MURIC DEMANDS APOLOGY FROM BISHOP KUKAH OVER CLAIMS OF TARGETED ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS

By: Sefiu Ajape

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has called on Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah to apologise for what it described as “false and misleading allegations” that terrorists and bandits are targeting only Christians in Nigeria.

The group’s reaction followed the abduction of 40 Muslims inside a mosque at Gidan Turbe village in Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara State and the kidnapping of a Catholic bishop, Rev. Father Wilfred Ezemba of St. Paul’s Catholic Church, in Kogi State on the same day, Monday, September 15, 2025.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, September 16, 2025, the Executive Director of MURIC, Professor Ishaq Akintola, stressed that the incidents showed that terrorists and armed bandits do not spare any religion or ethnic group, insisting that “crime has no religious or ethnic colour.”

Quoting past incidents in Katsina, Sokoto, and other parts of the North where large numbers of Muslims were killed, MURIC maintained that both Christians and Muslims are victims of terrorism in Nigeria.

Professor Akintola accused Bishop Kukah of fueling division with his “frequent allegations of Islamisation and killing of Christians alone,” describing such claims as “falsehood” and “unhelpful to peace and progress.”

He added: “The massacres of Muslims in large numbers further amplify the unnecessary dissipation of energy, sheer wild goose chases, superfluous media hype and spiritual masturbation in addressing the US Congress by people like Bishop Mathew Hasan Kuka to lay false and misleading allegations of the killing of Christians in Nigeria as if Muslims are also not victims of killings and abductions.”

MURIC therefore urged Nigerians to reject narratives that portray insecurity as one-sided, while demanding that Bishop Kukah “tender an unreserved apology to Nigerians for misleading them for so long.”