30th December, 2020
By Taiwo Okanlawon
An Islamic human rights organization, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has asked Bishop Matthew Kukah to resign from the General Abdul Salaam-led National Peace Committee.
The director of the organization, Prof Ishaq Akintola made this call in a statement issued on Wednesday
Bishop Kukah of the Sokoto Archdiocese of the Catholic Church had in his Christmas message attacked President Muhammadu Buhari, accusing him of nepotism, saying that “Every honest Nigerian knows that there is no way any non-Northern Muslim President could have done a fraction of what President Buhari has done by his nepotism and gotten away with it.
The cleric claimed there could have been a coup or war in the country if a non-Nothern Muslim was the president in the last five years and did some of the things Buhari is doing.
Reacting to Kukah’s statement, the organization attacked the Bishop Kukah for describing Islam as a violent religion.
MURIC in another statement has now said it believes that those comments by the cleric are inconsistent with his status, particularly as the secretary of Nigeria’s Peace Committee.
“How did such a belligerent combatant emerge as the secretary of Nigeria’s Peace Committee? What good can come from a man who is filled with hate and bias for a large section of the country?” MURIC’s statement asked.
“We demand that Kukah should honourably recuse himself from the Peace Committee. Failure to do so will have a devastating effect of discrediting that committee. It will mean that the committee was set up in the first place for a partisan purpose,” the group said.
According to MURIC, Muslims in Nigeria will no longer have any confidence in the committee, adding that the committee may as well be disbanded.
MURIC wondered why the committee had remained silent ever since the Bishop released the statement, adding that this may be interpreted to mean that the secretary is holding members of the committee to ransom.
MURIC called for the immediate review of the composition and operation of the Peace Committee.