In Easter Message, Bishop Kukah Warns Tinubu Against Replacing Military With Hunters, Vigilante To Curb Insecurity

The Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah has warned President Bola Tinubu against employing the services of hunters, vigilante and others he called unprofessional groups in the fight against insecurity, which he said dilutes the role of the army.

He urged the president to come up with a robust template on how to revive and put Nigerians on a path of national healing.

He admonished President Tinubu to include a deliberate policy of inclusion that would drastically end the immoral culture of nepotism.

He said, “The government must design a more comprehensive and wide-ranging method of recruitment that is transparent as a means of generating patriotism and reversing the ugly face of feudalism and prebendalism.”

Preaching to his congregation on Easter Sunday, Kukah said, “there is need for a clear communications strategy that will serve to inspire and create time-lines of expectations of results from policies.

“There is need for clarity over questions of the Who, What, When, and How national set goals are to be attained and who can be held accountable.”

“This will take us away from the current Communications-by-announcement-of-appointments policies as if this is all that the government is doing,” he observed.

According to him, the notion of rejigging the security architecture is a hackneyed cliché that is now at best, an oxymoron, adding that “it is difficult to fathom the current situation regarding the ubiquity of the military in Nigerians national life.”

He observed that it was impossible to explain how Nigerians can say they are in a civilian democracy with the military literally looking like an army of occupation with an octopussean spread across all the 36 states and Abuja, stating that it has very serious consequences both for its professionalism, its integrity and perceived role in protecting society.

He noted, “No other person than the immediate past Chief of Defense Staff, General Lucky Irabor who recently referred to the military as facing the dilemma of what he called, ‘see finish’.

“It is now difficult to say whether the persistence of insecurity is a cause or a consequence of military ubiquity. Trillions of Naira continue to go into bottomless pits with little measurable benefits.

“Our military’s professionalism cannot be diluted by the recruitment of hunters, vigilante groups and other unprofessional and untrained groups. This is not sustainable because it leaves the military open to ridicule and perceptions of surrender.”

He lamented that fighting insecurity was now an enterprise.

He stated that it is cheering to hear that the President has announced that kidnapping and banditry are now to be treated as acts of terrorism, stressing that Nigerians need to see a relentless and implacable plan to end the menace with a definite deadline for bringing the terrorists to their knees, no matter what it would take.

According to him, “Without a timeline for eliminating these evil, despicable, malevolent and execrable demons from among us, our future as a people will be imperilled.”

He commended the government over its promise to stop paying ransom to bandits and kidnappers, saying that merely going to the forest and returning with victims leaves the government open to suspicion from citizens.

He said that the government needs to show results of a well coordinated plan and timelines to bring back all citizens in captivity and give Nigerians back their country.

Kukah encouraged the President to continue on the path of probity, to take further steps to cut down the overbearing costs of governance and to put in place more comprehensive plans towards achieving both food and physical security across the nation, pointing out that merely distributing money through already corruption-riddled structures was not enough and diminished the dignity of the citizens.

“No one needs to line up to receive aid when we are not in a war. Give our people back their farms and develop a comprehensive agricultural plan to put our country back on the path of honour and human dignity,” he emphasised.