Kukah: Sharia Was Supposed To Bring Joy — How Come Boko Haram And Bandits Have Taken Over?

Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, is worried about the mounting insecurity in many parts of the North despite the introduction of Sharia to widespread Islamic acclaim.

Kukah was speaking in Abuja on Friday during a lecture titled ‘Optimising Public Relations Strategies for National Cohesion’, which he delivered at the 2019 Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).

He urged the Nigerian government to interrogate the governors who introduced Sharia Law in 1999, on the emergence of Boko Haram sect.

He said the insurgents’ areas of operation are contiguous with the areas where the Sharia declarations were made.

“To create a much better, just and fair society, hypocrisy has to stop," he said according quotes reported by TheNation.

"Now it is virtually impossible to travel from Sokoto to Zamfara by road because of insecurity in the country. In 1999, Sharia Law was declared in Nigeria, and almost all the 19 northern states joyfully, exuberantly adopted it.

“According to the principles of Sharia, we are supposed to be seeing joy, happiness and equity and so forth. Well, those who brought the Sharia should tell us why Boko Haram and bandits have now taken over our country.”

Kukah also expressed concerns about how Nigerians voted along regional and ethnic lines in the 2019 general election, warning that if the trend persists, the capacity for managing the nation’s diversity would continue to shrink.

“We are practising politics of very poor quality," he said.

"The politics is so regionalised, factionalised. Whenever I look at the map of the last elections, I don’t feel proud as a Nigerian.

“That you have an election in which very clearly the country is divided into two and the lines are precise means what the North is saying and thinking is different from the South is saying and thinking. They are not realities; they are perceptions. And if this is the kind of country that we have, how do we develop the capacity to manage diversity?