The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Most Revd (Dr) Matthew Hassan Kukah, has tasked the federal government on food security for ordinary citizens as a fundamental step towards addressing the nation’s overall security challenges, lamenting that even with seeming reinvigorated fight against terrorism, kidnapping, banditry and other criminal activities, it is clear that Nigerians are still not safe in any part of the country.
Bishop Kukah, who spoke at the unveiling of the book, ‘Judicial Terrorism (on the 1992 Zangon Kataf Mock Trial)’ written by Richard Akinnola, said all that he and millions of Nigerians want is to be wherever they are in the country, adding adding that those who have been assigned the responsibility of holding offices must constantly have their performances measured by how secure Nigeria is and how secure Nigerians feel.
“So far, we still have a lot to do. And what is most troubling is that there is an increasing loss of confidence amongst Nigerians. There is also the sense that this affects the way the international community sees Nigeria. I just came back from Rome and most people I met, when people ask you about Nigeria, you really don’t know what to say. And I think we should very hurriedly get past a point in which we can talk very confidently about this very beautiful country. So, we are still not secure,” the revered cleric said.
“The challenges are enormous, but the insecurity is tied to a larger issue which is about hunger and about the fact that people are feeling increasingly helpless and hopeless and I think the government needs to, very urgently, find a way of putting food back on the table of ordinary Nigerians. There has to be a way. If mistakes were made, those mistakes can be corrected.”
Kukah also said there can be no strong economy without a strong population.
“You measure the progress of any nation by how the most vulnerable citizens feel. We are not Gaza, we are not Spain, we are not Turkey, we are not parts of the world where there are earthquakes and there are tragedies,” he stressed.
“The sad thing about the Nigerian situation is that we are the ones, through our greed, through our corruption, that are creating our own earthquakes and our own disasters and I think that in the end, this is what it all comes down to.”
On the issue of local government reforms in the country, Kukah said Governors must step up the game.
He recalled his membership of the Justice Uwais Committee whereby they travelled around the country, saying that there was a general feeling that the States’ so called Independent Electoral Commissions were really an abuse of democratic processes.
“And we can see the manipulation of these processes at the level of the state governments. And for me, maybe one can say there would have been nothing wrong if the Governors of Nigeria decided to just appoint the local government chairmen rather than putting citizens through this very stressful experience of conducting elections that never really existed.
“Now, how the government wants to match the ideals that the Supreme Court ruling on local government autonomy really sets out, that really is the challenge. Whether we are going to widen the scope of corruption into 774 points is a question. But I think that the Governors must step up the game,” Kukah stated.
In his remarks, the subject of the book, a former Military Governor of Rivers State, Major General Zamani Lekwot (rtd), said the episode that necessitated the authorship of the book was a very disappointing session.
It would be recalled that in May 1992, violence erupted between the Muslim Fulani and Christian Atyap communities of Zangon-Kataf Local Government Area in Kaduna State, over trading and land ownership rights, resulting in deaths.
A tribunal set up by the General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida regime sentenced Lekwot and 16 others to death for alleged complicity in the killings.
The sentence which many saw as a result of his feud with Babangida, was eventually reduced to five years imprisonment.
Lekwot further said when the riot took place, the right thing for the government to have done was to set up an inquiry, but that never happened.
“I don’t know the type of information Babangida received. We have worked together in the NDA, he knew my character, even to call me to find out, he didn’t. He visited Zangon Kataf and wept. Riots are taking place in other places like Kano, Bauchi, Taraba, he didn’t go. He showed a particular interest. The judge picked for the tribunal was very biased. He kept on quarrelling with our lawyers, he even broke the law,” Lekwot said.
Also speaking, Akinnola said justice is rooted in public confidence, but when the confidence is eroded by either acts of commission or omission, anarchy sets in.
“While one can deprecate the injudicious conduct of Justice Okadigbo, current conducts of many judges, where they seem so pliable to politicians should be a source of concern. There are currently many Justice Okadigbo in our judiciary who are lackeys of politicians,” Akinnola said.
Reviewing the book, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Femi Falana, said the book is a riveting book on the macabre trial and death sentences passed on Lekwot and five other Kataf indigenes over the 1992 Zangon Kataf crisis and their ridiculous trial which was marred with obvious Judicial abuse by the tribunal.
“Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Benedict Okadigbo incessantly delved into the arena during the trial, exhibiting patent and unabashed bias. The book encapsulates details of this judicial perfidy. It was like a scene from Stephen Tumim’s epic book – ‘Great legal disasters,” Falana said.
