“But we find that the kingdom of Christianity, kingdom of Christ is not a kingdom founded by a standing army, it’s not a kingdom built by human hands, it’s not a kingdom that is defined by territory, it’s not a kingdom that is defined by a standing army, it’s not a kingdom that has a jihadist mentality; that seeks to expand by shedding blood and more blood. It’s not a kingdom that is propelled by the size of its population.”
These statements are excerpted from Most Rev. Matthew Hassan Kukah’s paper. The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto was the Guest Speaker at the Order of the Knights of St. Mulumba Nigeria, Eko Sub-Council’s 25th Anniversary Lecture held recently in Lagos. Themed, “Christian Martydom in Nigeria … a building block or stumbling block to Salvation or Patriotism,” the tireless advocate for justice, democracy and human development speaks on Christianity, Martyrdom, collective defence of the Church and other contemporary issues. NETA NWOSU reports
Strangeness of Christianity
I thought we should go back and think a little more clearly about what martyrdom really is, and is there any role that it has to play in our lives today as Christians, as Catholics, or is the concept of martyrdom one of those ugly chapters of Church history that we occasionally just remember? But in order for us to appreciate the context of our conversation, I think it’s simply first of all, for us to understand in my view what Christianity really is, because I think it’s easy for us to take so much for granted. But personally, every time, almost every day, I reflect on the very strangeness of Christianity; strange in the sense that although many faiths have now surfaced, even before Christ and after Christ, the temptation for Christians is to see their faith as just one out of the multiplicity of faiths around the world.
But it is not for nothing that Jesus used such infinitive articles when He talks about the fact that ‘I am the way, I am the truth, I am the light.’ And Jesus could easily have said, ‘I am a way, I am a truth, I am a light.’ “That will again allow for the existence of a range of other lights and ways, and so on.
But there’s no need for us to go into that controversy, except to say that what is the most strange thing about Christianity is the nature of its foundation; we don’t have a situation where somebody just wakes up as a prophet and lays claim to having been spoken to by God or given messages by God. But in the case of Christianity, we find very strange emergence which is the circumstances of the birth of Jesus Christ as not as dramatic as what you would have expected by the fact that Jesus will later talk about, ‘my kingdom is not of this world.’ In every sense of the word, what constitutes kingdoms, what constitutes empires in historical terms, all fly in the face of the kingdom that Jesus Christ was speaking about. It was not just one of many kingdoms but, it also flew in the face of history because every kingdom, every empire, every king, every queen, every kingdom has been established historically not by proclamation but by physically shedding of blood. So, kingdoms have been characterised by bloodshed, by conquest, by domination and by the establishment of those empires or those kingdoms.
The kingdom of Christ
We find out that in the case of Jesus Christ, the kingdom, from birth, Jesus Christ was being pursued. His parents had to flee even before the beginning of His life. Children were killed at the mere thought that the three wise men had mentioned that Herod a new king had been born. But we find that the kingdom of Christianity, kingdom of Christ is not a kingdom founded by a standing army, it’s not a kingdom built by human hands, it’s not a kingdom that is defined by territory, it’s not a kingdom that is defined by a standing army, it’s not a kingdom that has a jihadist mentality; that seeks to expand by shedding blood and more blood. It’s not a kingdom that is propelled by the size of its population.
It’s not a kingdom that is maintained by physical infrastructure, but ironically, the kingdom that Jesus Christ established and left behind is a honourable kingdom; the kingdom that demonstrates that power is weakness and weaknesses is power, because it’s a kingdom that Jesus established on the basis of love, on the basis of non-violence. So, even when Peter attempted to use the weapons of this world to defend Jesus Christ, Jesus remands Peter to put back his sword. I am not asking the Knights of St. Mulumba to put back their sword, it’s just to talk of the fact that I think we need to understand where we are coming from, and amidst all these, Jesus Christ finally leaves us with the great command, namely; to take the gospel to all the ends of the earth, to take the gospel without leaving any definition of where the ends of the earth is.
Context of Christianity
It’s not that we have to take the gospel to a particular tribe, to a particular country, to a particular culture; even though countries have not emerged at that time, but within the context of the Roman Empire, Jesus says to His apostles, ‘you must take this message to all the ends of the earth.’ And what are they armed with, because the first thing we could have thought would be the ability to do map reading, that Jesus would have spread a map because this is the way that those even before the coming of the British, the French or the Germans, wherever into Africa and other parts of the world went. People looked at charts, they looked at maps; they did all kinds of conducts and so on, and they understood where they wanted to conquer. But in the case of Jesus, He doesn’t give the apostles a map. He simply says, ‘you are going to take this gospel to all the ends of the earth, I will be with you until the end of time.’
So those of us who are here as members of the Christian community, we are following in that tradition. And the point I’m making is that it is important that we Christians understand that what we are holding on to has a history. It has a theology. It has a context. And we must keep that context in mind because Christians tend to get very confused in the world, and they compare themselves and compare what they are teaching, and they compare their faith with other faiths that are around them. While doing so, we must never lose sight of the fact that Christianity was literally conceived in blood as we see from the death of Jesus Christ. And then subsequently, when you start reading the Acts of the apostles, this is where it gets even more interesting, because by the time we read the second chapter, third chapter, fourth chapter of the Acts of the apostles, you are coming to terms with certain realities which is that first, where were these people when there was fighting? They were locked up for fear of the Jews. That’s what the Bible tells us. Yet, when they received the Holy Spirit, they become completely different human beings.
Now, what is very important in all of these is the fact that, we now see the beginning of Christianity. And appreciating that beginning is very important because as I said, we see a frightened Peter who is able to preach, and his first sermon wins converts in their thousands. Now, we can see the beginning of the life of the early Christian community; a life of vulnerability, Jesus has left them. When they received the Holy Spirit, they are different sets of human beings. They begin to form a community. And then by the time we get to Acts, chapter 4, 5, we read the story of Ananias and Sapphira. But even before then, we are hearing stories about how the apostles decided that they need to be equitable in the distribution of the resources that were before them. But we are also told that amidst all these, onlookers were holding this very small community in very high esteem. The first thing they did was focus on preaching the word of God and prayer, rather than in themselves, about raising funds and ensuring the distribution of resources. That’s not our work.
Now, when they begin to preach the word of God, we are hearing jealousy among the Sahendrin. The Jewish authorities are fighting because first of all, they imagined that by killing Jesus Christ this history has come to an end. But then, we are hearing of the arrest of the apostles. When they are arrested, suddenly, they were set free, and without a trial. It’s very interesting because even though there were no charges read; the charges were rather ridiculous. But ironically, this very vulnerable community reduces in fear because even when the authorities wanted to try the apostles, they wanted to flog them, they were afraid how people are going to react. Then, we now hear the apostles are getting bolder and bolder.
At the heart of martyrdom; at the heart of faith
And by the time we come to the story of Stephen, we are hearing stories of the apostles themselves, suddenly, apart from the fact that the communities are getting afraid of them. But then, we are told the council then assembles them, after they discovered that the Lord must be doing something strange, then the authority said, ‘look, we gave you strict orders not to continue to preach in the name of this man, Jesus and you still continue to.
Then of course, we now hear the council debating among themselves should they just eliminate these people? And then later they are brought forward, or whipped and told never to mention the name of Jesus again.
But guess what, again interestingly, we are told in the Acts of the Apostles, the apostles actually went away feeling very excited, because they were rejoicing at the thought, despite the pain in their back for having being whipped, they are going away rejoicing that they have been considered worthy to suffer in the name of Christ. This is at the heart of martyrdom. It’s at the heart of our faith, because many of us think that if we believe in God well enough, God should be able to protect us from all physical harm. And many of us like to believe when armed robbers are being killed, when the coup plotters were being killed is that, ‘God don catch them’.
So, here are the apostles; they are threatened by physical elimination, but ironically, they are happy that they have been counted worthy. And you will find this in reading the stories of the martyrs across that people begin to see even martyrdom now as a reward, as a blessing, and they are asking themselves, ‘Am I really worthy to embrace this?’ Ironically, their numbers begin to grow despite the persecution.
Preaching the gospel has no political, ethnic boundary
So today, a lot of people will meet me and say, ‘Bishop Kukah well done o, you are speaking truth to power.’ Now, it’s a very flippant way of saying a very deep thing because to be speaking truth to power means you have to have a vision of what the truth is. That’s why St. Paul says if we grasp the truth, then we must preach the gospel, welcome or unwelcome. So, preaching the gospel has no political boundary. It has no ethnic boundary. It’s not about friendship. If it were about friendship, Jesus will not say to Peter, ‘Get behind me Satan.’ So, martyrdom is not just about being killed, because of course, in the end, you are being killed for speaking the truth.
We need to come to terms with the essence that every day of our life as Christians, we are challenged to martyrdom not because a sword is dangling before us, martyrdom because we have a country, we have a society, we have a world that is so morally broken that every day, the sole question of what is right or what is wrong have been circumscribed by situations in which we find ourselves. And it’s very easy in the market place of ideas for Nigerians to say, ‘well, you know, this is Nigeria.’ And because this is Nigeria, we have to lower the bar, which is the reason why you must give a bribe in your country, which makes you accept you have to sleep with somebody to get a job, because this is Nigeria.
Martyr’s fate
Scripture tells us that Stephen saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus coming by the right hand of God. Stephen said, I see the heavens open. The bible tells us, and we take Stephen as the first martyr. Now, those who killed Stephen went ahead to kill him, as you can see before killing Stephen, we are told that the killers actually decided to close their ears because they no longer wanted to hear what Stephen was saying. And very often, that is a martyr’s fate. People don’t want to hear what the martyr is saying. And so, I’m just putting in proper context the need for us to understand that martyrdom is at the heart of Christianity.
That is why Tertullian was later on to say that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity, and that the blood of martyrs and martyrdom; this is what has flooded, watered, nurtured and ensured the growth of the faith. So, when martyrdom comes to us, we will embrace it; we are not in retreat. The young children of Uganda, who are your patron saint, when you read the story, you ask yourself, ‘how could this young people with no education, no knowledge of any sort,go through all this.
Martyrs
If you look at the history of martyrs, you find that there are far fewer Popes, far fewer Archbishops, far fewer Cardinals, far fewer Bishops than lay people who have been called to this holy life of martyrdom. And it’s also likely that you see that martyrs are just ordinary people. These are people whose love of God is not in disputation. It is faith that is deeply embedded in their lives. This is why it resonates the saying of Jesus that we must be like little children. Jesus didn’t say we should be childish, He’s just saying we must be like little children. The little children’s faith is unquestionable. It is a faith that is passionate. When a mother asks a child to jump: the child has no doubt that they are safe and can jump to the arms of their mother.
Boundaries of authority
As you see again, from the story of the martyrs, even from the trial of Jesus Christ and the experience of the apostles, it’s always a contestation and a tussle between power: the boundaries of authority and the boundaries of power. Who has power? Who doesn’t have power? Who has gotten power and how can they consolidate that power? And of course, as you know, you can read Chinua Achebe’s Things fall apart and you will understand that in most of the African literature you can see a great focus on the whole obsession of communities with their gods. And in traditional society, as we see even in the Roman empire, Caesar was literally god. And you hear people talk about the divine right of kings; the fact that for a long time, through history, the belief was that kings were chosen by God, that they were literally representatives of God. You need to understand it to appreciate why the Roman Empire treated Christians the way they did.
And very often, you will find just like in the case of Pilate in the trial of Jesus, there are people who tell you, ‘we don’t want to do this. Don’t make us kill you. Why don’t you just lower the standard and accept?’ The Christians are being told, ‘just make this symbolic sacrifice by acknowledging that Caesar is god, because this acknowledgement is important. God has been domesticated. So, the community god is a different god from the god of the other communities. And we need to be faithful to this god for the preservation of our community because in traditional society, faithfulness to this god through prayer, through sacrifices; these are the things that make it possible for a society to thrive.
For example, if you read the story, the Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe, it’s very interesting how the community chief, Ezeulu who has to be the one to say it’s time for the harvesting of the new yam, and because he has a feeling that the gods have not given him a signal, the people are hungry, but he says am not going to succumb to your hunger because we must do what pleases the gods.
Martyrdom, an act of subversion
So, the martyrs of the early Church were people who were not ready to please earthly authority. Suffering martyrdom is always a manifestation of the choices that we make about where our loyalties are going to lie. When the apostles say we are proud, we are happy that we are giving our lives to a truth that we hold on, that we will not surrender to the principalities of the day, they are telling us to do same. This is what makes it possible for them to rejoice for suffering in the name of Jesus Christ. Of course, martyrs are often considered to be intruders, they are considered to be seditious. Their martyrdom is also an act of subversion because by refusing to accept the community god, you are making the community vulnerable.
And so, martyrs were being killed, and of course, even very little has changed in our community today. Those countries that are living under tyranny; there are a few Nigerians who are saying, ‘wait a minute, we are beginning to see a sign of tyranny coming into our society.’ When you see the boundaries of freedom being curtailed, when you see the boundaries of free speech and free talk being curtailed, then you know that we are heading towards trouble. So, the quest for organisation and cohesion in society is what makes martyrdom stand out. Now, the question is, what is the situation today? Has martyrdom ended?
Of course, we can see that from 1948 with the incorperation of the United Nation Declaration on Human Rights, the things that we do for granted, the cultural circumstances that enable people like Okonkwo to kill an Ikemefuna, the kind of tradition that enabled people to kill others because they are Osu or to kill others because they are twins; all of these have now been overtaken. So, a basket of human rights has now become the order of the day. And along with that comes the whole question of how do we wrestle with the challenges of martyrdom?
Christians are the most persecuted
On the study and report, entitled, ‘Under Caesar’s sword, how Christians respond to persecution.’ It demonstrates very clearly persecution of Christians. Christians are the most persecuted group of people in the whole world. The study looked at about 20 countries, and everywhere, Christians have directly been the most targeted and the most persecuted people around the world. And of course, If you look at our own country here in Nigeria, the issue is that I think, and am not far off the mark, in northern Nigeria, Christians may constitute some of the groups you can kill without consequences. But if you ask yourself, has anybody ever been tried for anything, for burning churches or destroying Christian properties, from Michael to Deborah in Sokoto, is there anybody standing trial? A pastor was slaughtered openly in Adamawa, priests were killed in Benue, priests have been killed in Kaduna, priests are killed left, right and centre.
And it seems as if killing Christians in the world can be done without consequences.
Wholistic defence of the Church
But this has implications for a group like your own. When we say we are Knights, what exactly do we mean? When we hold a sword symbolically, what exactly do we mean? When we say we are defending the Church, what exactly do we mean? What do we mean by defending the Church? Defending the Church against who? And whom are you defending? What is the Church?
Paul makes the point eloquently about the Church being the body of Christ. That means if you were serious as Christians, if you were serious as Catholics, what happens to the Church in Falomo, what happens to the Church in Sokoto, what happens to the Church in Onitsha, what happens to the Church everywhere in this country, and the world affects us.
Christianity has been submitted to ethnicity
Tragically, Christianity has been submitted to ethnicity. What happens to our communities elsewhere, especially with the banditry and the Boko Haram, more and more communities are ready to give money to go and defend their communities than they are to protect the Church. So, it raises a lot of fundamental questions. How do communities respond to persecution?
Persecution of Christians
In our own case in Nigeria, we have a lot of issues. Some of them relate to the nature of colonial history and they still subsist. So, who are agents of persecution of Christians in Nigeria today? To understand this, we have to go back to our colonial history. It is important to understand that before the colonial state, what is today northern Nigeria; Sokoto Caliphate turned most of the Middle-Belt into just a crazy field for slaves. And studies have demonstrated quite frankly that beyond the Southern America, there’s nowhere in the world that practiced the amount of slavery that was practiced in the whole Sokoto Caliphate.
The realities are there. But I think what is even more important is that a lot of people, even today still have the caliphal mentality of those who are not part of us must be against us. And this is the fate of Christians and Christianity in many parts of northern Nigeria today where Christians are being denied lands to build churches. You build a Church and you are told you cannot do this until the community agrees. Am having a problem of that nature right now as we are talking in a place like Kebbi. But where we have a worshipping community the local people can allow people to come and do traditional dancing and have meetings and so on, but church, no.
And unfortunately for us, what is happening to the Church in northern Nigeria is of no interest at all, to many people.
Injury to one is injury to all
Our priests have been kidnapped, and Sokoto Diocese has paid almost 40 million naira in the last how many years, and this is a diocese where this is not money we can afford because for many of our dioceses, annual budget could be probably 50 million. And if you are lucky if you can raise that at bazaar and other collections. But a living Church that believes in martyrdom, and a community such as yours, Knights of the Church should be sufficiently awake and alert to the fact that injury to one is injury to all.
Now, when Osama Bin-Ladin settled in Sudan, the Pakistani government sent out signals around Africa, to all their embassies to say that if any young Moslem came to the embassy looking for a visa to go to Pakistan, they should not ask any questions. And that was where they were organising because young Moslems across Africa decided to go and fight when they heard that Islam was under attack in Afghanistan and so on and so forth.
So, when we see the rise of radical Islam, we must ask ourselves where has our own passion gone as Christians? Of course, our passion has gone to golf clubs, our passion has gone to holidays in Europe, our passion has gone to social habits that we invest a lot of resources on, but paying very little attention to what is happening to the body of Christ.
Hausa/Fulani Oligarchy
When the British left, it is very clear that the British had laid the foundation for the establishment of what finally became the Hausa/Fulani Oligarchy and the Hausa/Fulani hegemony which is still with us today in Nigeria, and we still have that mentality after independence, after 50 years, that kind of mentality and entitlement of possessing and consolidating our hold on the instruments of power, built on the basis of religion. This explains the fact that someone said that an infidel like Wike can be Minister of FCT. And these things are just metaphors. When El-Rufai was governor in Kaduna State, he decided that no Christian would be deputy governor, despite the fact that southern Kaduna has almost about 200 or more professors. Throughout the eight years of El-Rufai’s government, no one single person qualified to be minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to represent Kaduna on any federal appointment.
So, this politics of exclusion that is based on religion, for us Christians, we focus on ethnicity. So, Igbos might be wandering, ‘how many Igbos are here, how many Yorubas are here? We are counting the numbers in ethnicity. The northerners are counting the numbers in terms of religion, because people say here, ‘our religion is our politics. So, Christian persecution feeds this animal that the Christians are more or less either inhibiting the growth or a threat to the foundation of the hegemony of Islam. These are some of the practical problems that we are dealing with, and they are embedded in politics.
The challenge therefore, is for us to come to terms with these realities and how they can be addressed. Here in Sokoto for example, I have lost a seminarian, I have lost a priest, my priests have been kidnapped, not once, not twice. My immediate reaction is that in all of these, we are only inspired. People look at me and they say to me, ‘why are you going back to Sokoto?’ I remember when Deborah was killed, I was out of Sokoto, and people were saying to me, ‘Are you going back to Sokoto?’ When my seminarian, my priest were kidnapped and released last month, people were saying, ‘is he still going back to the parish.’ Many of you sitting and listening today, if I ask you to come to Sokoto, none of you wants to come to Sokoto because you are afraid. But if there’s a contract to come to Sokoto, you will come. You can come to look for money, when it comes to the faith, no. You ask people to come and serve the Church at particular levels, they are not coming to northern Nigeria. But if NNPC calls them, they will run.
More external interests in what is happening to us than within the country
So, what are the choices that we are making as far as our faith is concerned? We have decided to adopt the mind and spirit of the apostles, which is that you flog us once, we still step up; you flog us twice, we still step up. Three years ago, I spoke with an organisation called Aid to Church in Need. And all they do is to passionately raise funds to help to protect Christians all over the world. Whenever anybody is kidnapped in Nigeria, very often, it is Aid to Church in Need that assists. They came to our assistance in rebuilding our Churches. There are far more interests in what is happening to us outside this country than within the country. We have a lot of our Catholics who are bankers and their organisations are involved in corporate social responsibility but they can come to the north and do corporate social responsibility but not around the church. No, that one is matter of religion. I asked the Aid to Church in Need, ‘do you want to build a facility, and adoration centre, and I called the adoration centre, Adoration Centre of St. Michael and Alphonsus because Michael is my Seminarian who was killed, Alphonsus is my priest who was killed in Malonfashi. And this organisation was very excited. They are trying to raise about 200,000 Euros for us to build this centre. I am saying this because this is how we can sustain the faith.
The heros
With my Seminarian who was just 18 years old, I can tell young people, ‘look, there is a hero there for you to look up to. I have named the Bishop’s House after him
But what gave me so much joy was the realisation that this young man was killed and the people who killed him were finally arrested. And they came; they testified that, ‘we killed him because the young boy was looking at us sitting with our guns, and he was preaching to us and telling us to repent even though he knew we were Muslims.’ I remain proud of that. Mrs. Bolanle Ataga, whose husband is a medical doctor who was kidnapped at about the same time with her two children; the kidnappers set the children free after her husband had paid money. When it was her turn to be released, the kidnappers said, ‘no, we are not releasing you.’ They asked for another round of payment and the husband paid. On the day she was to be released, their big man was sitting somewhere, he said, ‘no, a beautiful woman like you, we can’t release you without tasting you.’ And the woman said, ‘you will sleep over my dead body.’ And they pulled a gun and shot her dead. So, women in Nigeria have every reason to feel confident. We have a young girl in Benin whose cause is now on course. The young little girl was to be gang-raped, but she stood for the faith. So, we have a lot of places that we can look up to.
Humanitarian support
There are a lot of things you can do to at least, show that you care. In Europe and America, there is an organisation called Open Doors. Google Open Doors and you will see the report. The British Parliament, the American Congress are sending people to Nigeria almost every year to come and investigate what is happening to Christians that are being killed. We receive visitors from Hungary. They are funding a project through Kukah Centre. We are seeing more solidarity and interest from outside Nigeria than from our own people. The money you are using to travel abroad for your summer, please spare a thought and see how you can restore something, because I am trying to convince people to help us. There are widows who are left with three, four, five children. We are trying to get these children back to school. So, even if you give us one million naira every year, 500,000 every year to be able to ensure that a child goes to school. It’s about pocket money you are sending to your children who are living elsewhere.
Nobody knows the future. We have a country to build. We have a Church to build. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference, a few years ago, we decided to take to the streets of Abuja, wearing black Sultans. When I came back to Sokoto, I decided to bring my people out. We walked down, people got frightened by the numbers because they said it’s not possible that these are Christians from Sokoto, and I was accused of bringing Christians from different parts of Nigeria to come and do procession in Sokoto. But we need solidarity in concrete terms. If your children are suffering under a bully in school, when they see their brother who is strong enough and he accompanies them to school, the bully will step back. We need that kind of solidarity.
Risk of our lay associations becoming mere social clubs
Finally, we must not run the risk of our lay associations; CWO, CMO, CYON, Knights, and so on becoming mere social clubs because these associations have an internally cohesive system that is literally a Church within a church. You go to many Churches today, Legion of Mary is having meeting, groups are having meetings, when the Angelus bell rings, they stand up, they finish the Angelus and then, they turn their backs even though Mass is starting at six o’clock. So, it is important that we must begin to make sure that martyrdom is about sacrifice. And the gospel is where it is today not by the sword, not by the amount of money, but by the faith that our Lord and saviour, Jesus Christ gave to us. That’s why I’m happy that you chose the theme, “Christian Martydom in Nigeria … a building block or stumbling block to Salvation or Patriotism,”
