The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has warned Bishop Matthew Kukah not to destroy the quest for national integration by instigating violence through the exploitation of the cleavages of religion to cause disharmony in the country.
A statement issued by the CNG and signed by its spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman on Monday noted that such a move will cause disharmony and facilitate the further emasculation of northern Nigerian Muslims.
The statement maintained that CNG finds it ironic that a reverend would choose the revered occasion of the celebration of the birth of Christ to needlessly incite hatred against a section of the country.
“This statement by Kukah only goes to testify to the growing trend by bigots of selectively amplifying the perceived crimes of the Hausa/Fulani Muslims and downplaying those committed against them.
“It testifies to how religious bodies and leaders such as Kukah in more ways than one, attempt to aid the deterioration of the situation in the country by stimulating a form of Islamophobia on the back of the most gratuitous false story of an Islamisation agenda.
“It also furthers the irresponsible and unacceptable practice of preachers using the pulpit to promote falsehood and incite their followers against certain sections of the society by labelling and earmarking them to be targeted irrespective of whether they are part of a crime committed or not.
“History is being shamefully and blatantly reviewed, rewritten and falsified. In the process, the consciousness eroded Kukah that the four most violent military insurrections in Nigeria’s history were schemed, spearheaded and executed by non-Muslims, and in most cases, non-Northerners.”
According to the statement, “it is important, therefore, to place on record, that the very first and most bloody January 1966 coup was carried out by mostly non-Muslim Igbo army officers including Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, and Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna.
“The casualties of the coup were mostly northern Muslims including the Prime Minister Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Sardauna of Sokoto Sir Ahmadu Bello, Brigadier Abubakar Maimalari and others.
“This was followed by another bloody counter-coup same year led By Yakubu Gowon and Yakubu Danjuma (both non-Muslim northerners) which saw Major-General Gowon succeed Ironsi.
“In 1975, Gowon (northern Christian) was ousted in a peaceful palace coup by Brigadier Murtala Muhammed (a northern Muslim). In 1976, the bloody aborted coup by Lt Colonel Bukar Suka Dimka, a northern Christian, led to the assassination of General Murtala Muhammed, a northern Muslim.
“Then the relatively non-violent Coup of December 31, 1983, led by a group of senior army officers headed by Major General Muhammadu Buhari, a northern Muslim, overthrew the government of President Shehu Shagari, another northern Muslim.
“A palace coup was then led by Major General Ibrahim Babangida, a northern Muslim who peacefully overthrew the administration of Buhari. In 1990, Major Gideon Orkar, a northern Christian, staged a violent attempt to overthrow the government of General Ibrahim Babangida.
interim government of Chief Ernest Shonekan. Kukah’s calumny is so glaring here in the mischievous way he deliberately distorted the Nigerian coup narratives to suit an agenda that tends to portray the North, the Hausa/ Fulani and Muslims in a bad light and render them as the culprit and the guilty entity.
“We are thus worried that this attempt at singling out a certain religion and targeting its adherents for stereotyping and stigmatizing follows the same pattern employed just before the Rwandan massacre of 1996.
“We do not contend their claims of the current administrative lapses, nor do we intend to fault the right of people to criticise government’s inadequate, ineffective, exclusive and unfocused policies.
“The northern Muslims, contrary to the deliberate distortions by the Kukahs, happen to be the major casualty of this administration’s serial misgovernance in terms of security, economy, distribution of key federal appointments and essential goods and services, making it unacceptably irresponsible for Kukah and his ilk to hide behind the guise of criticism of the government to attack a whole ethnic or religious group.
“We therefore emphatically repudiate any attempt at the vilification of one ethnic and religious group or the other for whatever reason or justification.
“In this light, we deem the Kukah’s persistent targeting of the entire northern Muslims for vilification, systematic dehumanization, profiling, alienation or any action that will render them an object of attack and persecution, not only immoral and illegal but also abhorrent to our sensibilities and ordinary decency and therefore unacceptable.
“We at CNG are quite aware that targeting of any ethnic or religious group and singling it out for any negative action for all intents and purposes, is against both our laws and international law.
“To this end, with the utmost concern, the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) notes the latest attempt by a Reverend Father Mathew Hassan Kukah of the Sokoto Diocese to destroy the quest for national integration by instigating violence through exploiting cleavages of religious nature to cause disharmony and facilitate the further emasculation of northern Nigerian Muslims,” the statement declared.
