Don’t politicise release of Chibok girls, Kukah tells FG

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam with agency report

Bishop of Catholic Church of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah, has advised the Federal Government not to politicise the release of the abducted Chibok girls after six months of their incarceration.

In an interview he granted newsmen at the opening of the Port Harcourt Book Festival, the cleric warned of the consequences of jungle justice in a democratic setting.

“This should not be a matter of politics, as somebody had said. We are prayerfully hoping that things would change. “This is not something that is within the power of one person. The issues are much more complicated than that.

“And I think we must trust the sense of judgment of the government, trust the sense of judgment of the security agencies and trust the goodwill of ordinary Nigerians and share in the agony of the parents of these children and just prayerfully hope that they come back to us alive.”

He also advised politicians to be mindful of the repercussion of trading with the fortune of Nigerians, advising them to live one day at a time and remember that they do not own their lives.

“Those of us who are not politicians should wake up to the reality that politicians have a language of their own; they have a culture of their own and have a universe of their own that they live in.

“Those of us who are so stupid as to surrender our lives for nothing would appreciate the fact that with the politicians of Nigeria, they are in PDP today, they are in APC tomorrow, the next day they are in CPC and the next day are in another party.

“You have to understand the fact that the politicians live in a different universe. If you are going to make a choice, make a choice wisely, but that choice must not include wasting your own life, because, only the living can play politics. So, the choice is chiefly ours,” he said.