Any person who expresses an unfavorable opinion about someone or something, is referred to as a critic. Any person who is able to convince people about his beautiful attributes or qualities, is considered credible. As a person, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sakwato, is not only respected as a member of the clergy, but recognized for being highly cultured and revered for his erudition.
However, Kukah has made additional name by being a renowned critic, particularly of recent, on issues that have bearings with Muhammadu Buhari as the President of Nigeria.
On anything that has to do with PMB, one can almost predict with certainty, the reactions that would come from Kukah. It would be a negative narrative, no matter the seriousness of the issue or the substance and sensitivity of the matter. Long as the decision was taken by President Muhammadu Buhari, Kukah’s response would come with a reversed interpretation.
On Buhari, Kukah always reminds me of late Chief Gani Fawehenmi, SAM, SAN, and his hostility, or unfriendliness to military regimes, particularly the regime he fought last, that of late Gen.Sani Abacha.
In my days as a BBC reporter in Lagos, late Gani Fawehenmi was my regular interviewee, and he was ever ready for reactions, almost always, extremely critical on whatever decision that was taken by the Abacha regime.
A particular case took his criticism to the extreme or highest degree, by my assessment. Gen.Abacha was to address the nation one day by 6pm, and because the BBC prides itself as a medium that believes in hearing the other side, I was asked to call and position Gani for a possible reaction on the broadcast.
I put a call to him around 2pm, in fact, I was even the one that told him the actual time of the broadcast, 6pm on the dot, and all national broadcast stations were expected to hook on.
Immediately I finished breaking the news to him, Chief Gani asked me, can we do the interview now? Thinking whether he didn’t hear me well, I said the Head of State is not addressing the nation until 6pm, and it’s only 2pm now. In any case, there is no way you can react without hearing what he would say.
He said Bala, I don’t know what he would say, but I know what he would not say. So please switch on your recorder let’s start the interview now. For some seconds, I put off the mic and went laughing boisterously. May Allah commit the soul of Chief Gani Fawehenmi to the best of the heavens, ameen.
Now Kukah is known for doing to Buhari, what Gani was doing to Abacha, albeit for different, or even reversed reasons, I think.
If you are looking for an ardent, fiercest, harshest and consistent critic of President Muhammadu Buhari, immediately you come across Matthew Hassan Kukah, you should quickly drop your searchlight. He is everything that is anti-Buhari.
However, in what is now the trending story in the country, Kukah took the world by surprise when he announced that despite his consistent criticism of Buhari, the president still picks his calls always.
“If I pick up my phone and call Mr. President now he will pick it up. The other time he missed my calls, he called me back and we greeted each other”.
What more can one say about the virtue of forgiveness. PMB is aware Kukah is constantly accusing and attacking him, was probably even calling to get some information with which he would attack him the more, but the fulani modesty in him, would not allow him to refuse his call or even rebuke him.
That is how best the credible can conquer the critic. If you can, forgive, or cease to feel the resentment against those who take it upon themselves to offend you.
Through the use of modesty, combined with uncommon humility, PMB had defeated Kukah in character and disposition, such that Kukah is now the one marketing and defending the President’s temperament. He is the one convincing and persuading people to believe that the man does not hold grudges. That is how best the credible can conquer the critic.
What remains is for the likes of Kukah to borrow a leaf from these excellent virtues of Mr President, with a view to changing from calamitous critics, to constructive critics that can positively and purposefully push Nigeria to prosperity.
If you have access and the privilege to reach out to a leader. Whose phone number you have. Who returns your calls when he missed them. Who does not hold grudges when you attack him, for God’s sake, what would be your reason for going to the market to advise him, and mostly negatively?