{"id":164023,"date":"2025-05-24T22:49:01","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T21:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah"},"modified":"2025-05-24T23:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T22:58:15","slug":"electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah","title":{"rendered":"Electing Pope isn\u2019t \u2018emilokan\u2019 affair, Africa should win World Cup first \u2013 Bishop Kukah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has told those advocating for the election of an African pope to first win the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>According to Kukah, electing a pope is not like that; it\u2019s not an \u2018Emilokan\u2019 where people claim it is their turn.<\/p>\n<p>The Catholic bishop made the remarks while fielding questions on Channels Television\u2019s Political Paradigm.<\/p>\n<p>Kukah also spoke about his experience in Rome and the possible impact of the new pope on Africa and the world in general.<\/p>\n<p>On whether it\u2019s palatable to hold on to the argument that there should have been an African pope, Kukah said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, let\u2019s win the World Cup first. I think we still have a long way to go. I did write an article in the course of all of this and I remember remarking on something that happened when Pope John Paul II died and speculators thought that Cardinal Arinze came very close. But as you know, electing a pope is not like that; it\u2019s not an \u2018Emilokan\u2019 scenario in which you say, \u2018These people have had their turn, now it\u2019s our turn.\u2019 No, it doesn\u2019t work like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has told those advocating for the election of an African pope to first win the World Cup. According to Kukah, electing a pope is not like that; it\u2019s not an \u2018Emilokan\u2019 where people claim it is their turn. The Catholic bishop made the remarks while [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":164021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[1871,2197,254],"class_list":["post-164023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa","tag-bishop-kukah","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Electing Pope isn\u2019t \u2018emilokan\u2019 affair, Africa should win World Cup first \u2013 Bishop Kukah - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has told those advocating for the election of an African pope to first ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Electing Pope isn\u2019t \u2018emilokan\u2019 affair, Africa should win World Cup first \u2013 Bishop Kukah\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has told those advocating for the election of an African pope to first ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-05-24T21:49:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-24T22:58:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/05\/sm_1748114926.987815.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Electing Pope isn\u2019t \u2018emilokan\u2019 affair, Africa should win World Cup first \u2013 Bishop Kukah\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-24T21:49:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-05-24T22:58:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah\"},\"wordCount\":223,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/05\/sm_1748114926.987815.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa\",\"Bishop kukah\",\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electing-pope-isnt-emilokan-affair-africa-should-win-world-cup-first-bishop-kukah\",\"name\":\"Electing Pope isn\u2019t \u2018emilokan\u2019 affair, Africa should win World Cup first \u2013 Bishop Kukah - 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