Political Shariah: Aren’t the Fulanis Pushing Us to the Abyss?

By

Femi Awoniyi

Speyer, Germany

fawoniyi@web.de

 

 

The dismal performance of our minister of state for foreign affairs, Dubem Onyia, on the CNN news programme Q&A, in the evening of August 28, once again, brings to a poignant fore the absurdity of the Nigerian situation.

 

Chief Onyia would like the world to believe that Shariah was introduced by its practising Northern states ”to divert attention” from the failures of their governments to address the basic needs of the people.

 

Minister Onyia‘s brief was to allay international concerns arising from the latest Shariah court verdict, confirming the death sentence by stoning of an ”adulteress”, in Funtua, Katsina State.

 

But Onyia cut a sorry picture on CNN, trying to deceive the world. For one could easily see the folly of his position and it was difficult to be impressed by our minister’s rehearsed hopeless assurances.

 

The Onyia CNN outing suggests, before the whole world, that our leaders either don’t have a clear appreciation of the enormity of the Nigerian dilemma or are recklessly playing Russian roulette with the fate of 120 million human beings. For Shariah has far more to do with the internal politics of these states as our minister, obviously on an errand for President Olusegun Obasanjo, explained.

 

Shariah in Nigeria, in its current variant form, is not about Islam. In fact, it is anti-Islam. The Fulani-inspired Shariah represents an aggressive and deliberate politicisation of Islam for political ends. Its objective, by creating a climate of religious intolerance and fanaticism, is to demonize non-Muslim Nigerians and delineate them as the others, fragment our land culturally and give the Fulani elite the capacity to incite mass violence in their struggle for power in the country.

 

The Obasanjo-led federal government has been denying this reality since 1999, thereby toying with a bobby-trap which could explode in our face soon.

 

Sudan provides the scare picture of the terrible consequences of instrumentalizing Islam for the purpose of politics. More than 1.5 million people, mostly black Africans, according to UN figures, have perished, since 1983, in the tragic stalemate caused by the introduction of Shariah in the country. And Shariah in Sudan is the weapon of Arab supremacy.

 

In Nigeria, Islam is the excuse for Fulani privilege. And the Fulani elite continue to ruthlessly abuse this religion of truth for their selfish ends. A Fulani emir who secretly receives illegal allocation of crude oil, who sponsors businessmen for dubious government contracts and shares in the booty parades himself publicly as the Leader of the Muslim Faithful in his domain.

 

And the notorious one-time Fulani army officer, who, not so long ago, achieved infamy by smuggling into Nigeria 53 briefcases (containing who knows what!), in league with his father, is today supposed to be the Shepherd of the Believers in Gwandu.

That is how much Fulani leaders have rubbished Islam in Nigeria!

 

Obasanjo puts up the brave appearance and he assures us that he is not afraid. But one must be afraid of those who are not fearful of God, who openly and brazenly abuse the name of God and His injunctions for their selfish and unholy pursuits.

 

Our president says Shariah will ‘fizzle away’. But Fulani political Islam, of which the latest Shariah is only an expression, has not fizzled away since Othman dan Fodio treacherously rose against his benevolent Hausa hosts nearly two hundred years ago.

 

The obvious threat of Fulani-inspired political Shariah to the secular order of  our polity continues to be underplayed. The drawback of Shariah, by discouraging both local and foreign investors from investing in Nigeria, to the emancipation of our land from economic and social stagnation continues to be disregarded. The enormous and proven potentials of this evil political ideology to cause bloodletting on a horrendous scale continues to be ignored.

 

Is Obasanjo not repeating the Ironsi mistake by his politics of Fulani appeasement?

 

And finally: True Muslims in Nigeria must make their voice more audible in the defence of their Faith, a religion of peace, which is being ruthlessly politicised to cause trouble in our land. When the Fulani leader talks about Islam we accord his words importance instead of outrightly dismissing him as a merchant of deceit. If true Muslims do not challenge the Fulani elite, Islam in Nigeria will continue to be soiled.

 

Moreover: The battle against Fulani trouble-making must be taken to Hausaland where the Hausa man is so thoroughly and hopelessly marginalized. We must free him from the evil shackles of Fulani political Islam because only then will we have sustained peace in Nigeria.