....from my last post THE REMOTE AND IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE BOKO HARAM SECURITY CHALLENGE As I just stated, for any conflict based on religious belief system to be resolved, strong attention must first be paid to the ideological spirituality of the conflict. When we fail to do this, we are only engaging on a fire-brigade therapy. Any secular approach must therefore rest on the fulcrum of the catalyzing religion. Thus looking at the immediate and remote causes of the present Boko Haram insurgency, we must not overlook the spiritual question, which though appears to be underplayed for obvious political reasons but must be confronted frontally if Nigeria will in the true sense of the words experience lasting peace and security. We Christians believe that the major moral yard-stick with which we regulate our attitudes and our relationships with one another is the Holy Bible. In any matter that demands our proof of sincerity, we Christians will always make reference to the Holy Bible. This Bible is the spiritual constitution of the Christian to which he must always make reference to in determining the level and quality of his overall moral conduct. Thus for one to understand the mind of a Christian on issues that call for moral questions, reference must be made to the Holy Bible. For instance, in our relationship with one another, whether such a person is Christian, Muslim or Traditionalist, we are made to accept the fact that the same Almighty God created all of us. In Romans 11:12 the Bible asks us this question: Is he the God of the Jews only? “Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also.” To us we believe that the same God of the Christians is the same God of the Muslims. Again, in Galatians 3:28, the Bible states: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus”. This is the reason every Christian is enjoined to take his Muslim brothers and and sisters as their own. Love them as the Bible commanded us in John 13:34, “A new commandment I give you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” To emphasize on the importance of this love on our relationship with one another, the Bible went further again to repeat the same commandment in John 15: 12, “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” This is the bases of our relationship with our Muslim brothers which we expect to be reciprocated in like manner. Thus acting on the spiritual impulse of the Holy Bible a Christian is duty bound to love his neighbour as he loves himself. We believe as in the case of the Holy Bible that the Holy Quran must also be the guiding moral principle of the Muslim. Thus as in the case of the Christian, we believe that one cannot understand the mind of the Muslim without strong reference to the Holy Quran. But what does the Holy Quran say about our relationship with our Muslim brothers? Is it the same with the injunctions of the Holy Bible? May be a few reference to the Holy Quran will act as our unbiased guide on this matter. In Sura 9:123, the Holy Quran states: “O believers make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Let them have firmness in you. Know that Allah is with the righteous”.13 But it is in verses 29, 30 and 31 of the same Sura 9 that the Holy Quran is emphatic on the eternal nature of the relationship between the Muslim faithful and his Christian Brethren. It puts it thus: Fight against such of those to whom the Book was given as believe neither in Allah nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what Allah and his Apostle have forbidden, and do not embrace the true faith, until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued. The Jews say Uzayr is the son of Allah, while the Christians say al-Masih is the son of Allah. Such are their assertions, by which they imitate those who are turned away (from the truth)!14 The Bible does not command us to fight against one another because they are not Christians or don’t even believe in God. We are enjoined to love one another as I aptly stated earlier. The question here is, how can our Muslim brothers who have, by the act of providence become our brothers in one nation, in ethnic nationality, in town and in professional body justify the above injunction in the context of our collective desire for love, peace and stability in one united Nigeria? How do they make us believe that the present Boko Haram insurgency is not justified in the context of the above injunctions of the Holy Quran? The Holy Quran in Sura 5 verses 17 and 73 aptly explains who the unbelievers are. In verse 17 it states inter alia: “Unbelievers are those who declare: ‘Allah is al-Masih [Jesus Christ], the son of Mariam [Mary]….”; which it went further to emphasize in verse 73.15 But the most intriguing aspect of this relationship is that, if the average Muslim in this country is to abide by the injunctions of the Holy Quran, them the question of mere friendship between him and his Christian brother in this country becomes a nullity. Sura 5 verses 51 and 57 clearly define the status of the relationship between the Muslim and his Christian brother in this respect. In verse 51 the Holy Quran emphatically states: Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends and protectors. They are friends and protectors of one another. Whoever of you seeks their friendship and supports them shall become one their number. Allah does not guide the wrongdoers.16 In verse 57, the Holy Book goes further to state again: Believers, take as supporters neither those who were given the Book before you, who have made of your religion a jest and pastime, nor the infidels….17 But what is the Quranic condition for peace between the Muslim and his Christian brethren? Let us go to the same Sura 5 and precisely at verse 65. In this verse we are made to understand that: If the People of the Book [Jews and Christians] accept the true faith and keep from evil, We shall pardon them their sins and admit them to the gardens of delight….18 What the above injunctions impel is that for true peace, love, friendship and brotherhood based on our common African ancestry and Nigerian nationalism to exist, we must all become Muslims. But the major question here is not just that of the moral and practical bases of every one of us converting to Islam in exchange for perpetual killings and instability in our nation in the name of God. Our concern here is how do we explain this jihadist intention of conversion in exchange for peace in the context of the global happenings in the world of Islam? How do we explain this in the context of the happenings today in Mali – an overwhelming Muslim nation, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Somalia, Central African Republic, and the almighty exploits of the now dreaded jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS)? Above all how can our Muslim brothers in the North explain this present security challenge in the name of Boko Haram in the context of the following words of the respected late Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello? On October 12, 1960, the Parrot newspaper wrote, quoting him in the following words: The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the North as willing tools and the South as a conquered territory and never allow them to have control over their future.19 Thus if the foregoing be the case between us and our Muslim brothers, who by divine unction are indelibly joined to us as one people and one nation, what then is our prospect for peaceful co-existence in one Nigeria? This is the big question before us today? This is the fundamental but hidden question before every one of us in Nigeria today. And the earlier we appreciate and accept this question as our fundamental research question as in academic parlance in seeking fundamental solutions to our fundamental problems of nationalism and national security the better for all of us, be you a Christian or Muslim in this country. This is our joint problem and it is on the basis of this that we will now look at the basic causes of the present Security Challenge to our corporate existence as one nation. a. The Remote Causes It would appear from the foregoing sections that the matter of the remote causes of the present Boko Haram Challenge has been settled. That seems to be the fact given the commonsense meaning of the word “remote”. But in the context of the present paper I beg to apply for this section the colloquial term “recent-remote”. Between February 29 and March 4, 1972, Presidents and Heads of States of some Muslim nations met in Rabat, Morocco and founded the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), of which part of the preamble to its Charter reads inter alia: CONVINCED that their common belief constitutes a strong factor for rapprochement and solidarity between Islamic people; RESOLVED to preserve Islamic spiritual, ethical, social and economic values, which will remain one of the important factors of achieving progress for mankind;….20 Article II (A) 1, 5 and 6, which deals with the question of objectives clearly spelt out the Islamic character of the Organization. It reads thus: 1.To promote Islamic solidarity among Member States… 5. To coordinate efforts for the safeguard of the Holy Places and support of the struggle of the people of Palestine, and help them to regain their rights and liberate their lands… 6. To strengthen the struggle of all Moslem peoples with a view to safeguarding their dignity, independence and national rights…21 But the most intriguing aspects of the Charter could be found in Articles IV (Conference of Kings and Heads of State) and Article VI (Finance). Article IV states: The Conference of Kings and Heads of State and Government is the Supreme authority in the organization and holds its meetings whenever the interest on Moslem nations warrants it consider issues of vital concern to Moslems world and to coordinate the policy of the organization accordingly.22 Article VII (1) reads: All expenses on the administration and activities of the Secretariat shall be borne by Member States according to their national incomes.23 What this means is that it is incumbent that every member-country must have a Muslim President or Head of State. So our major problem today is that President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian leading an OIC-member country is not a Muslim. It also implies that the Organization could mobilize our finances from the OIC fund to render unqualified support to the Boko Haram insurgency if its present devastating actions against the people of Nigeria in the name of Islam well serve the objectives of the OIC. It is striking to note that following the establishment of OIC, the political music of Islam in Nigeria not only increased in crescendo but became the passport for seeking political power at the Federal level. For the first time since the crisis that led to Nigeria civil war, the Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon was reminded that he was just an ordinary Christian from the North and thus not a full Northerner by his Northern Muslim brothers. We thank God that General Gowon is alive today to, if the need arises, throw more light on the circumstances that led the then Grand Qadi of Northern Nigeria, Sheikh Abubakar Gumi to brand him “that Christian Missionary boy from Pankshin” and went further to accuse him of corruption.24 It is important to point out here that since the overthrow General Yakubu Gowon successive Muslim Heads of States of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have striven to advance the cause of Islam as stated in the OIC Charter. Under General Murtala Mohammed Nigeria for the first time had an overall Grand Mufty appointed by the Head of State who was Sheikh Abubakar Gumi. Under General Muhammadu Buhari the Christians of this nation for the first time had the misfortune of being treated as nobody. What most Nigerians are yet to comprehend is what was in General Buhari’s mind when he appointed General Tunde Idiagbon a fellow Muslim, Fellow Northerner and fellow Fulani his second-in-command? What again was General Ibrahim Babangida’s intention for dragging Nigeria – a secular nation to OIC? What again was General Sani Abacha’s objective for putting Nigeria into the exclusive Muslim Development –Eight Organization? What again was the basic reason for some Northern States introducing Sharia? These basic questions call for reflection under our present trying stage in national life. While reflecting on the above questions, I wish to further reveal that on 2nd and 3rd February, 1986, an international conference of Islamic scholars was held in Kharthoum in which Nigeria was represented by the then Grand Qadi of Kano State, Dr. Hasan Gwarzo. In their Nine-point communiqué known as the Kharthoum Declaration of 1987, the Islamic clerics in part demanded that every Islamic country immediately enforces the sharia, as well as the Islamic economic system.25 The kharthoum meeting would appear to have added an additional impetus to the situation we find ourselves today. But how did this situation come to assume its present form and character? This question brings us to the immediate causes. b. Immediate Causes The immediate causes of the present security challenge in our nation could be seen from two angles both intricately tied to the political apron-strings of the remote causes. First, there is the international content that drew inspirations from Al Qaida; and second there is the question of the local content which borders on the Muslim quest for unbroken continuity in national political leadership. Looking at the international content, the pivotal role of the Al Qaida Chief Osama bin Laden comes to mind. On February 23, 1998, Osama bin Laden issued a Fatwah against Jews and Christians titled “The World Isalmic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders”.26 Fatwah in Islam means an Islamic religious statement that has the force of command. On February 11th, 2003 Osama bin Laden was reported again in a broadcast to the world calling for jihad against the infidel regime in Nigeria.27 It is important to note that it was in the year of the bin Laden’s broadcast, precisely on December 22, that insurgency in its present form and character, then known as the “Talibans” reared up its ugly head. At the local level the impetus for rise of the Taliban group which subsequently graduated to the sophisticated level of Boko Haram came from the Northern Muslim leadership’s inability to use President Olusegun Obasanjo as a political robot to achieve their desired jihad objective. It was obvious that the first arm of protest against President Obasanjo came in the form of the Sharia, which the President tactfully managed to the point of its irrelevance to the fundamental issues of our national development. Then came the organized opposition of the Muslim leadership against the President. In an advertorial, a group that styled itself the “Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria” alleged as follows: When Obasanjo constituted the cabinet for his second term in office he appointed 42 ministers out of whom only 16 were Muslims and 26 were Christians. In the whole of Kwara, Kogi, South-West, South-East and South-South, there was not a single Muslim.28 On March 28, 2005 the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affair (NSCIA), of which the Sultan of Sokoto is the traditional Chairman met in kaduna. According to Major Abubakar Umar(rtd), the President of the Muslim Youth Association: The meeting that was held in Kaduna was at the instance of the outcry by the generality of Muslims in the Northern part of the country, observing what has been happening with the Obasanjo’s administration to the marginalization of Muslims.29 At that meeting the now deposed Emir of Gwandu, Alhaji Mustapha Jokolo who was traditionally the second-in-command to the Sultan, openly called for jihad against the regime of President Obasanjo. In his report of the proceedings of the meeting, George Mbah wrote: The Emir complained bitterly that northern Muslims today have no banks, and construction companies: that their soldiers were compulsorily retired from the army shortly after Obasanjo came to power: and that their children are being denied recruitment in the army.30 Out of rage the Emir went further to threaten a jihad against those responsible for their woes. In his words: We (Muslims) have been pushed to the wall and it is time to fight…. Obasanjo is trampling on our rights and Muslims must rise and defend their rights. The more we continue to wait, the more we will continue to be marginalized.31 That was the Fatwah coming from a high and respectable traditional ruler in our nation and here we are cogitating over who the sponsors of Boko Haram are. We do not know whether it was for that reason that he was eventually dethroned, but the fact that he declared a Fatwah while on throne clearly makes him a principal accomplice to Boko Haram. I could recall Iyoba Uwugiaren and Bashir Kalija reacting to Jokolo’s Fatwah in these words: If trouble breaks out in Nigeria today, at least, the citizens now know that it is Jokolo and his masters who are behind it. And they should be stopped before the carnage in other African countries spread to Nigeria. A stitch in time saves nine.32 That was the warning handed down to us by two Nigerian patriots. But how far did the Government take the warning serious? Since the time of that warning thousands of our innocent citizens have been slaughtered, thousands more displaced and property worth billions of Naira destroyed, yet the same Jokolo lives in secluded comfort untainted by his utterances, bold in his conviction, unconcerned with the consequences of his Fatwah and even willing to say more, as evidenced by his recent utterances on the pages of the Sun newspaper. Be that as it may, we have come to be confronted with a cancerous problem to which we must be willing to apply a cancerous therapy. ......to be Continued
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 07:35:06 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015