Bishop Kukah’s Grave Misreading By Okey Ndibe | Sahara Reporters

Of Diaspora Bashing, Naija Pessimism and Other Issues: Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah vs Prof Okey Ndibe - Part Two

"Anybody who reads Kukah’s attack on me without the benefit of reading my original piece could run away with the impression that I’m a haughty, condescending guy who regards fellow Nigerians as ants. Yet, any literate reader who reads my column would come to a different—in fact, opposite—conclusion. I had complained in an earlier column that Boko Haram was butchering Nigerians as if their victims were chickens. Rather than abate, the scale of the horrific killings continued to escalate, with little serious action by the political leaders who are paid (in fact overpaid) to protect Nigerians. That worsening tragedy forced me to bemoan the plight of Nigerians whose deaths went largely unnoticed, as if they were ants."

"That Bishop Kukah sought to mischaracterize my piece speaks volumes, I suggest, about his politics. His line of attack was certainly curious. Faced with the specter of Boko Haram, he chose, instead, to lash out at critics of the government’s inept response. For him, there was little moral distinction to be made between Boko Haram and social critics. Indeed, given the severity of his rebuke of me (and other misguided “brethren in the Diaspora”), the bishop appeared to regard me as more dangerous than Abubakar Shekau who proudly boasted of abducting and enslaving more than two hundred schoolgirls! In fact, the bishop was so vexed that he all but called on the Nigerian state to declare me persona non grata (in line with what he presumed that Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and other African countries would do to my ilk)!"

"Curiously, nowhere in Bishop Kukah’s lengthy lecture did one find an expression of outrage about Boko Haram’s carnage to match the fury he marshaled against me. Which all betrayed a dodgy stance on the part of the bishop. I am amazed that this bishop expended so much breath to portray me as an enemy of the people precisely because I challenged the government to live up to its duty to protect Nigerians’ lives and property. How his attack must have shocked the bard he was invited to honor!"

"So here are a few questions I’d like to address to the dear bishop. The Catholic Church to which you and I belong teaches the inherent dignity of every human. What, then, accounts for your silence about the 2,053 innocents callously killed by Boko Haram? Where, in your lecture, was there that stipulation about the irreducible dignity of human lives? Are you at peace, sir, with the incessant massacre of hapless Nigerians? You were in such haste to berate me and other foreign-based critics simply because we ask more of Nigerian leaders and security agents. Are you satisfied, bishop, with what the government has done so far in response to the scourge of Boko Haram?"  By Prof Okey Ndibe