We Have Three Abachas – Bishop Kukah

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I was in Abacha town today to represent my boss, Mr. Peter Obi, at a burial ceremony.

The mass was con-celebrated by about 20 priests, led by Bishops Peter Okpaleke of Ekwulobia Diocese and Mathew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto Diocese. A lot of bishops and religious organizations sent in representatives.

After the mass, shortly before the commendation prayer, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah beckoned on the already standing congregation to sit down, saying that he would not come to Abacha town for the first time just to perform commendation rituals, without greeting the people. One could see him struggling to tone down his English to the understanding of everybody, which made him to interject his speech with “pidgin”, here and there.

A good public speaker any day, he started on a hilarious note of recognizing three Abachas in Nigeria: Abacha as a name, Abacha as a local delicacy and Abacha as a name of the town. Kukah was concerned with Abacha as a name of a town.

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He said he was in Abacha for the burial ceremony out of the respect he had for the dead woman, who, born in Sokoto in 1940, contributed a lot to the development of the country, especially Catholicism in Sokoto State.

Prying into the Nigeria of those days in contrast to the Nigeria of today, Kukah said the division among Nigerians was becoming a chasm, with one group blaming another: Fulani blaming Hausa; Hausa blaming Yoruba; Yoruba blaming Igbo; Igbo blaming Ijaw, ad infinitum. He said we owed it to the memory of our parents to discover those things that made them to co-exist and emphasize them, rather than holding unto the divisive tendencies that have creeped into our consciousness and are threatening to destroy us.

Those were the words of a sincere religious man that is troubled by the mutual destruction that seem to have become our lot.

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Talking about Abacha the town, I remember a particularly hilarious encounter with Obi at the January of his first tenure as the Governor of Anambra State.

On assumption of office, one of the first things he did was to do a total appraisal of all Federal projects in the state.

Unlike what we are told today, he personally read all the files and wanted specific clarifications about each project. This led him to the Federal Ministry of Power, when former Gov. Liyel Imoke was the Minister.

Sen. Imoke, as he was then called, sat closely with Obi, showing him all the completed and on-going federal projects on power in the State. He showed him an on-going federal project at Abacha, at which Obi exclaimed that Anambra did not have such a town. Not knowing the town myself, I sadly confirmed same to him. Obi said it could be a devious means of tying a project to a non-existent town with the aim of ‘eating the money’. Both leaders took note.

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When we came out, not very sure on Abacha, he asked me to find out more immediately we got home. He said even though he visited all the towns during electioneering, that the haste that accompanied such visits could make one susceptible to forgetfulness.

It was after we returned to Anambra that I made inquiries about Abacha and discovered it is, indeed, a town in the State. By the time we completed our first tenure, we all, including Mr. Peter Obi, had Anambra State at the back of our palms, having transversed the State in the course of 8 years of intense, but now bastardized, task of developing every part of the State. Those efforts saw to the construction of the Abacha road among other developments.

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