TheCable

The Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN) says Mathew Kukah’s effort to reconcile ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was politicised.

The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) had demanded the withdrawal of the Catholic bishop of Sokoto diocese from the national peace committee, saying he has shown “his bias and as such cannot be trusted to be non-partisan”.

In a statement by Evaristus Bassey, CSN director,  the organisation described the demand as “mischievous” and said Kukah was just “doing his job”.

The organisation said Kukah was needed to reconcile Obasanjo and Abubakar in the interest of the nation.

The statement read: “In 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari was contesting the Presidency, he visited the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria and he was granted an audience. Why has it suddenly become a crime for a National Peace Committee convener to do his job of facilitating peace between two national figures?

“If it is the fear of losing elections that is the main concern here, the BMO should be rest assured that the election outcome would depend mostly on how voters assess this government and not whether Bishop Kukah reconciled Obasanjo with Atiku Abubakar; that is if the election would be free and fair.

“The animosity between President Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar, his erstwhile deputy, has long remained a national embarrassment and Bishop Kukah and the National Peace Committee have been making efforts behind the scenes for their reconciliation.

“These attempts have been on long before Atiku Abubakar became the presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party. If the members of the BMO read Bishop Kukah’s explanatory notes at all, they would not come up with the misleading call for Bishop Kukah’s withdrawal from the National Peace Committee, whereas the reconciliation between the two leaders has been part of the agenda.”

The association reiterated that Kukah is non-partisan.

It said: “That the move was eventually hijacked and politicised is not Bishop Kukah’s fault at all. If the Presidency could deny that they had nothing to do with the proposed recall of Senator Shehu Sani even when Mallam Ahmed Nasir el-Rufai offered this information unsolicited, and we are expected to believe this, why would a simple, straightforward explanation that Bishop Kukah has laboured to make not suffice?

“What we want to let the BMO know is that a Catholic Bishop is ordinarily so well trained and experienced and so full of the sense of the common good, that the only partisanship he may have is what promotes the good of the poor.”