Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of the Sokoto Diocese, has asserted that Nigeria had the potential to surpass countries like Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan in development—if not for the disruptions caused by military rule.
Speaking during an interview on Arise Television’s Prime Time on Thursday evening, Bishop Kukah reflected on Nigeria’s early post-independence promise, highlighting the strength of its bureaucracy and societal structure at the time.
Recalling his childhood experiences, he said:“As a little kid, I remember all we wanted to do was just to see what the Sardauna looked like… we had all the wonderful things.”
Kukah emphasized that Nigeria had all the necessary foundations to thrive but was derailed by military coups, which eroded key institutions and introduced long-term challenges such as ethnic divisions and weakened governance structures.“We could have been better than Singapore, better than Malaysia… No one would have seen our back had the military not struck,” he said.
He further argued that Singapore’s success was largely due to a solid inherited bureaucracy, not solely because of its leadership, and lamented that Nigeria’s own bureaucratic and societal systems were dismantled by military interference, giving rise to ethnic consciousness and instability.
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