Nigeria is full of political thieves, but the fooIish ones come from the North — Kukah

Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, and leading social and civil rights crusader, and defender of the downtrodden, Matthew Hassan Kukah, has said that Nigeria is full of political thieves, but that unlike Southern thieves, the North despite being on power more than any other region in the country, and stole money more than all who ruled the country in the past, they could not even develop their immediate constituencies.

The Bishop made the daring statement in an interview with AriseTV, on the state of the nation.


In response to a question on his criticism of government during one of his sermons, particularly at the funeraI mass of late Seminarian Michael Nnadi, he said, "I must tell you that religion and politics is my area of academic interest; religion, politics and society.

"So, when I say the things that I say, they are based, first of all on my conviction as a Christian because I am pretty clear about how society ought to be and Jesus said to me very clearly that I have come so that you can have life and have it to the full.



"So, anything that impinges on the state’s inability to make life better for the citizens under its care, not only does it irritate me but it summons me to question the state.

"No part of this country has produced military or civilian presidents or Heads of State as Northern Nigeria has done. The North still insists that it wants to hold on to power at all cost, yet it has lacked the capacity to translate this power into a meaningful and useful impact on the lives of even its immediate constituency.

Credit: Punchng

"Even the thieves who steal from other parts of the country behave in a much better way than the thieves from Northern Nigeria and they steal as much as everybody else.

"But everybody who steals, you can see evidence that most of the thieves in Nigeria have either built clinics, they have tarred roads, have given children scholarships, built schools and have done all kinds of things.



"But you cannot find in Northern Nigeria in 99 percent of the constituencies of the Northern elites any evidence of a thief who served in Abuja or elsewhere passed here."