Mathew Kukah, the catholic bishop of Sokoto Archdiocese, has reacted to the controversy caused by th ill health of President Muhammadu Buhari.
He advised Nigerians to avoid making the health of Nigeria’s public figures a subject of political discussion or rumours. Kukah told journalists in Abuja that leaders of some popular nations of the world had serious health problems, which were managed to avoid undue public attention.
The cleric stated that a former US President, Ronald Reagan, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease but nobody knew what the former president was going through. The man of God said: “I do not think that the health of any Nigerian should be the subject of politics or speculations. “It is something I find so troubling because nobody does the things we do in Nigeria.
“Reagan was suffering from Alzheimer’s and for the greater part of ten years nobody had the slightest idea, what was happening to Reagan.” “I think the question we should be asking is: what right do people have to express themselves?’
We are in a democracy and people should be allowed to express themselves because ours is a representative democracy. “There are representatives and if people want to stop being a part of Nigeria there is a process for achieving that.”
“The second point is that we cannot speculate as to intentions and motives unless you legitimately bring a person to court and say why have you done X Y Z? You can only speculate. And I don’t think we should be depending on speculations.” Bishop Kukah said the Nigerian problems were partly because its founding fathers tampered with the provincial system government. The cleric further stated that another key challenge of Nigeria’s democracy was the lack of citizens’ participation in governance.
President Buhari’s health became a subject of allegations last month after his repeated suspension of scheduled official visits as well as denials by his aides. On June 6, the Nigerian leader proceeded on ten-day vacation to London for rest and medical check-up. ads
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