Dear Bishop Matthew Kukah, Judas Iscariot is only remembered for the last week of his life: In the last “week” of his life, Bishop Matthew Kukah, age 73, has rubbished an entire lifetime’s reputation and inexplicably, decided to go the way of Judas Iscariot, the most infamous betrayer known to mankind… Kukah’s new stance betrays all the priests and seminarians that have been kidnapped and beheaded, the CAN chairman forced to dig his own grave before being beheaded, the mother whose seven children were slaughtered, those slaughtered and buried in mass graves… The callousness of his recent “10 million killed” comment, which came after massive criticism of his initial denial that there is ongoing Christian genocide in Nigeria, makes Judas Iscariot appear to be a better person because Judas at least showed a measure of regret; while Bishop Kukah doubled down and became more arrogant and cruel, dismissing the slaughter of tens of thousands of his flock with bombastic head-scratching jargon.
I feel sorry for Bishop Matthew Kukah. To me, he epitomises Ezekiel 18:24: “If a righteous man turns from their righteousness and …does the same things that a wicked person does will they live? Of course not. All their righteous acts will be forgotten and they will die for their sins.”
In the last “week” of his life, Bishop Matthew Kukah, age 73, has rubbished an entire lifetime’s reputation and inexplicably, decided to go the way of Judas Iscariot, the most infamous betrayer known to mankind.
Nobody knows exactly how old Judas Iscariot was when he died. We know he walked with Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as part of His inner caucus of twelve disciples for three and a half years and was among those that performed miracles in His Name. We know that he was in charge of the money and that he stole from the general purse of the God of Creation, Jesus Christ.
We also know that he had zero true love and respect for God in the flesh; and in the last week of his life, he was furious with Mary (Lazarus’ sister) for daring to lavish her expensive perfume on Jesus Christ instead of selling the perfume and putting the money in the purse for him (Judas) to steal from. In his eyes, Jesus was unworthy of Mary’s worship whereas he, Judas, deserved to have the funds from the perfume put into his hands so he could steal it.
As the first example of those who follow Jesus for material gain, it didn’t take long before he went to the leaders, the enemies of Jesus Christ, to collect thirty pieces of silver as payment for betraying God. He foolishly believed he could ‘419’ Jesus Christ’s enemies after collecting his fee in advance because he thought that Jesus would definitely escape them after he (Judas) identified Him to His enemies in Gethsemane.
Judas’ shock was that Jesus did not disappear after he identified Him to his enemies; and that his greed resulted in the murder of the Son of God by the leaders of the day.
But to Judas Iscariot’s credit, he became remorseful once his Advance Fee Fraud led to the death of Jesus Christ. He promptly tried to give back the money he collected for betraying Christ. When his paymasters refused to collect the money, he killed himself out of shame/ remorse / bitterness/ whatever.
To betray a child of God is to betray Jesus all over again. One of the current High Priests in Nigeria, Bishop Matthew Kukah, is no different from Annas or Caiaphas. I’m not sure who represents Pilate in Bishop Kukah’s life because in today’s Nigeria, the power brokers in the orchestrated killings are many.
This is the same Bishop Matthew Kukah, who in 2022 was summoned by the DSS for criticising the Government for complicity in the kidnappings and other persecution of Nigeria’s Christians. His about-turn in suddenly denying the existence of systemic genocidal killings of Christians is so total that even Judas Iscariot might have suffered whiplash had he been alive to witness it.
Kukah’s new stance betrays all the priests and seminarians that have been kidnapped and beheaded, the CAN chairman forced to dig his own grave before being beheaded, the mother whose seven children were slaughtered, those slaughtered and buried in mass graves.
His stance betrays Bishop Wilfred Anagba and the courageous priests still speaking out at the risk of their lives. It betrays Leah Sharibu, who at only 14 years of age, refused to deny Jesus Christ and has been kept in captivity as punishment, enduring horrors that Bishop Kukah will never endure rather than deny our Lord Jesus Christ. She displayed a level of courage that Bishop Kukah has never shown.
I cannot fathom the volte-face by Bishop Kukah, especially his recent attempt to arrogantly educate us about the definition of genocide, saying that even if 10 million people were killed – 10 million! – it didn’t amount to genocide because “intent” is what determines genocide.
We therefore have to question his academic qualifications because he obviously doesn’t understand the intent behind the name of Islamic State-West Africa Province (ISWAP), or Boko Haram, or Fulani Jihadists shouting “Allahu akbar” as they slaughter innocent Christians in their sleep and abduct the young girls to rape, forcefully convert and impregnate to reproduce more terrorists. He must also have gone blind in his old age not to see the number of burnt churches and Christian villages taken over by Fulani terrorists who sacked indigenous Christian populations. I haven’t even seen one single comment from him about the 315 abducted children from the Catholic school in Niger State! I haven’t heard him advocate for Leah Sharibu or Deborah Samuels or Sunday Jackson. Instead, he chose to showcase that his grasp of English is at par with Boko Haram terrorists’.
The callousness of his recent “10 million killed” comment, which came after massive criticism of his initial denial that there is ongoing Christian genocide in Nigeria, makes Judas Iscariot appear to be a better person because Judas at least showed a measure of regret; while Bishop Kukah doubled down and became more arrogant and cruel, dismissing the slaughter of tens of thousands of his flock with bombastic head-scratching jargon.
At this time, I can only assume that he has fallen victim to the judgment in Hebrews 6:4-6, which states that it is impossible for those who once tasted the heavenly gift of salvation and the goodness of the Word of God to be brought back after falling away because they are betraying Christ all over again and subjecting Him to public disgrace. That is the only spiritual state that can explain Bishop Kukah’s current stance.
We need not be angry with him anymore. Bishop Kukah has exceeded the 70 years in Psalm 90:10 and is in his final “week” on earth. He has cast off all restraint and pretence and there is no way back.
Like Judas Iscariot, he will only be remembered for this last “week” of his life. All he did in the past is long forgotten as a mirage or a deception. His epitaph will always have this as his final definition.
He appears to have made his peace with hell and does not care what anyone thinks. We wish him bon voyage!
He is equally free to join Abike Dabiri to misdefine this as a vendetta in his next English definition lesson on the meaning of “genocide”.
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