Bishop Matthew Kukah, The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, says it is only the use of bombs that differentiates the federal government led by President Muhammadu Buhari from Boko Haram insurgents.
YaahooJournalist reports that PUNCH newspaper quoted Bishop Kukah to have made this statement on Tuesday, January 7 while speaking with Catholic Charity Aid to the Church in Need, in the United Kingdom.
The Bishop was said to have spoken on the killing of 10 Christians by the Islamic State West Africa Province on Christmas eve.
Bishop Kukah reportedly accused President Buhari’s All Progress Congress (APC) government of using different methods to achieve the same goal of “Islamic dominance like Boko Haram.”
The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese stressed that the federal government had failed to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency and has instead created room for the group to operate as it is doing currently.
His words: “The only difference between the government and Boko Haram is (that) Boko Haram is holding a bomb,” Kukah was quoted as saying.
“They are using the levers of power to secure the supremacy of Islam, which then gives more weight to the idea that it can be achieved by violence. With the situation in Nigeria, it is hard to see the moral basis they have to defeat Boko Haram.
“They have created the conditions to make it possible for Boko Haram to behave the way they are behaving.”
The Bishop said if those in authority do not do enough to integrate Christians, “then they give oxygen to Islamism.”
“If they have countries where everybody is Muslim in power, then you give vent to the idea that Islam should be supreme,” the Bishop added.
