ISLAM COLUMN: Eid Mubarak

Ramadan has come and gone with its blessings, multiplied rewards and emancipation from Hell. We pray Allah to inscribe us among those servants of His who were forgiven their sins in Ramadan and those who will be admitted in Aljannah.

Below is a letter written by the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria to the Director General of the Department of State Security. Enjoy:

Enough Shenanigans from Enemies of Peace in Nigeria.

About two months ago, our attention was drawn to a video clip that went viral, which jolted millions of Muslims and other peace-loving Nigerians. This was followed by subsequent news reports in a number of newspapers of an incident involving a Pentecostal priest, Pastor Uche Aigbe of the House on the Rock Church in Abuja, who mounted the pulpit, wielding unabashedly, an AK-47 rifle, on Sunday, 12th February, 2023. This irresponsible and criminal act was exhibited before a congregation which included hundreds of impressionable young and exuberant youths. This is undoubtedly, the peak of impunity, by a Christian Priest, clearly of the “prophets” of prosperity and fantom prophecies!

2. Since this unfortunate, ungodly and clearly criminal incident, our Council took steps to restrain our members and other affiliated Muslim groups in the North and the Southwest from commenting to avoid escalating a combustible issue in an already overheated policy and, more importantly, to give the government and the security agencies, the opportunity to act appropriately, promptly, responsibly and fairly, in the interest of peace and harmonious coexistence.

3. Sadly, our worst fears have now been confirmed, firstly that if the culprit was a Muslim, even if not clergy or Imam, who dramatically appeared clad with an AK-47 rifle on the pulpit, we would have had endless local and international print and electronic news and social media analysis, with labels of a terrorist and unpalatable insinuations of connection to all “evils”. With all sense of responsibility, we believe a Muslim in such a situation (God forbid) would have been promptly arrested, in addition to being tried and adjudged guilty in the “Court” of public opinion.

4. To put this incident in proper perspective, it is essential to note that this criminal act is not an isolated incident, rather it is part of a grand plan by the Christians to intimidate the majority of Muslims, to take over the mantle of leadership, by all means available. Starting from January 1966 to 1991 (Nzeogwu to Orkar), we have had to stomach the criminal acts of demented minds, fired by false prophecies from the pulpits, to create an imaginary reality of a new political geography for their selfish control of the levers of power.

5. Thus, for nearly 50 years since independence, the majority Muslim population has had to endure open hatred, genocidal excesses, toxic vituperations and an ungodly rivalry from the Nigerian Christian community. We can all easily recall Zangon Kataf I, II & III maniacal episodes of genocidal orgies, in Zonkwa, Kafanchan, Numan I & II, Tafawa Balewa I & II, the many deaths in Gonin Gora, Mambilla plateau I & II, Yalwan Shandam and Jos I & II massacres of epic proportions against Muslims. In the case of the Jos massacre on Sallah day, it was not only a genocide but with an uncanny horrific touch unheard of in human history, with the Christian murderers engaging in gleeful cannibalism, eating the burnt flesh of Muslims! We have visual and documented evidence of all these excesses, as we expect the relevant security agencies to have them too.

6. In all these instances too numerous to itemize here, with the exception of the half-hearted effort in 1986 to punish General Lekwot, nobody was ever prosecuted or held to account as a deterrent. If these criminal tendencies were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians, the media, local and their neo-crusader international brethren outfits would have been awash with endless propaganda against Islam and Muslims. As all these incidents unfolded over a generation, one shudders to imagine if the reverse was the case, if Christians were at the receiving end of these premeditated criminal activities, aptly encapsulated in one word, genocide.

7. The congregation of Muslim organizations under our Council have reviewed the situation of Muslims, the unsatisfactory response of the relevant security agencies and what the future holds for Muslims and Islam in Nigeria in light of the above and the recent viral “thank you, Daddy” video clip, and resolved as follows:-

a.) Noted that since the arrest of the terrorist pastor a few days after the AK-47 lesson in the Church, the matter appears to have been buried just as other cases of premeditated genocide, with no single follow-up brief or new reports from the security agencies. Our fears that, as usual, there will not be any consequences or accountability are clearly confirmed.

b.) Further noted that the AK-47 terrorist act is a culmination of many instances of brazen security breaches and reckless genocidal adventures of Christians against Muslims openly instigated by CAN and Church leaders. It is indeed one sad incident, too many.

c.) Affirm that Muslims will not accept any act of criminality, threats or intimidation as a machiavellian strategy to foist a Christian agenda on Nigeria, now and in the future.

d.) Agreed that the deafening silence of our good Christian brethren amounts to conspiratorial complicity.

e.) Demand an end to the daily provocative, incendiary rhetorics from the Christian clergy, which are unhelpful and blatant breaches of the spirit of peaceful coexistence.

f.) Further demand to know the stage of investigation of the AK-47 incident to calm nerves and assure the Muslim majority of transparency and fairness.

g.) Concluded by reminding our security agencies that there can never be real peace without justice and that selective justice is the worst form of injustice.

Yours Faithfully,

Nafiu Baba- Ahmed, mni

Secretary-General.