Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said Bishop of Sokoto Catholic Diocese, Rev. Fr. Matthew Kukah’s Christmas speech did not denigrate Islam..<\/p>\n
Kukah in the speech summed up the country\u2019s challenges ranging from insecurity, poverty to frustration under President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari<\/p>\n
Soyinka spoke in a statement on Monday titled, \u201cThe Kukah offence and ongoing offensives.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cOne of the ironic features of religionists is, one is forced to conclude, a need to be offended. It is as if religion cannot exist unless it is nourished with the broth of offence. This may be due to inbuilt insecurity, a fear that even the ascribed absolutes of faith may be founded on nothing more than idealistic human projections, not grounded in anything durable or immutable. Hence the over prickliness, aggressiveness, sometimes even bullying tendencies and imperious posturing. This leads to finding enemies where there are none. In certain social climates, it degenerates into inventing enmities in order to entrench theocratic power.<\/p>\n
In its own peculiar way, this is actually a rational proceeding. A perceived threat to a collectivity tends to rally even waverers round the flag. The core mission of faith custodians then becomes presenting religion as being constantly under siege. It all contributes to interpreting even utterances of no hostile intent as \u201cenemy action.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a deliberate, emotive displacement of central concern. It is calculated avoidance, diversionary, and thus, nationally unhealthy. Humans should not attempt to play the ostrich.<\/p>\n
He noted that Kukah\u2019s Christmas message, and the ensuing offensives, could not be more fortuitous, coming at a time \u201cwhen a world powerful nation, still reeling from an unprecedented assault on her corporate definition, is now poised to set, at the very least, a symbolic seal on her commitment to the democratic ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said Bishop of Sokoto Catholic Diocese, Rev. Fr. Matthew Kukah’s Christmas speech did not denigrate Islam.. Kukah in the speech summed up the country\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n