3rd March, 2014
PRESS RELEASE:
CAN
IN NATIONAL CONFERENCE TO ELIMINATE ISLAM
Bishop Bagobiri said yesterday on the floor of the ongoing
national conference that Muslim affairs dominate Nigeria’s constitution. He
laid particular emphasis on the occurrence of the words ‘Islam’, ‘Shariah’ and ‘Muslims’
several times in the constitution without any mention of ‘Christ’ or ‘Christianity’.
The bishop’s comment exposes the hypocrisy of the leadership of
the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). A Yoruba adage says when a child rejects
pounded yam in the evening, his parents will tell him how his mother was
married. Bishop Bagobiri has stirred the hornet’s nest.
We recall that Pastor Tunde Bakare had earlier requested that
nobody should bring matters of religion into the conference. The same Christian leaders who said
religion should not be brought into the national conference are now the ones
making reference to a perceived preponderance of Muslim affairs in the country’s
constitution.
The Muslim Rights
Concern (MURIC) affirms that Christian delegates came to the national
conference with an anti-Islam mindset. There is strong evidence in Bishop
Bagobiri’s diatribe that our neighbours have a perception complex.
For the records, we remind CAN that the Muslims had established their
own way of life 800 years before the advent of the Christian colonialists who
forcefully converted them and robbed them of their identity. This is a crime
against humanity for which the Christian West which now claims to be the ‘champions’
of freedom and democracy has not accounted for.
Instead of redressing the injustice done to Muslims by the
colonialists, successive Nigerian governments have ignored the complaints of
Muslims regarding the coercion and intimidation of Muslims in a Nigerian
environment which is thickly painted in Christian colour.
Every aspect of
life in Nigeria is dominated by Christian culture. Saturday is a work-free day in Nigeria to
allow Seventh Day Adventists to worship. Sunday is free for the rest of
Nigerian Christians but Friday which is the Muslim’s major day of worship is
ignored by the government. Thursday and Friday which were the work-free days in
the pre-colonial era were eradicated with colonial fiat. The colonialist’s
sense of justice would not stomach sharing and equal rights for Christians and
Muslims. Allah-given and fundamental human rights of Muslims were usurped
without any qualm.
This gross violation continued even after independence. Nigeria
is therefore not truly independent. Nigeria as it stands today is a
neocolonialist project serving the purpose of the colonial master and the
imperialists alone. To
Nigerian Muslims, our so called independence in 1960 was cosmetic, our
republican status in 1963 was window-dressing and our democracy today is a
monumental fraud.
Today Muslims have become endangered species. Everything has
been done to eliminate all vestiges of Islam in the land. Western education
dominates our learning without tolerating Islamic education parri passu. The
legal system tolerates civil Shari‘ah only in the North. An illegal and
categorically anti-Islam dress code operates in the banking sector, the
judiciary, the medical profession, public schools, etc. Only marriages
conducted in the church or registry are recognized and the registries boldly
hang frames of the picture of Jesus (peace be upon him). January 1st
of every year is a public holiday but the government shuns 1st Muharram.
This glaring religious
apartheid must be revisited at the ongoing national conference. The Nigerian system
does not accommodate Muslims and their religion. Muslims are treated like aliens
in their own country. Although democracy is all about inclusiveness and
participation, that of Nigeria is a horse of another colour.
It is neither inclusive nor participatory. Shari‘ah, Islamic
banking, Islamic dress code, Islamic marriage, Islamic education, Islamic
holidays, etc, are all excluded simply because they are for Muslims. MURIC
pronounces Nigeria guilty of religious profiling and stigmatization of Muslims.
We warn that by attacking Muslims and their religion, Christian
delegates in the national conference are playing into the hands of politicians.
We fear that this conference is getting embroiled in religious controversy and
primordial sentiments.
This chaotic situation fits into the Federal Government’s gameplan,
namely, to use the conference as a tool for securing tenure extension. The national
conference is a mere kite. Otherwise why did a government that was opposed to
the idea of a conference ab initio suddenly show interest? The interest was
announced on October 1st 2013 and it took off in March 2014.
Coming at a time when
the ruling party was suffering from dwindling fortunes, we strongly suspect
that the government flew the national conference kite as a diversion, a saving
grace and a gimmick in escapism.
Nigeria did not have enough time to plan this conference and we
have started muddling things up. Nigerians were not given enough time to study
the list of delegates before the conference began and there was no referendum
where the citizens could have made choices. All this is happening a few months to a general election. We
smell a rat.
The solution to the
religious imbroglio is for the national conference to allow Christians and
Muslims to freely express their minds, to study the needs of each religious
group and treat both equally by giving each one exactly what the other enjoys.
The conference must watch out for any group that insists on blocking the way of
another from getting what it is already enjoying. The rule must be ‘live and
let live’.
Professor Ishaq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
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