The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, the Most Rev Matthew Hassan Kukah, says he feels a personal sense of shame over the country’s trajectory with regards to corruption, insecurity, and institutional decay.
Bishop Kukah who stated this during an interview on the PAPShow Podcast on Sunday, 2026, while reflecting on the broader challenges confronting the country expressed deep concern over Nigeria’s current state.
The outspoken Catholic Bishop described the level of corruption, insecurity, and institutional decay as difficult to defend before the international community.
“So what I’m saying is that it is about us returning to how did Nigeria get to be the way it is today? …. I travel around the world and people keep asking me, and you put on a brave face to try and defend this country, the corruption, the inefficiency. The total decay, ” he lamented
While observing that the realities on ground speak for themselves and require no further persuasion, Bishop Kukah said: “It’s not a question of whether they are convinced. Why should you convince anybody? Are you going to convince somebody that 100 people or 200 people have died, or the people who are dying? Do you need to convince anybody? The figures are there. The statistics are there.
“Every day you are looking at the dead bodies.
” I’m mortally ashamed of what is going on in this country because it is impossible to explain. Why you will hear in the news, a hundred people have been killed, 200 people have been killed. And guess what? Nothing happened.”
