Reverend Dr. Matthew Hassan Kukah is the current bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto in northwestern Nigeria. He was ordained on December 19, 1976. He was formerly the secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference and vicar general of the Archdiocese of Kaduna until he was ordained as bishop of on September 8, 2011.
Kukah has served in many presidential initiatives such as the Human Rights Violation Investigation Commission, the Electoral Reform Committee and the National Political Reform Conference. He was the presidential facilitator in negotiating an end to the hostilities between Shell Petroleum Development Company and the Ogoni people. He also served on a committee regarding Boko Haram set up by the Northern Governors.
Kukah holds a Bachelor of Divinity from St. Augustine’s Seminary. He earned a master’s degree in peace studies at the University of Bradford and a doctorate degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies. He was a senior Rhodes scholar at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Mason fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, where he earned a master’s degree in public policy.
Finally, he is author of many books such as, Religion, Politics and Power in Northern Nigeria, Democracy and Civil Society in Nigeria, and recently, Witness to Justice. Kukah is also founder of the Kukah Centre, a public policy think tank in Abuja, Nigeria.