Bishop Matthew Kukah, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, has told the federal government that democracy is in ensuring that citizens have freedom of speech, rather than in the government emphasizing on building infrastructure.
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Kukah on Arise Television on Friday said, “It is important that those who govern us know that freedom of speech is a human right, and human right is not an aspiration. It is a right that God has given you and nobody can take it away.
“When President Buhari contested an election and lost to the late President Yar Aduah in 2007, he went to court. Northerners were saying, ‘how can your brother win an election and you are a Muslim and a Northerner and you are going to the Supreme Court. I encouraged Buhari to go to court so that democracy can be strengthened.”
He added, “When I see people saying, ‘come and see the bridges that we are building or roads that we are constructing’, I get worried. We don’t need democracy to do road construction, because that is not what democracy is meant to be.
“Most of the benefits of democracy are intangible. If we wanted infrastructure then we can go back to apartheid in South Africa, or we go back to Germany under Hitler because they left the most indelible infrastructure but they denied human beings the fundamental thing.”
The Bishop maintained that those in leadership must be held accountable, “If you make those in power go to sleep, there will be problems. If I ask my friends, Garba Shehu, Femi Adeshina and Lai Mohammed let them tell me which of the pastors were their friends in 2014 and 2015 that they can call and he will answer them now, because they are already fighting all of them.
“I wasn’t one of their prophets but they are no longer in touch with them. We are in a very bad spot; anybody trying to say otherwise is wasting time.
“We need to create an environment in which everybody is free to aspire to what they want to be. There are beggars in America but the great thing about America is that everybody lives without the illusion that is why most of the benefits of democracy are intangible.”
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