Bishop Kukah Says North Has Not Forgiven Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa’s Assassinations

The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, has revealed that many elderly Northerners remain deeply aggrieved over the assassinations of Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, and Nigeria’s first Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.

Speaking during an interview on Arise Television’s Prime Time on Thursday evening, Bishop Kukah stated that many Northerners in their 70s and 80s still struggle to come to terms with the killings, which occurred during Nigeria’s first military coup in 1966.

“Most Northerners who are in their 70s and 80s still cannot come to terms with the brutal killing of the Sardauna and Tafawa Balewa,” Kukah said.

He criticized the nation’s reluctance to engage in honest conversations about its past, suggesting that Nigeria has yet to fully confront the trauma of its early political upheavals.

“Unfortunately, we have a country that doesn’t like to confront the truth. We often say, as Africans, ‘forgive and forget’—and we bury the hatchet, but the handle is left sticking out,” he remarked.

Kukah argued that this unresolved history continues to cast a long shadow over Nigeria’s present, including its governance and public institutions.

“We have not had the time, the honesty, or the sincerity to sit down and ask: what went wrong? This is why the dreams of our founding fathers have become nightmares for us,” he added.

He concluded by linking the legacy of that unresolved past to the breakdown of merit-based recruitment in public service and the wider dysfunction seen in the country today.