WeekendSermon@ITREALMS:
Text of a sermon preached at the burial of His
Lordship Bishop Joseph Danlami Bagobiri, Bishop of the Catholic Bishop of
Kafanchan on Thursday, 15th March, 2018 by Most Rev. Matthew Hassan Kukah,
Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, where he highlighted the fact that exclusion
policies are sowed by Mafia, especially in Kaduna State, whereas certain
burials make certain demands and create some urgencies.
Excerpts:
When my metropolitan
Archbishop, Matthew Ndagoso called to tell me that roles had been assigned
ahead of the funeral of our brother Bishop Joseph Danlami Bagobiri and that I
had been assigned the role of preacher for this Mass, I knew I did not have an
opinion in the matter. In a way, I could probably fall back on the fact that
apart from members of his immediate family and close friends, I have known the
late Bishop Bagobiri the longest compared to almost everyone here.
As a Deacon in 1975, I was
assigned to St. Andrew’s Catholic Church, Kakuri to undertake the last phase of
my pastoral work ahead of my ordination. I made friends but three or four stood
out and one of them was Mr. David Bagobiri. We had struck a good relationship
because he was a very active member of the parish. (Today, thanks be to God,
his son, John, is a priest of the Diocese of Kafanchan and is likely to be one
of the Masters of Ceremonies here). After my ordination, I was sent back to
Kaduna to work as an Assistant to an old Irish man, the late Fr John Lee. Mr.
Bagobiri remained a central figure in the parish.
One day, after Mass, Mr.
Bagobiri approached me and introduced a young man to me.
This is my junior
brother, and his name is Joseph. He has just finished Secondary school and he
says he wants to be a priest like you. I shook hands with the young man and
asked him to come and see me the next day, Monday. He came early in the morning
and told me he wanted to become a priest but did not know how to go about. He
said he had finished from a Secondary school and not a Minor Seminary. I asked
him the usual questions and more or less satisfied myself that he should be
encouraged to apply to the Archdiocese of Kaduna as a Seminarian. Incidentally,
I was the Vocations Director. The rest, as they say, is history. We had mutual
respect for one another. That I should be standing here to preach at his
funeral is an honour I cannot take lightly.
For most of you here in
the audience, you may recall that the last time I stood before a huge gathering
of this nature to undertake the same assignment was at the funeral of the late
Sir, Patrick Yakowa, and Governor of Kaduna State on December 21st, 2012. I am told
that till date, members of the Kaduna mafia have not been able to live down the
contents of the sermon. Yet, then as now, they did not dispute the evidence I
presented. Today, that Kaduna has become an open sore of injury and pain that
it is the most divided and volatile state in Nigeria is the result of the seeds
of disunity sowed in the corrosive legacy of the policies of exclusion that the
mafia sowed. We are sadly still not out of the woods yet.
Today is a special day for
Southern Kaduna people and the people of the state as a whole. It is a day of
reckoning. It is as much a day of sowing as a day of reaping. It is a day of
promise and a day of hope. The mixed nature of our gathering suggests very
clearly that this is not an ordinary funeral ceremony.
Certain burials make
certain demands. They set the records of history straight. They create an
urgency of now. No one should expect that the burial of someone like Bishop
Joseph Bagobiri should be a simple ceremony of burying a Bishop. If it were so,
the Bishops could have buried their brother and returned to their Dioceses.
But, these are no ordinary times in Nigeria and my sermon will draw from both
Scripture and the streets.
Our gathering here is
beyond the ritual of a burial. We are gathered for a memorial, a celebration,
and a festival, even a carnival. We are gathered here not as mourners with
tears of sorrow in our eyes. We are gathered as men and women joyous in hope
and praise. We are not gathered in tribulation, but in confident optimism. We
do not feel a sense of loss and defeat, but no, rather a sense of exultant
triumph of the risen Lord. There are no mourners and sympathisers here. All of
us, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Men, Women, young and old, are gathered
united as family. We are gathered here as a company of witnesses to celebrate a
great man, a warrior, a statesman, and a brave and fearless man. St. Paul says:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us
throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let
us run with perseverance the race marked out for us (Heb. 12:1).
At no time is the beauty
and essence of Christianity better manifested than at a funeral. During it, we
Christians celebrate the assurance of our faith, we re-enact the essence of our
faith. We celebrate the assurance that for the Christian, the future after
death is not the subject of speculation, fear or uncertainty. No other faith in
the entire world speaks with the certainty of Christianity about life after
death. Our hope is anchored on testable, verifiable evidence of Scripture that
after His crucifixion and death, Jesus rose from the dead. The event so
confused the authorities of the time that they had to resort to bribing the
guards they had placed on the tomb to deny that he had risen (Mt. 28: 12).
What we are celebrating
today is the promise the promise of Scripture that for us, as with Christ, the
tomb is not a final resting place. It is a departure lounge for a journey to
eternity. Jesus said: I have gone to prepare a place for you so that where I
am, you too may be (Jn. 14:3). We are celebrating the hope that Bishop Bagobiri
is a beneficiary of this promise. Therefore, as St. Paul said, with such
thoughts as these, let us console one another with the same consolation that we
ourselves have received from God ( 2 Cor. 1:4).
As it is with the history
of our faith, these are no easy times to be a Christian anywhere in the world
especially here in Nigeria. There is staggering but also verifiable evidence
that Christians are today the most persecuted set of people anywhere in the
world. Today, Christians are still faced with the challenges of proclaiming
their Gospel in an environment that remains quite hostile to this Message. Yet,
as St. Paul said to Timothy: We must preach the Gospel, welcome or unwelcome (2
Tim. 4:2).
Jesus lived and taught His
followers a message that broke barriers and changed the course of human
history. It was intolerable language then and it is still so today (Jn. 6:56).
He message stood against everything that the world thought rational and
reasonable. Imagine these texts: Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are
you when men abuse and persecute you (Mt. 5:3). If you are slapped on one
cheek, turn the other (Lk. 6:29). Love and pray for your enemies (Mt. 5:44).
Give everyone that asks, if they steal your tunic, give them your coat (Mt.
5:40). Do not keep a record of offences, and forgive one another seventy times
seven times (Mt. 18:22).
Bishop Bagobiri’s life was
an effort at managing these conflicting demands in a society that had become
violently opposed to both the principles of Christianity and those of natural
justice. It is impossible to speak about Bishop Bagobiri without paying
attention to the circumstances that provided a context for his rage,
frustration and sense of moral revulsion and indignation. Like the rest of us,
he had his tempers, but like Jesus, the injustice and corruption in the society
exacerbated his sorrow. His frustration
occurred in an environment of death, destruction and vulnerability of ordinary
people. His anger had context.
Things in Southern Kaduna
came to a head in the Southern Kaduna after the crisis of Zangon Kataf. Sadly,
through what an author has called, the act of judicial terrorism that was the
trial of General Lekwot and his kinsmen, the drift became more palpable. That
trial will go down in history as one of the most gruesome abuses of judicial
processes in history. In the end, true leadership failed to find lasting ways
of healing our people and so our people in Kaduna became more divided both
physically and psychologically. The people of Southern Kaduna took stock of
their verifiable sacrifices and contribution to the development of the north
and Kaduna state, their massive contribution in the civil war. They had reaped
very little by way of benefits and inclusion.
Their perceived alienation
and exclusion from the levers of power was palpable and clearly deliberately
crafted. By the late 70s and to the 90s an array of very well educated elite
had emerged across Southern Kaduna. There were thousands of eminently qualified
graduates covering all fields of education. Naturally, with this quality of
education, people were bound to think differently about their rights and their
place in the society in which they lived.
After nearly thirty years
of the creation of their state, none of them had occupied the seat of a
Governor. None had qualified to represent the State as a Minister. They looked
around and found a land barren of both federal and state government presence.
There were no state television signals as we had to rely on Plateau State
television for media coverage. There were no roads, not a single industry sited
anywhere in the state. A highly educated work force became impatient with this
perceived injustice to exclude them from power.
It would take a
combination of President Obasanjo and Alhaji Makarfi to change the course of
the history of the people of Southern Kaduna. It was in 1999 that Senator
Isaiah Balat was appointed a Minister to represent Kaduna State. Even then, the
key northern Muslims protested saying that Senator Balat was a Christian not a
northerner. Then came the historic appointments of both Lt. Generals Martin
Luther Agwai and Yusuf Luka to the positions of Chief of Army Staff and for
Agwai, Chief of General Staff.
When I met President
Obasanjo and thanked him for this, he said to me: There is nothing to thank me
for. These two gentlemen were the best, they had the best career records and so
we did not do them a favour. I felt sorry for General Obasanjo because he did
not seem to understand that in the eyes of the mafia, merit, excellence,
competence, were tied to religion and region and that in our case, being a
Christian excluded you from certain positions.
Alhaji Makarfi did for the
people of Southern Kaduna what no one had had time to do for them. He created a
massive infrastructure of rural roads and opened up Southern Kaduna. For that
period, most of our quarrels and violence literally disappeared, thus, showing
very clearly that it was government policies of exclusion that were the
problem, not ordinary people. Indeed, our people have lived together and
continue to do so. What we call crisis is reaction to skewed government
policies and the records are very clear.
My point is that these
circumstances of perceived and clear exclusion raised the volume of Bishop
Bagobiri’s voice. This should not be seen as a sign of weakness. Rather, it
comes with the calling. Moral revulsion leads a leader to rebellion. All you
need to do is look at the prophets of old right up to John the Baptist. It was
moral revulsion that led Jesus to whip the traders in the temple. It was what
led Prophet Mohammed and Dan Fodio to revolt. History has not changed and
nearer home we have evidence. It is the politicians who panic in the face of
the uncomfortable message of a prophet. That is why John the Baptist had to
die.
Politicians are often fond
of praising Church leaders especially when they are in opposition, in exile or
are victims of state repression. Church leaders are praised for being voices of
the voiceless, standing for justice, courageous etc. When things change and the
opposition politician of yesterday gets to power, they expect you in their
pocket. You raise the same issues and they accuse you of supporting the
opposition, hating our government, standing in our way, being a danger to the
nation etc. People like us know this only too well. I recalled one incident
when I criticized Obasanjo in a lecture and two weeks later, I was in the Villa
for a meeting. One of the Ministers saw me and said to me: You have access to
Baba, so why do you have to criticize him in public? I looked at him and said:
I had access to Abacha but we still had to fight for his freedom.
The late Cardinal
Archbishop of Recife, Helder Camara said it all: When I feed the poor, the
politicians say I am doing God’s work. When I ask why the people are poor, the
politicians say I am a Communist. It was the excesses of the government against
the poor that drove Oscar Romero from being a rather Conservative Bishop to a
radical. It is the corrosive impact of Communism and its dehumanizing influence
that drove Pope John Paul to take up the cause of overthrowing Communism as the
Pope. The excesses of the Marcos regime against the people of the Philippines
led Cardinal Sin to take to the streets of Manila rather than remain in comfort
of his Cathedral.
The degrading influence of
Racism on black people was what led the Rev. Martin Luther King to the streets
of Alabama, New York, Washington and the entire country. In his famous, I have
a Dream Speech, he said that America had failed to deliver to the black people
the promises contained in their own Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence. He said injustice was synonymous with a bounced cheque and
concluded that African Americans would never accept the idea that the bank of
opportunity had insufficient funds!
What took Archbishop Tutu
to the streets of South Africa and around the world? Was it not the ravages of
apartheid clearly shown in the killings and destructions in Guguletu, Soweto
and other South African cities? Why did Nigerians clap each time the Catholic
Bishops’ Conference Communiques were read in the Churches during the Abacha
era? Clearly, any religious leader that stands aside in the face of tyranny,
oppression, and injustice is traitor.
For the better part of the
last three years, Southern Kaduna was at best an inferno of pain, suffering and
death. Death and destruction by mysterious killers became the daily menu of
Southern Kaduna. In village after village, innocent men, women, children, the
lame and the invalids were put to the sword. Farm after farm was destroyed with
a vengeance that was unprecedented and with no clear provocations. Community
life of harmony collapsed with accusations and counter accusations. Entire
villages became ruins over night and the landscape of graves dotted everywhere.
Amidst this, life was
gradually becoming nasty, brutish and short. These are the circumstances that
provoked a change of tone in Bishop Bagobiri. With Southern Kaduna having
become one huge Bantustan of government neglect, with no media signals from the
Centre, how was the world to know what was happening to his people?
Every crisis is an
opportunity for the qualities of leaders for fairness and equity to be tested.
It is a pity that the government of Kaduna rather than dialogue with both the
traditional and religious leaders, resorted to accusations, threats and in some
cases, outright blackmail. No matter the challenge, in moments of crisis, a
good leader will find some backroom channels across the divide. But rather,
Southern Kaduna was left to fester with the crisis cheaply presented as a
conflict between Christians and Muslims. Yet, the truth is that whether you are
a Muslim or Christian in Southern Kaduna, the fact remains that there are no
good roads, no running water, no electricity, no factories, nothing. Yet, it
was easy to divide and distract our people by creating the impression that
somehow, we had a conflict between Christians and Muslims.
Perhaps, let me use this
opportunity to place my own experience in context. Many people, including Bishop
Bagobiri wondered why I had stayed quiet over the killings in Southern Kaduna
and we spoke about these things. I told him that I had opted for a different
approach to the crisis for two reasons. First, it was his territory and I
believed he was the man on the spot and secondly, I thought the times called
for some level of diplomacy which I believe is key to resolving conflict based
on my own theoretical and practical experiences.
After Christmas last year,
I decided to spend about a week in my village to get a sense of the crisis. In
the course of my break, I told the Agwom Akulu that I wanted to visit the
Fulani settlement in Laduga because I wanted some first hand idea of what was
going on because I had never been to the place. We were very well received by
the Ardo. Strange enough, while we were talking in his palace, my phone rang
and it was the Sultan of Sokoto calling from Saudi Arabia. I told him where I
was and he was shocked. What took you
there, he asked. I put the phone on speaker and allowed him to speak to his
Fulani brothers as I told him. They were all very excited to hear him. I Next,
I decided to briefly visit the Chiefs of Kamantan, Bajju, Kagoro, Atyap and the
Emir of Jema’a just to get a sense of the temperature. I was struck by what I
heard from these traditional rulers independently. Each one of them said that they were all
living in peace before the killings started and that they are working hard to
ensure that the Fulanis remain because this is home for them. Not one single
traditional ruler in Southern Kaduna told me that he had a problem with any
Fulani man. I sat with the Emir of Jema’a, asked him if he felt vulnerable,
being surrounded by others different from him but he told me clearly that he
was happy and had no problems with anyone.
I returned to Sokoto and
armed with this information, I decided to approach General Abdusalam, the
Chairman of the National Peace Committee of which I am the Convener. I tried to convince him about the urgency of
the Peace Committee stepping into Southern Kaduna. We spoke to the Sultan,
Cardinal and other members and everyone believed that a visit to Southern
Kaduna would be important. General Abdusalam undertook to seek an appointment
with the Governor and finally led a delegation of the Peace Committee to a
meeting with the Governor. We wanted to hear from the Governor. Essentially,
the thrust of his comment was the fact that he was determined to end impunity
and that for years, people had got away with so much. I was taken aback by his
combative mood and worried if he really and truly understood the issues.
I had already got the
General Abdusalam to agree that after seeing the Governor, we would go into
Southern Kaduna and he agreed. So, I followed up with meetings with a cross
section of traditional rulers from Southern Kaduna to prepare the ground for
the visit by the Committee. They were quite enthusiastic and the State
Government gave us the necessary co-operation. Before the meeting, I went to
the Emir of Jema’a again and asked him where he felt he would want the meeting
to take place. He told me it really did not matter to him but that their
meetings as traditional rulers were often held in the palace of the Chief of
Kagoro who is their Senior. I asked him if he would be comfortable with the
meeting holding there and he said yes. We did hold the meeting and he attended.
It was a great meeting. Next, we went on to Kafanchan same day and met with a
cross section of leaders from Civil Society groups, CAN, JNI, etc. Everyone was
quite delighted and offered very useful suggestions.
The NPC returned to Abuja,
appraised its experiences and submitted a written report to the Governor. After
over one year, later, the NPC received no official response from the State
Government. It would not have been necessary to make this case but for the fact
that there is need to set the records straight and respond to the allegations
made by the Governor against religious and traditional leaders to the effect
that they were somehow part of the problem. He may be right but the evidence
before me leads to a different conclusion.
In his television
programme on Channels Television during the crisis, the Governor of Kaduna
State leveled two accusations against religious leaders whom he accused of
selling a narrative what he called, a
policy of exclusion. According to him,
in his own words, these religious leaders wanted only people of a particular
indigenous or religious group to live in parts of Southern Kaduna. Secondly, he
said that some Church leaders had collected money from missionaries abroad to
bury their dead and to rebuild thousands of Churches that had been
destroyed.
I am not sure which
religious leaders he was speaking of, but at least the two most prominent
religious leaders in Southern Kaduna would be Bishop Bagobiri and the Emir of
Jema’a. It is interesting that when the interviewer pressed the Governor for
evidence on the grave and damaging allegations he had made against these
leaders, he seemed rattled and simply said the security agencies were gathering
the information and that people will soon be prosecuted. Elections are coming
and still we have not commenced prosecution.
As I have said encounter
and experience with both the Emir of Jema’a and Bishop Bagobiri led me to a
totally different conclusion. The Emir of Jema’a called me a day after Bishop
Bagobiri died. I was struck by the fact that rather than condole with me, he
spoke of the loss of our dear brother, a good man, a friend and so on. It was a
common loss for us. Southern Kaduna had been tensed and volatile, but I do know
that both men had worked closely and were pained by the unnecessary losses of
lives, violence and destruction. They deserved commendation not condemnation.
By his own admission, the
Governor says that a thousand churches had been destroyed in Southern Kaduna
and that people had lost their lives. His one grouse was that these leaders
were collecting money from good wishers abroad to bury their people. This was a
clear case of self-indictment by the Governor. First, did he expect that the
people of Southern Kaduna would wait for him to come and supervise the mass
burials of their people after burying the Shiites in mass graves? By casting
aspersion on missionary assistance, the Governor betrays a troubling ignorance
of the causes of the crises we have faced.
The work of missionaries
may be a problem for him today, but for the people of Southern Kaduna, the
message of Christ is steeped in their blood. Without the missionaries, they
would be no better than slaves, mere beasts of burden. Without the
missionaries, the history of northern Nigeria would pathetic and the region
would still be in the dark ages. We in Southern Kaduna are proud of our Christian
heritage. We will live by it, die for it if need be, but we are going nowhere.
We are free citizens and not in bondage to anyone or institution.
We are proud of the
freedom they gave us. They gave us a message of liberation, voice and the
promise of a new life. The people of Southern Kaduna have embraced this gospel
with its promise of a full life. There is neither retreat nor surrender because
this is the faith of our fathers. It is given us the tools, the courage and the
confidence we require to take our rightful place in our society.
Apart from the Barewa
College, which other prominent institution in Kaduna state does not owe its
origin to the missionaries? All the so-called Government schools in Kaduna
State are products of the criminal and unjust take over of missionary schools
by government. Sample the list of these schools: St. John’s College Kaduna, St.
Paul’s, Wusasa, St. Enda’s Teachers’ College, Zaria, Mary’s College Fadan Kaje,
St. Louis, Zonkwa, Sacred Heart Women Teachers’ College, Kaduna, St. Anne’s Primary
School, Queen of Apostles College, Kaduna, College of Mary Immaculate,
Kafanchan, the ECWA Girls School in Kwoi, among many others. That you have
repainted a stolen car does not make it your own.
Let me return to the
issues of the day and try to end. Our country is in very serious crisis, the
type of which we have never seen before. Death, destruction and destitution
have become our lot and nowhere is this more expressed than in northern
Nigeria. Today, Boko Haram and the herdsmen and farmers clashes are phenomena
that are peculiar to the north and Islam. We cannot run away from this. It is
sad that the northern Muslim elite has used religion to hold on to power to the
detriment of even their own people and the larger society. For despite holding
power for all these years, the north is still the poorest part of the country,
nearly 15m Muslim children are on the streets with no future in sight, we are,
as the Governor of Borno would say, the poster child of poverty.
The world is changing and
we have a country to build. Even Usman Dan Fodio said that a society can live
with unbelief, but no nation can survive with injustice. Bishop Bagobiri lived at a time when clearly,
the foundation of unity and justice in Kaduna in particular and Nigeria in
general seemed threatened. At Christmas last year, he appealed to his people to
remain firm. He said in a message on December 24th, 2017: Despite the many
constraints in the area of security; the growing debilitating poverty;
un-precedent corruption and the piles of lies being bombarded on us daily, the
word of the lord exhorts to be consoled and remain steadfast for the Lord’s
visitation has come. As it is said, luxury and lies have huge maintenance cost,
but truth and simplicity are self maintained without any cost. We should be
consoled for Christ has visited his people. God in Christ is born to us in
Nigeria today. Nigeria would be renewed from its current decay and recapture
its lost glory again.
No religious leader worth
his salt can stand by in the face of visible injustice. It will be a mortal
sin. In 1878, Abraham Lincoln delivered what has come to be known as the house
divided speech. America was on the verge of breaking up and he insisted that
this must not happen. He said: I believe this government cannot endure,
permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved
— I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be
divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. A house divided against
itself cannot stand.
The people of Southern
Kaduna have suffered the injustice of deliberate exclusion from all the rungs
of local and national politics. They have got to where they are now by the
sweat of their brow. We do not ask for pity or sympathy from anyone. We have
come so far, not through the state but in spite of the state in northern
Nigeria. That is why, as you leave this stadium, whether you are going to
Abuja, Jos, or Kaduna, please look left and right and note if you will see one
single federal or major State government structure on the high way. All the
structures you see as you drive along are the result of the sweat from the brow
of our people. The federal and state governments are absent.
Bishop Bagobiri was in the
middle of all this. He was a great pastor, a builder of human capital. He took
over a very rural Diocese with 19 Parishes drawn from Jos and Kaduna
Archdioceses. Today, he has 53 Parishes and about 120 Priests. Today, he has
some of the best-trained priests in Nigeria and abroad. It is time for them to
step up to make the required sacrifice to sustain his legacy. He made his
contribution in the development of Southern Kaduna by trying to close the gap
left by the neglect of the state and federal governments. He founded a Female
Religious Congregation, a Monastery and a Tertiary institution, the St. Albert
Institute.
He deserves our appreciation and commendation. In real life, he had
difficulties with many people including his colleagues. He was a man of strong
convictions and very often, his convictions tended to blind him to other
opinions, but he was deep down an honest man. But, at heart, he was perhaps a
victim of his own convictions and honesty. Thankfully, he had the chance to
make peace with most of the constituencies he felt he had wronged. We sat
beside one another when he suddenly turned up at the last Bishops’ Conference.
We thank God that it all ended so well for him.
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