10th September,
2020
PRESS RELEASE:
TRUMP’S QUESTION: CAN SOLD NIGERIA TO
THE US
President
Muhammadu Buhari yesterday, Tuesday 9th September, 2020, recalled
that President Donald Trump of the United States (US) asked him during his
visit to the US in 2018 why he was
killing Christians. Reacting to this incident, the Nigerian Muslim rights
group, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has accused the Christian Association of
Nigeria of selling Nigeria to the US. MURIC also advised the US leader not to
bully the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
MURIC
spoke on Wednesday 10th September, 2020 via its helmsman, Professor
Ishaq Akintola.
“We
take serious objection to the language used by President Donald Trump of the US
when he spoke with President Muhammadu Buhari. Trump asked Buhari, ‘Why are you
killing Christians in Nigeria?’
“That question was based on false and misleading
reports which the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has been sending to
the outside world. We expect Trump to know better because the killings are not
being done by the Nigerian security agencies. How then can the Nigerian
president be accused of doing the killings?
“Again,
it is not Christians alone that are being killed. Muslims are also victims.
This is the same false information that was spread about Boko Haram. People
were told that the terrorists were killing Christians only and bombing
churches. It was later learnt that Boko Haram is killing emirs, Imams, Islamic
scholars and ordinary Muslims too. The violent group was also destroying
mosques.
“The crisis is mainly between herders and farmers,
not between the government of Muhammadu Buhari and Nigerian Christians. So how
can anyone accuse President Buhari of killing Christians? Apart from this,
herders-farmers clashes predate Buhari’s administration. It has been occurring
for a very long time. It was there in ex-President Jonathan’s period and even
in ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s days.
“Jonathan
and Obasanjo are Christians but the killings also occurred during their
regimes. Why is CAN externalizing it and making it look as if a Muslim
president is killing Nigerian Christians? CAN is selling Nigeria too cheaply to
the US. Worse still, it is using false propaganda to achieve this parochial
objective. We have no doubt that the narrative will change if Buhari is
succeeded by a Christian president. Why is CAN always determined to give no
peace to any Nigerian president?
“Even
the question was in bad taste and the questioner (President Trump) least
qualified to interrogate the president of another sovereign nation. The world
sees Trump misrepresenting the American nation today. His administration is
falling apart. Men of integrity are distancing themselves from him. What right,
therefore, has Trump to question Buhari?
“89 former defence officials recently trashed Trump (https://www.businessinsider.com/89-former-defense-officials-speak-out-against-trumps-protest-response-2020-6?IR=T).
They accused him of dividing Americans and rubbishing America’s integrity.
“Former security advisers from his Republican party
also spoke last week. They alleged that Trump had gravely damaged America’s
role as a world leader; that he is unfit to lead during a crisis; that he had
failed to stand up for American values; that he had dishonoured the presidency
and that he had ‘divided our nation’ (https://www.defendingdemocracytogether.org/national-security/,
https://www.illuminateourworld.org/post/over-70-gop-national-security-officials-from-the-reagan-and-bush-years-say-trump-is-unfit-to-lead).
“It is clear from the above that Trump’s
administration is scattered like wild oats and resignations occur on a daily
basis. How can such a leader play the role of an interrogator? He wants to
divide Nigeria the way he divided the US. He lacks the pre-requisites to harness
facts and to objectively and independently analyse them. Trump has no locus
standi to ask any leader such a question because he himself lacks credibility. Americans
have gotten for themselves a president they do not deserve this time around.
“Above all,
leaders of CAN should stop peddling lies about the killings in some parts of
the country. They are heating up the polity and reasonable Nigerians no longer
believe them.
“In a nutshell, Trump
should stop breathing down the neck of Buhari. Nigeria is not a satellite of
America. Neither is Buhari another Manuel Noriega. Nobody can twist the most
credible leader on the African continent around his fingers. Even Panama has
wised up.”
Professor
Ishaq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim
Rights Concern (MURIC)
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