Nothing In Bishop Kukah’s Christmas Message Denigrates Islam – Soyinka

• Bishop Kukah’s Christmas message stirred controversy from groups and government officials alike

Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, on Monday, said that after personally studying the transcript of a Christmas message by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Matthew Kukah, he has found nothing in it that belittles Islam.

Soyinka stated this in a piece he titled, “The Kukah Offence And Ongoing Offensives”.

His reaction is not unconnected to a recent threat of eviction issued to Kukah by the Muslim Solidarity Forum following the cleric’s Christmas Message which according to the group is capable of eroding the peaceful co-existence among Christians and Muslims faithfuls in the state.

Eko Hot Blog recalls that Kukah had in the message accused President Muhammadu Buhari of nepotism, adding that his administration has the trappings of northern hegemony as other tribes have been relegated to being second class citizens.

Read also: Coup Remark: Group Asks Bishop Kukah To Leave Sokoto

The renowned dramatist playwright disclosed that he is not surprised about the group’s reaction to the Christmas message but said “what is bothersome, even unwholesome, is the embedded threat to storm his ‘Capitol’ and eject him, simply for ‘speaking in tongues’.”

“Any pluralistic society must emphatically declare such a response unacceptable,” Soyinka added.

He said the uproar about Kukah’s message points the nation in the direction of one religion trying to dominate the other, a situation which implies a division into the world of believers and non-believers.

Continuing, Soyinka said: “In this nation of religious opportunism of the most destructive kind especially, fuelled again and again by failure to learn from past experience, we must at least learn to nip extremist instigations in the bud.”