Christmas message: Leave Sokoto now – Muslim group threatens Bishop Kukah

Muslim Solidarity Forum, Sokoto, has threatened the Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah, to quickly and quietly leave Sokoto or stop what the group called “his malicious vituperations against Islam and Muslims”.

The threat by the forum came barely 24 hours after Kukah accused the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), the umbrella body of Muslim groups, of inciting violence against him over the Christmas message.

The cleric, according to reports had in the message accused the Muhammadu Buhari administration of not living up to expectation due to mounting economic and security challenges confronting the nation.

He said Buhari was “institutionalising northern hegemony against national interests,” adding that if a President of non-Northern extraction had done a fraction of that, he would have been removed from office via coup de tat.

But Muslim Solidarity Forum said Kukah’s “innuendos and parables” in his speeches were against Islam and its adherents, adding that they were provocative.

The group also enjoined Bishop Kukah to tender unreserved apology to the Muslim Ummah.

The group’s acting chairman, Professor Isa Maishanu, in a statement, noted that Kukah with his unbecoming callous statement was trying to break the age-long peaceful coexistence between the predominantly Muslims and Christians.

The statement came amidst allegations by the Department of State Services of a plot to incite religious violence in some states by some elements working with external forces.

The group directed Muslim leaders, who out of magnanimity had been showing goodwill to the Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Sokoto to realise that he (Bishop Kukah) is taking their kindness for granted, stressing that Kukah doesn’t appreciate the gesture but fiercely attacks them at any given opportunity.

The statement noted, “In February 2020, he (Kukah) shamelessly staged a demonstration in the heart of Sokoto over the killing of a single Christian priest, presumably, by the Boko Haram insurgents, but did not consider hundreds of Muslims, Fulani herders that were mercilessly killed by the Christian militia in Taraba state in 2018.”

The group asked Bishop Kukah what he thought would have happened “if the peace-loving Muslims in Sokoto had responded to his provocative attacks on them and their religion like what happened in Kafanchan 1987, Zangon Kataf 1992, Tafawa Balewa in 1987, 1993, 1995 and 2001, Yelwa Shandam 2004, Zonkwa and Jarkasa in 2011.”

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