Date Published: 07/30/09
Some questions for Fr. Matthew Hassan Kukah
By Idang Alibi
There are some political, social and practical every day living issues with spiritual implications that are troubling my noble soul for which I need some ecclesiastical authority to provide me some answers. And I have thought of no better authority for this purpose than Fr. Matthew Kukah who is easily one of the most knowledgeable men in Nigeria today. He is versed in politics, religion and ethics and speaks forthrightly on some burning issues of the day.
In the Bible we believers are forbidden to curse our leaders and in 1 Timothy 2:1-3 we are commanded to pray for them. This injunction underlines the very important role leaders are expected to play in the life of a people and a nation. A nation falls or rises with the kind of leaders they have. Now when this injunction was given it was quite understandable: the leaders that the people of God had were ordained by God to inspire, mobilise, motivate and guide the people to achieve a set of national and personal objectives aimed at attaining the over all well-being of the nation and the people.
Leaders are supposed to be to the people what shepherds are to animals. A good shepherd demonstrates deep and sometimes self-sacrificing love and care for his flock. Shepherds are much different from hirelings whose sole purpose for seeing over the flock is the pay they stand to get at the end of the day. For a shepherd, leadership is a vocation, a calling to show compassion but to a hireling, it is pure business. Simple. And we are seeing much of that in Nigeria today. The people we have over us are hirelings.
In a word, the leaders God talked about were His perfect will for the people. But can we say the same about the type of leaders we have in Nigeria now? Can they be said to be the perfect will of God for Nigeria? I have been taught about the difference between the perfect and the permissive will of God. I have been told that when a man that God loves and wants to lead a particular people at a particular time is allowed by the system of that country or nation to emerge, that is the perfect will of God for that people. But when some smart and roguish godfathers manipulate a man that God has not desired to lead the people, that is the permissive will of God.
Moses was the perfect will of God for Israel. He was humble, obedient, self-sacrificing and extremely God-fearing. But if the rebellious Korach had been allowed to emerge as Israeli leader he would have been the permissive will of God.
It is clear to most Nigerians that the men and women we have in leadership today are the permissive will of God. They do not look like men and women that have been selected and anointed by God to serve his people. Some, if not most, of them are experienced expert riggers, who subverted the will of both God and man and are now in power to serve their own ends. Many of them are pimps and murderers. Many are skilled evil manipulators who set one group against the other so that they can get power. Many lack wisdom and character.
Most of them are in power because they got power from Satan after swearing to blood oath naked to owe loyalty to one godfather. Some pledged to sacrifice their loved ones such as first-born sons, fathers, mothers and wives if they dared to default. Now, Father Kukah, in obedience to God’s command, am I to pray for this type of leaders? And if you insist that I continue to pray for them what should exactly be the content of my prayer? Will I be wrong if I ‘pray them out’ of power? Prayer is prayer, is it not?
My confusion however is that the prescription to pray for leaders suggests that I should wish them well and not say or do anything that will cost them their offices. Am I expected to pray for the good of this type of persons who are today my leaders? Should I tell God to keep them in power or should I tell God to remove them from office without any further delay?
Most respected Fr. Kukah, are we to pray for all leaders whether they are good or bad; whether they are from God or Satan; whether they are doing good or bad; whether they are legitimate or illegitimate and whether they are the perfect or permissive will of God for the people?
Or are we to take the law into our hands and, as I have suggested, “pray out” of power some leaders we know to be not from God or must we obey God unwaveringly and continue to pray for their good even when it pains us to continue to see them in power? In giving us the law on praying for leaders God intended that the leaders will be persons he has anointed to lead his people. If leaders are not endorsed by God should we still treat them as if they were God’s representatives?
If some people can take matters into their own hands and get themselves selected, anointed or appointed into power and expect us to pray for their well-being, are they not arm-twisting God and blackmailing us the people? People who come to power through coups or rig elections, are they from God? I have been taught that God can use any man, way or means to carry out his will. Can it be that some election riggers who now occupy our political space were ordained by God?
We humans are the agents God uses to carry out his will for his people, is it right for us to take actions other than prayers to chase out of power leaders we have reasonable cause to believe are not from God but are on a frolic of their own? When the people of the Philippines took matters into their own hands and chased out Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, and Mrs. Corazon Aquino was installed in his stead, did the people violate God’s will or did they promote it? Some of these things are very confusing and I need some enlightenment.
Is coup or revolutionary insurrection against usurper leaders an ungodly act or is it part of ensuring God’s will? I know that God sometimes allows wicked leaders to rule over a certain people as an act of God’s vengeance on the people. Is that the fate of Nigeria today?
Another similar question that is also agitating my noble soul is: If you snatch another man’s wife, does she become legitimately your own wife? And if another man comes to snatch the same woman from you will God be unhappy with the man who has come to take the woman you had taken from another man illegally?
I am so very confused about the issue of God’s will and prayer. In obedience to the Biblical command to pray for our leaders, my family and I have over the years been faithful in doing just that. In our morning devotions we have taken it upon ourselves to pray for the good of our leaders right from President Umaru Musa Yar’adua to the councilor that represents our ward in our local government council. We have been praying this prayer day in day out for several years now without any visible positive effect in our country. Instead, o ur nation keeps going down and down and if care is not taken may go further down and evenly out.
We ask God for wisdom for them, for noble heart so that they can do good for the people. We ask God to give them a fair and just heart so that they can address the many problems of our country. We tell God that we are praying for them as he enjoined us to do because if it is good with them it will be good for us. But we are seeing that as some of the leaders we keep praying for grow in personal wealth and riches, some of us the people are becoming poorer and poorer by the day. Is God not hearing our prayers or is it the leaders who are hardening their own heart? I am truly confused and I want some one knowledgeable to help out.
As a forthright man I am confident that Fr. Kukah will shun diplomacy and use all his political and ecclesiastical knowledge to guide me and many other Nigerians who are as confused as me to guide us to do what is right and proper in these circumstances.
Mr. Alibi is an Abuja based journalist
