Reminiscing on Father Kukah of Oputa Panel

Father Matthew Hassan Kukah listened to Colonel Paul Okuntimo with this piercing attention from his elevated seat. His leaning head was resting on the cushioned palm of his hand placed on the table at the elbow. Father Kukah was obviously processing the testimony of the Nigerian Army officer in the docked of the The Human Rights Violation Investigation Commission and Reconciliation Commission of Nigeria, more popularly known as the Oputa Panel. The officer in the dock that day was Colonel Paul Okuntimo. He was brought before the Oputa Panel to respond to piles and piles of allegations of ignoble and atrocious acts of the Rivers State Internal Security Unit of the inglorious administration of General Sani Abacha. Colonel Okuntimo was the commander of the security unit. Perhaps, the memories of that security unit he headed would ignite some feeling of deja vu.

That day at the panel’s sitting in Port Harcourt, Okuntimo was being cross-examined after one of the witnesses, who happens to be a popular lucky escapee of the Abacha junta, Mr. Ledum Mittee, had given his own testimony at the panel. The military officer had announced that he had retired and had also become a cleric cum Christian shepherd. He said so much to defend the office he occupied and to explain his actions and duties as a soldier under command. Thus, the despicable crimes of his notorious Internal Security Unit in Ogoniland in Rivers State were noted, but they were also viewed with the helplessness of a drowning man. However, his actions as a Christian religious leader could not be viewed that way. As a man under an unction which made him a pastor, his deeds as a shepherd and cleric could not be overlooked. They would come under scrutiny.

Father Kukah didn’t let the opportunity to do this slip. He interrupted the testimony in order to help both the clergyman, Pastor Okuntimo and layman, Dr Ledum Mitee. The soldier in Okuntimo, while in the dock had spoken way beyond what Father Kukah saw as the red line for a priest. Okuntimo had openly shared a deep secret Mitee had given him about himself and his immediate family. When Mitee had seen the writing on the wall, he understood it enough to mean that the Abacha regime was not going to let him and the other nine activists, including the author, Ken Saro-Wiwa, live. The Ogoni environmental activist had seen that the Abacha government was bent on convicting and killing him and nine of his kinsmen in MOSOP. The signs were daily getting clearer and the reality of death sentence quite ominous. For this, he confided his needs to Okuntimo, which he revealed in the dock. Mitee was one of the ten men that stood trial from 1994 to 1995 for alleged murder, but he was luckily set free while the nine others were hanged.

Kukah taught a lesson through the development. He showed that he couldn’t help with whatever orders the military might had given Okuntimo and his troops in Ogoniland, but he could help educate Pastor Okuntimo on clerical secrecy and sundry matters. Clerical secrecy in the Catholic Church means so much and both priests and laity know this. It is sacrosanct and it is to be upheld both in and out of the altar. Writing for Catholic Culture on “Clerical Secrets” in 2019, Father Jerry Pokorsky says that “an Honourable priest does not claim the Sacred Liturgy as a playpen to feed his narcissism, or allow a congregation with attention deficit disorder to insert various forms of entertainment to soothe boredom. Stick to the liturgical rules, Father.” Yes, you must stick to the rules… And he pointed this out to Okuntimo as he scolded him for divulging a secret as a cleric. Father Kukah did this in such a way that he didn’t enter into a “holier than thou” contest. Respected jurist, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, the chairman of the panel, admitted that he had learnt a lesson from Father Kukah’s disposition and maturity.

Today, Matthew Hassan Kukah has grown to become 70 years and has remained that fiery priest of sound moral and academic grounding, and pastoral faithfulness. He has also grown in stature because he is the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese. He is more experienced now; grown more mature and has become what Catholics refer to as the Local Ordinary. In five years or thereabouts, you will not hear from him as much as you do now. He should have become a Bishop Emeritus by then. That could be the cause of the urgency to get Nigeria back on track. He wants Nigeria to be properly governed. He would love to see the country begin the urgent drive to a better self for the sake of its citizens. This, by my contention, is one of the reasons Bishop Kukah has been unrelenting in his essays, opinions, contentions and suggestions on our country and how it is being governed. He knows that it is always too late when you fail to strike the iron while it is hot. When the blacksmith keeps hitting the metal on the same spot, he is angling to achieve a result.

But, for a government like the one being run by President Muhammadu Buhari, “it’s dangerous to be right when the government is wrong”, as advised by Voltaire. It is a government that came with a lot of promises but became lethargic and slothful in the face of numerous opportunities to keep its promises. Kukah and other religious leaders cried out about many ills bedevilling Nigeria but he was the target of the government’s incendiary responses. When the entire North western parts of the country is being easily overrun by gunning bandits and fiery terrorists, Bishop Kukah spoke up on behalf of his flock. But rather than take from his suggestions and see the wisdom in his contentions, the government would always react to the messenger and abandon the message. It has become a norm for the Buhari government to leave the leprosy and invest in the cure for ringworm. Bishop Kukah is known, right from his days at the Catholic Secretariat in Lagos, to have fought with sustained, relentless vigour for an egalitarian Nigeria, and it is also known that he has always risen against the spread of all forms of evil anywhere in the country.

Bishop Kukah has had his high and low moments. His priests had been killed and are being killed by terrorists. Some of them had been violently kidnapped for ransom. One of the most painful experiences for any father – religious or otherwise – is the murder of one’s child. His seminarians, who are his children, were kidnapped by bandits in their seminary in Kaduna. The criminals kept them for some time, released one and killed the other. That was surely a low moment for a father which Bishop Kukah is to his priests and seminarians.

Reinhold Niebuhr, the popular America theologian prayed: “Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.” On the occasion of the 70th birthday of Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, the ‘serenity prayer’ captures the essence of what he has been advocating, what he has achieved and what future lies before us as a country.

Congratulations Your Lordship. A o ri yin pe o.

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