As row grows over Bishop Hassan Kukah’s criticism of the Muhammadu Buhari-led government at Christmas, a popular Christian leader, Apostle Johnson Suleman, has added his voice asking the president to ensure that nothing untoward happens to the Bishop of the Sokoto Diocese.

Kukah, in the Christmas message he delivered last Friday, had accused President Buhari of turning nepotism into a state policy. He had said that there could have been a coup if a non-northern Muslim president had done a fraction of what Buhari did, while he also accused the president of institutionalizing northern hegemony by “reducing others in public life to second-class status”.

While the president’s aides and sympathizers including some northern groups condemned Kukah for the message, the Catholic Church in Nigeria, the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), rose in his defense.

According to Apostle Suleman, the senior pastor at the Omega Fire Ministries (OFM) worldwide, in a message that was released on Wednesday morning, the government must not touch Kukah. The top cleric warned that arming the Bishop could trigger “what would snowball into more drama”.

“Nothing must happen to Bishop Kukah,” declared Apostle Suleman in the message, adding that “those who are planning it (to arm Kukah) know what I am saying. Let’s not trigger what would snowball into more drama. Leave unarmed critics and deal with armed terrorists.

Don’t touch Bishop Kukah. When you touch God’s ministers, God would reply you.”

Apostle Johnson Suleman is one of the world’s few outspoken God’s servants who speak with basic principles of Christian civility, against governments’ despotic rules.