INSURGENCY AND BUHARI'S CALL FOR FULL SHARIA.
on december 24, 2014.
at 9:31 pm, in viewpoint.
By #Babatunde Oyewole:
IN 2001 at an Islamic seminar in Kaduna, Buhari was given an
opportunity to choose between Nigeria’s secularism and fundamentalist
Islam, this is what he said; “I will continue to show openly and inside
me the total commitment to the Sharia movement that is sweeping all over
Nigeria”, he then added that; “God willing, we will not stop the
agitation for the total implementation of the Sharia in the
country”.Buhari an advocate of sharia was chosen to address that seminar
in Kaduna because of his advocacy and he did not disappoint because he
is one of the boardroom voices of Sharia.
The boardroom advocates emboldened the weak minded and impressionable youths and female suicide bombers.
Those who prepare such extremist point to such “moral exemplars” that
dying for Sharia is a worthy cause. It does not matter if one is
campaigning by selling democracy to unsuspecting non-Muslims like a
salesman selling snake-oil, they all have a common goal but different
modus operandi. The boardroom voices, the elite prepare breeding ground
for the field-soldiers, they prepare the ideological diet upon which the
adherents feed.
Today many Nigerians are concerned that our
society has degenerated to a point where people wake up on a particular
day and go to public places like a market to kill their neighbours with
bombs. But these bombers did not just wake up one day to take such a
fatalistic decision. The suicide bomber dies for a cause after a lengthy
ideological and psychological diet . A cause he or she has been made
to believe to be a worthy cause, It is immaterial that the suicide
bomber has chosen a course of action different from the other advocates
of the cause, but they have similar objectives, to spread Sharia to
every corner of Nigeria, and in that goal, Boko Haram and other
fundamentalists have many elite who have created a breeding ground for
their actions in Nigeria.
General Muhammadu Buhari
Other
elite voice who have helped to ensure the social and political
mobilization against Nigeria’s secular status, and who create a breeding
ground for groups like Boko Haram include, former governor Kure of
Kaduna state who was also in the same Kaduna seminar with Buhari. At the
aforementioned seminar, the then Governor Kure urged all council
members to ensure that the Nigerian constitution was “upgraded” in all
states to ensure that the basic objectives of the Sharia legal code was
achieved all over Nigeria. He gained the support of other elite such as
former minister of Agriculture, Alhaji Sani Zango Daura, as well as
emir of Suleja,
Alhaji Awwal Ibrahim, who refused to pay a
condolence visit to the Suleja church that was bombed by Boko Haram on a
Christmas day until political pressure was put on him.
These
boardroom voices of sharia have not concealed their position. It is only
other Nigerians who have tried to polish their position to make it an
acceptable perception for political convenience, but the advocates for
the spread of sharia to every facet of Nigerian life have never disguise
their goal. For instance, a very notable advocate of Sharia, Senator
Sani Yerima, former governor of Zamfara state, robustly defended his
advocacy and had the support of several other elite with similar
conviction in the Senate when the status of women was being debated. To
make his sharia values clear, Yerima who had earlier defended his
marriage to a 13 year old in contradiction of Section 21 of the Child
Welfare Act told the Senate that, when a woman is married at whatever
age even at 11years, she instantaneously reaches the full age of
adulthood. This is not very different from recent laws purveyed by ISIL
which justified enslavement of girls, including their defilement if they
are non-Muslim captives.
This is the type of ideological
commitment that Buhari will bring to the presidency if voted in. It is
quite easy to state on television and radio interviews that he is bound
by Nigerian laws as if its only when he occupies the office of the
presidency that he will be bound by the law of the land.
When
he becomes head of state who will be there at those quite moments when
this values influence his decisions on official matters?
He has
made his ideological position quite clear when he stated in the Kaduna
seminar that the spread of Sharia is ‘’a legal responsibility which God
has given us, within the context of one Nigeria to continue to uphold
the practice of Sharia wholeheartedly and to educate non-Muslims, what
remains for muslims in Nigeria is for them to redouble their
efforts,educate muslims on the need to promote the full implementation
of sharia law”Buhari has made his advocacy for sharia clear, those who
wish to vote him to power can either accept it or pretend that it does
not matter, just as those who said naively that Yerima was harmless
later expresed shock when he eventually stopped the Senate from
reviewing our laws on the legal age of a woman and we are today stuck
with his sharia version.
As Boko Haram has demonstrated
viciousness, so shall we will come to find that Buhari, a promoter and
advocate of Sharia as president of the federal government of Nigeria
would direct the thinking of his adherents and their attitude to
governance. This would spell doom for all non muslims in Nigeria that
Gen.Buhari said should be educated to accept and embrace sharia now
being enforced by Boko Haram through violence and killings.
*Mr. Oyewolw, a political analyst, wrote from Abuja.
go here:http://www.vanguardngr.com/?p=480277.
No comments:
Post a Comment