Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Rt. Rev. Hassan Matthew Kukah, by the Federal Government through the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, for his Christmas Day message.
In the message, Kukah called for a better handling of the country by Buhari.
Reacting to the criticism, the former representative of Kaduna Central Senatorial District said: “Kukah threw stones, the Sultan threw stones, Sheikh Gumi threw stones, if you want to flog them flog them equally.
“Dazzol.”
HURIWA on its part described Kukah as one of the lovers of constitutional democracy, noting that the minister was, as usual, very economical with the truth and went on the voyage of discovery when he misinterpreted the essay written in simple English language by the highly cerebral and globally celebrated intellectual.
The group explained that Kukah had never in any way advocated violent overthrow of a democratically constituted government in Nigeria or anywhere else in any of his over 10,000 published essays.
The bishop had stated last week that there could be coup or war in the country if a non-Muslim becomes a president and does a fraction of what Buhari did.
HURIWA wrote: “Kukah only pointed out the obvious that President Buhari has consistently and continuously unleashed divisive and scotch-earth apartheid policies of divide-and-rule, nepotism and religious-cum-ethnic chauvinism and bigotry in all his appointments, especially to top internal security architecture, including the recent promotions in the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) in which the North got the significant percentage of all the promoted senior police officers, even as the South East was allotted just one top position.”
According to HURIWA, the entire internal security architecture, dominated by persons from one section of the country to the exclusion of all others, offends the Federal Character principle as provided for in the constitution and Section 42(1), which speaks to the issue of discrimination on the bases of tribe, religion or political affiliations.
The current administration, since 2015, has maintained the divisive posture of appointing only Moslem Northerners to head the police, Department of State Services (DSS), Immigration, Customs, Civil Defence, and especially all the strong defence positions in the military that command and control the largest number of troops and equipment, the group noted.
It added that some outspoken Northerners, including House of Representatives member in the Second Republic, Alhaji Junaid Mohammed, had condemned Buhari for nepotistic appointments into strategic national offices.
Kukah accused President Buhari of deliberately sacrificing the dreams of Nigerians to institutionalise northern hegemony on Friday in his Christmas message, titled: “A Nation in Search of Vindication.”
He said the spilling of blood in the country must be related to a more sinister plot.
The clergyman noted that under Buhari’s government, Nigeria appeared to be heading for darkness with the citizens travelling in a rudderless ship without any destination in sight.
Sultan Abubakar had before then described the abduction of hundreds of Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State as a slap on President Buhari’s face.
Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has been consistent in criticizing the government of President Buhari and it’s failure to address security challenges, improve the economy and rampant cases of corruption.
