BOMB BLASTS IN JOS, NIGERIA

25th December, 2010

PRESS RELEASE:

JOS BOMB BLASTS: A NATIONAL TRAGEDY

Three coordinated bomb blasts reportedly occurred in Jos, Plateau State yesterday killing twenty people and injuring many others. Jos has been engulfed in religious and tribal crises in recent times resulting in heavy tolls.
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) is deeply disturbed by this national tragedy. We strongly condemn the use of terrorist tactics like bomb explosions to settle scores. This is a dastardly act. It is barbaric, inhuman and insane. The perpetrators are unpatriotic and unscrupulous elements bent on turning Nigeria into a wide battle field.
MURIC is particularly saddened by the timing of the blasts coming on Christmas eve. Some Nigerians are yet to come to grips with the factor of fate which brought Muslims and Christians as well as different tribes together in the same country.


We charge the security agencies to fish out the perpetrators and make them face the full wrath of the law. We appeal to religious and tribal leaders in the affected area to call their followers to order. Everything necessary must be done to avoid further bloodshed.

We also appeal to Nigerians nationwide not to allow this unfortunate incident to destroy the atmosphere of peaceful coexistence which the rest of the country has been enjoying for decades. We urge leaders of all sectors to refrain from making inflammatory statements. The youth are advised to remain calm and law abiding.


Finally, MURIC prays that Allah grants the families of the victims of the bomb blasts the strength to bear the loss.


Dr. Is-haq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
234-818-211-9714

CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM MUSLIM RIGHTS

24th December, 2010

CHRISTMAS MESSAGE:

CALL ON POLITICIANS TO EMULATE JESUS CHRIST

 Nigerian Christians will tomorrow join the rest of the global body of Christ to celebrate this year’s Christmas. We of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) felicitate with our Christian brothers and sisters and wish them a fruitful season.
This is definitely a season that necessitates sober reflection. Jesus is revered throughout the world today because of his selflessness, his readiness to sacrifice and his consistent transparency. These virtues are what Nigerian politicians and leaders lack. It is the absence of these golden values that has brought Nigeria to its current state of sleep-walking.
Nigerians pick food from the dustbin in spite of the immense natural wealth which God has endowed this country. Hundreds of people are unable to get good medical attention. Many Nigerians sleep under the bridge. Our educational institutions can only be compared to lepers’ islands. Nigerian roads are fit only for suicide drivers. Workers are over-worked, under-paid and over-taxed. Too many people have nothing. Too few have too much.
Ironically, politicians are pampered with too much largesse from the people’s sweat. The National Assembly takes 25% of the nation’s overhead budget. The executive has arrogated 50% of same to its self, leaving a meager 25% for the jamaheer (masses). To make the matter worse, the Federal Government is contemplating taking more than $3.5 billion from the World Bank. Like the biblical prodigal son, Nigerian leaders are on a mission to waste our resources. Nigeria borrowed $5 billion only by 1985. We paid up to $19 billion between 1986 and 1999 only to be told that we were still owing $32 billion! Yet another tragedy is manifested in the materialistic mentality of ordinary Nigerians.


MURIC calls on Nigerian leaders to emulate Jesus Christ and follow his leadership example. We charge religious clerics to drum the lessons inherent in the life and death of Jesus Christ into the ears of Nigerians. The average Nigerian must be sincerely God-fearing and shun the mad rush for the accumulation of wealth.


The Federal Government of Nigeria must desist from negotiating loans from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or any other international financial agency that represents Western capitalism. Western interest on loans is designed to keep the Third World underdeveloped and dependent for ever.

Dr. Is-haq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
234-818-211-9714

JUMBO PAY FOR NIGERIAN LAWMAKERS

5th December, 2010

PRESS RELEASE:

NASS JUMBO PAY: NIGERIANS FACE DICTATORSHIP OF THE LEGISLATURE The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Lamido Sanusi, revealed last week that the National Assembly (NASS) consumes 25% of Nigeria’s annual total overhead cost. Many others had earlier disclosed that colossal amounts are being spent on the same NASS. The CBN governor has also been invited by the Senate to defend his position.
 The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) finds these developments curious and disheartening. The people’s representatives are portraying themselves as insensitive to the plight of the jamaheer (masses). The legislature is busy arrogating to itself all the milk and honey in the land while the people ransack dustbins for leftovers before they can eat. The proletariat is toiling day and night but it is being denied adequate pay for its sweat. Labour’s demand for a survival minimum wage of N18,000 was ignored until a national strike had to be called and until lives were lost over the demand. Yet members of the NASS felt no qualms allocating jumbo pay to themselves.

What we find most disturbing is the harassment of the CBN governor by Senate when he was invited to defend his revelations on Wednesday. The questions hauled at him by members of Senate were nothing short of tactics in blackmail, coercion and intimidation. Otherwise why should any senator ask the CBN governor if he was still interested in his job? It reminds us of the manner Senate gagged Professor Attahiru Jega, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) when he alerted the nation about delays in the Electoral Act. Senate promptly invited him and he was told, “You talk too much”.

We find this phenomenon quite disturbing. We cannot have a free and fair election if the man at the helm of affairs of the highest electoral body is not free to pass comments. MURIC is therefore asking the question: How independent is the ‘Independent’ National Electoral Commission? The NASS is fast becoming dictatorial. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Whereas democracy entails freedom of speech, our NASS is suppressing free speech. Also, whereas democracy necessitates separation of powers whereby each component is independent of the other, the NASS seeks to strangulate other arms of governance.


MURIC rejects the dictatorial proclivities of the NASS. This august body is fast eroding the powers of other arms. It has also constituted itself into a threat to free speech, justice and fair play. It is turning the theory of the separation of powers into sheer illusion. The NASS has not demonstrated any readiness to make sacrifices, rather it has become an Oliver Twist, asking for more and more while the jamaheer are hungry, naked and homeless.


True leaders of the people are expected to make sacrifices which the people can emulate. The whole anatomy of the Nigerian nation lies prostrate on a sick bed with members of the NASS as bedbugs sucking its blood dry. The attitude of members of the NASS seems to tell us that many of them came in through the backdoor. The recent court pronouncements on election cases are didactic in this regard. MURIC is obligated to ask again: are these the true representatives of the people? Did these people win free and fair elections?


We call on civil society to act quickly and save the jamaheer from the totalitarian tendencies of the NASS before it becomes a hydra-headed monster with jaws wide open to swallow up the social order.


Dr. Is-haq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
234-818-211-9714