UNICAL 36th Convocation Lecture: I Had Nothing Against Buhari, He Crossed Red Line, says Bishop Kukah
By Ndifreke BASSEY
The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, His Lordship, Mathew Hassan Kukah, has revealed that he had nothing against former President Mohammadu Buhari.
Bishop Kukah said he had a mutual relationship with the former President but the President crossed the line.
Bishop Kukah, who disclosed this at the International Convention Centre while presenting the 36th Convocation Lecture of the University titled "Harmonizing Diversities for National Development," said a lot of people think he had something against Buhari when he was president but that was not true.
He said: "We had a mutual relationship and in not one or two of my messages I said you crossed the line.
"I actually said you can be impeached because you are in breach of our constitution when he took all the key positions and gave to people of one locality. By doing that people began to worry about the North and Islam.
"If you use the opportunity of your position to privilege your own people what you do is to put all the members of your ethnic group into a line of hostility because people will begin to hate them directly or indirectly", he said.
Speaking on the theme of the lecture, Bishop Kukah said managing diversities is the sensitivity to identify the quality other people have and make the most of it.
In his words: "Teams that get victory do so not because of the question of how good the players are but the conductor or coach who has to gain the tempo of his players.
"Neither social cohesion, nor cultural cohesion by themselves are sufficient explanations for the volatility of a country.
"It is more the ability or inability to manage the diversity that opportunity creates", he said.
He likened leadership to an orchestra where the conductor manages very different people and sounds to present something very beautiful, adding that leadership is about having the instinct, sensitivity and ability of knowing people who surround you and also that a leader must be able to inspire.
He surmised that the country is not harmonizing diversity and that is why the country is not developing, saying this will remain so until we learn the art of managing diversities as a nation.
Bishop Kukah charged the graduating students to stive to make the country better saying where they were born is not as promising as their destination and there is no substitute to hard work.
Earlier, Professor Florence Obi the Vice Chancellor of the institution thanked the lecturer for honoring the University's invitation, saying they have been trying for over three years to invite him.
