As he clocks 70 today, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Most Reverend Matthew Hassan Kukah, has said that Nigeria is going through the worst phase in its history.

The former secretary-general of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, however, said he believes that it will be the last.

Kukah said it is unlikely that the nation shall ever have a government with such a low threshold of pursuing the common good of all citizens, “nor will we have one that squandered so much goodwill on the altar of very severely narrow and parochial ends.”

In this interview, Kukah recalled his growing up days in Kaduna, his call to the priesthood and his involvement in local and international engagements, among others.

How do you feel to be 70?

I haven’t been 70 before, so I cannot give you a good answer. Just that I cannot thank God enough for what He has done to me all these years. I am thankful that I have enjoyed good health.

What was your growing up like?

Long story, but, like most village boys of my time, I look back with nostalgia because there is no substitute to growing up with your grandmother. I spent the first six or so years with my maternal grandmother in a loving family setting and I actually did not know that my maternal uncle was not my father, nor that my cousins were not my blood brothers. It was a great time and a great life, distant from any form of urban life.

What are those fond memories you have about your growing up?

Trekking to school, playing games with my cousins, fighting on the local football pitch, on the way to school and everywhere and later growing up and having the chance to serve at Mass and so on.

How did you discern your call to the sacred priesthood?

There is hardly any substitute for the memories of serving at Mass, which was in Latin. We did not have a church but Mass was in the local classroom and, even without the ambience, the fact that the reverend father was a priest, being a Mass server gave you some prestige among us children. You could end up touching Father directly in the course of serving at Mass, which was a privilege we did not take lightly. There was often a fight over carrying anything related to Mass and to be sent by Father to carry something he had forgotten was really exciting. We can laugh now, but our parish priest was the first white man I saw in my life. His station wagon was the first car I saw in my life. It was a life of great innocence.

Do you have any regret not getting married?

As they say, you ran away from the seminary. Do you regret getting married rather than being a priest?

What is it like to be an activist man of God?

I do not know what you mean by activist man of God. All of us are active, we move our muscles to stay active and healthy. So, we are all activists; perhaps, it depends on what excites or energises us. Preaching the love of God, the urgency of trying to see that you bring men and women to God, generates its own adrenalin. You cannot love Jesus Christ and His message of salvation without being an activist. So, it comes with the territory.

You are known to always be either on the move, attending to local and international engagements. When do you have time to relax?

I honestly do not know what you mean by relaxing. If by it you mean sitting down in contemplation. I think it was my good friend, Dan Agbese, who answered this question in the way and manner that I can relate with. He said, I relax while working and work while relaxing. I am lazy, but I think I love to work. I watch movies, documentaries, I read quite a bit and used to play a few games, squash and football and table tennis, especially. But I had no chance of being a Jay Jay Okocha or an Atanda Musa.

How does Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah socialise?

I like music a lot. I like to dance alone or with friends. I do not think I could have won a prize but I do enough to exercise and enjoy myself. I like dance as a form of cultural expression. I like to talk a lot, perhaps too much, but I do love discussions and debates. I like to learn from others, especially those whom I know have a better grasp of issues. I like to sing and, again, I did not win a prize, but I do derive great joy from singing, whether in the choir or music.

If you were not a priest, what other vocation or profession would you have joyfully embraced?

A lawyer. And, I should add, a really good one at that. I would have found the Bench boring, because I love a good fight. You know what the good old pastor, Vernon Jones, the American pastor who preceded Martin Luther King, said? He said he had a philosophy which said: If you see a good fight, get into it. I would have given Femi Falana a run for his money. He too ran away from the seminary, as you know.

What necessitated the establishment of the Kukah Centre and the convening of the National Peace Committee?

Well, the idea of the Kukah Centre has been with me for many years. When I finished (at the) Oputa Panel, I got a chance to go to NIPS, courtesy of the Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, then, but I got a better offer from Oxford as a Senior Rhodes Fellow at St. Anthony’s College. I spent almost two years, and when I had a better offer from the John F. Kennedy School of Government as a Mason Fellow and to do a master’s pogramme in public policy, I was quite excited. Putting all of these experiences together with serving in about four or five presidential committees increased my itch to create a structure. I was already on this when I was appointed Bishop of Sokoto and that slowed down the plans. We later picked up and now the centre is in very good hands.

The story of the National Peace Committee is slightly different and I have told it severally. You may recall the sentiments around the 2015 elections, which occurred against the backdrop of the Kenyan elections. There were fears and anxiety, and you may recall the role of the late Kofi Annan. He came to Nigeria at the invitation of Chief Ben Obi, who was then in charge of a very important office called the Presidential Office for Inter-Party Affairs. He made an excellent job of bringing politicians together across both sides despite being in the government in power. He organized a conference in which Kofi Annan was a special guest, with Chief Emeka Anyaoku as the chairman. I was invited but I had other engagements and could not attend. I got a call from Chief Anyaoku after the conference. When I saw his call, I said, I am in trouble because I now have to explain why I could not come for the conference. However, after he asked why I did not come for the conference, I apologized, and then he asked if I was in Abuja. I said yes, and he asked if I had met Kofi Annan, I said no. He said, then he is here at the Transcorp Hilton and would like to see you. Ah, me, Kofi Annan wants to see me? He said Mr. Annan was on his way to the airport but he is ready to wait. I went off immediately to the Hilton and met both of them. Our meeting was brief. It was at the meeting that Chief Anyaoku mentioned to me that both President Jonathan and General Buhari had just signed a peace accord ahead of the election but that there was a need to set up a National Peace Committee made up of illustrious Nigerians from across the country. I cannot think of any other person more suitable to do this job than your good self, Chief Anyaoku said to me. I thanked him for the honour and said I would get to work. The result is the NPC you have now.

As the pioneer priest in the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, many expected you to succeed John Cardinal Onaiyekan. What went wrong?

What went wrong? That is not a correct question because we are not on a race track or playing some sport that someone lost. I take one day at a time. It was a great honour for me to have been called upon by the late Cardinal Ekandem, whom I had never even met, to start the Catholic Church in Abuja and act as his Special Delegate to the uncharted waters of the Federal Capital Territory in the days of political turbulence with no church presence. I arrived Abuja in 1982, barely six years after my ordination, and, therefore, a very young, inexperienced priest. By 1986, I had covered a lot of ground, secured lands and the church communities I started across the territory were growing. By 1986, His Eminence agreed that I go and complete my studies. He wanted me to go and study journalism because he appreciated my writings but I had other ideas. I left Abuja in 1986 to pursue my doctorate degree. I felt that chapter of my life was closed. That was all that I aspired for and, thank God, I had the chance to undertake such an assignment successfully.

The Catholic Church does not work like that, my dear friend, and, strange as it may sound to you, being a Bishop is not the result of influence peddling but the will of God. I have always been a very contented priest, convinced that what God wants for me is what He will use my superiors to direct me to.

All your life, you have been on the side of the people, even when your life was at risk. At what cost has that come to you, particularly on the issue of insecurity in the country and that of Southern Kaduna?

Frankly, I have never seen the tragedy that has afflicted us as a matter of individual survival, but how to rescue a great nation from the perfidy of political marauders who are prepared to sacrifice their people as a means of retaining power. This is the worse phase in the history of our nation and I believe it will be the last. It is unlikely that we shall ever have a government with such a low threshold of pursuing the common good of all citizens, nor will we have one that squandered so much goodwill on the altar of very severely narrow and parochial ends. So, rather than worry about my life being at risk, I am concerned that I am living in a country that has been placed on red alert in the area of collective human survival of its citizens.

What particular happening or incident is it that you can’t forget in your 70 years?

Life is not linear and I honestly cannot isolate one incident. God has been so gracious to me. I have had a good life, a good family, both biological and faith, and I have had good friends who have made sacrifices for me. So, flippant as it may sound, life has been a huge celebration, not free from problems but a celebration of the graciousness of God. I have tried to make my trust in God absolute and in that way you appreciate that, most often, God’s straight lines are humanly crooked.

How do you feel that the Catholic Church, where you rose to become the Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, seems to be moving from its conservative position to Pentecostalism. Do you see this as a misnomer?

Please, remember that Jesus did not build a Church. What we call the Church is a gathering of men and women who believe in Jesus Christ. They are from different cultures and they are in the world but, as Jesus said, not of the world. As such, we are not spectators to human existence. It is like being in an environment where music is being played, you often find yourself tapping your feet and so on in response to the music. Pentecostalism, as it is so called, is a manifestation of the founding of the Church and that is why Pentecost Sunday is called the Church’s birthday. We are moved by the spirit and we manifest it differently and there is no single way. Catholics go to Protestant and Pentecostal churches, and vice versa. They see a few things and they incorporate them into their worship. The centre of Catholic worship is the celebration of the Eucharist and that has never shifted. Although the temperature in the room has often changed but not the essence of the worship. You can see that, even among Muslims, there is a lot of borrowing from the churches, with the wearing of wedding gowns, wedding rings and so on. We never stand still.

Does this departure from the past have anything to do with inculturation?

It is the Catholic Church at the level of the Vatican that has encouraged inculturation in response to the various cultures of the world. Without compromises, inculturation can be seen as a form of incarnation, a bringing to local situations aspects of the message of Jesus that respond to the different cultural situations.

You have been clamouring for a better Nigeria. Are you frustrated that your calls have not yielded results?

I am not frustrated because I am a Christian. We know that Nigeria is not a mistake. It has fallen into the hands of too many marauders and rogues who have really never thought of anything other than themselves, their kinsmen and women. My clamour, to use your language, is borne out of a sense of urgency, given the situations around us and the world. The resources are perishable and those who lead us have shown no serious commitment to expanding the opportunities for Nigerians to grow and develop. See what has happened in countries like Egypt, Ethiopia and even Somalia in the last few years. Countries have managed to curtail violence and place their nation on a keel. See what Egypt and Ethiopia have done in the last few years in the area of power. Shamelessly, I saw on a television news thriller, the government celebrating that we now have 4,000 megawatts of electricity, all this, when we had over 5,000 in 2014. Compare with Ethiopia, which is now preparing to export power! I do not think we should be speaking of frustration but shame, absolute shame, on our leaders.

At what time do you think Nigeria has come to its lowest? Is it now or during the Biafra war?

In the Biafran war, we knew a war was on us. However, even at that, the Igbo scientists were developing local technologies and even now some Igbo engineers have been able to locally manufacture cars that, in a serious country, we should not be where we are. When I sit in an Innoson bus at the airport, I relax and breathe some fresh air. We are at our lowest right now. We may never have to face this situation, hopefully, where a government almost willingly handed over our nation to criminals, bandits, murderers and then sat on its hands watching people die. This is the worst phase in the history of our nation. We cannot survive another phase of this death in installments because we shall have no nation left. In seeking to take back our nation, no one must be left behind.

Having been around for a long time and witnessed successive governments, which would you adjudge the worst?

The evidence is there. It is not for me to judge. You judge too. When were you most secured? When were you able to feed yourself? When did you feel you had a country? When could you do normal routine things freely? When were you in the greatest fear? Ask yourself, are you better off now than you have ever been? Measure those who have had access against the 90 per cent of our population.

The debate on Muslim-Muslim ticket, is it misplaced?

We have a Muslim-Muslim in Kaduna State and, despite the overwhelming evidence, no lessons have been learnt and they are determined to continue on this ugly path. Why has our state become a furnace of death? The killers were made to believe that this is their home and they have come to take what is theirs at the expense of those who are not Muslims. See what they have done to Islam itself in the minds of ordinary people and see what they have done to ordinary poor Muslims. Has the decision made Muslims richer, healthier or better off in any way? Remember that today is the tomorrow you dreamt about yesterday.

Nigerians know how the Muslim-Muslim ticket came about. It is not even about what Christians think, but what do ordinary serious, morally decent Muslims who believe in diversity think of this? I would reject any ticket that does not appreciate our diversity in these very trying times that we are in. In normal times, would we be bothered about this, given the identities of the people involved and their records? I see Asiwaju and Shettima, two good Nigerians whom I know, as victims of circumstances that are beyond them, being made to lie on a Procrustean bed of opportunism not made by them. What surprises me is why Nigerians are not asking the kitchen where this broth was prepared and who the chef is.

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