Religious leaders should shun making inciting statements –Lai Mohammed replies Rev. Kukah

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has replied Rev. Matthew Kukah following his Christmas message where he decried nepotism in President Muhammadu Buhari-administration.

In the message, Rev. Kukah added that if the President was not a Muslim, there have been a coup to remove him.

However, in a statement signed by the Special Assistant to the President (Media), Office of the Minister of Information and Culture, Segun Adeyemi, on Saturday, December 26, Mohammed urged religious leaders in the country to “refrain from stoking the embers of hatred and disunity,” warning that resorting to “scorched-earth rhetoric at this time could trigger unintended consequences.”

”While religious leaders have a responsibility to speak truth to power, such truth must not come wrapped in anger, hatred, disunity and religious disharmony,” the statement begins.

Mohammed added that it is particularly graceless and impious for any religious leader to use the period of Christmas, which is a season of peace, to stoke the embers of hatred, sectarian strife and national disunity.

Read also: Kukah decries nepotism in Buhari’s government, says ‘there could have been coup in Nigeria under non-Muslim president’

”Calling for a violent overthrow of a democratically-elected government, no matter how disguised such a call is, and casting a particular religion as violent is not what any religious leader should engage in, and certainly not in a season of peace,.”

Mohammed also said that instigating regime change outside the ballot box is not only unconstitutional but also an open call to anarchy.

Continuing, the Minister said:

“While some religious leaders, being human, may not be able to disguise their national leadership preference, they should refrain from stigmatizing the leader they have never supported anyway, using well-worn and disproved allegations of nepotism or whatever.

“Whatever challenges Nigeria may be going through at this moment can only be tackled when all leaders and indeed all
Nigerians come together, not when some people arrogantly engage in
name-calling and finger-pointing.”

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