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Politics Of Religion In The North – Where Do We Stand! By Jazuli Lawal
“Nigeria is a country where religion is more associated with individual piety than social responsibility. Thus a polititian or general who corruptly enriches himself through abuse of public office but builds a church or mosque, becomes a born-again priest or gives a lot of sadaqah, is considered a good Muslim or Christian and treated with respect rather than like the common thief that he is.” (Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Daily Trust, Tuesday Column March 25, 2003)
I see Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as a mentor, his article on Islam, Christianity and Nigerian politics, a tribute to Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809) has re-awakened my urge and the quest to fight injustice and corrupt behaviour of our northern elite and their military politicians who ruled this great country for many years and left nothing than bad legacy to our children and our goodselves. We became the unfortunate victims of insult and embarrassment in every part of this country for sharing tribal origin with these people. My main concern lies on the argument of the establishment of Islamic Political structure and the perpetual noise-making on modern times political shariah of our generation which became a sensitive subject of discussion among us.
Of recent, politicians from the North have been using Islam as a tool to win elections in their various constituencies. For instance, in 1999 one of the states in the north has propagated the introduction of Islamic Shari’ah in its state and thereby igniting the charging atmostphere to compel some states to follow suit for fear of loosing their political personality and recognition. This behaviour was seen by many as a move to gain acceptance from the teaming electorate who were deprived western education resulting into poor understanding of concept of true democracy.
Most of our Youth from the north are becoming more disenchanted with the attitude of the ruling class and the military politicians for subjecting the innocents and poor people of the region to slavery tendencies. Their motives and action makes no positive sense towards economic development of the people rather than to loot and enrich themselves by all means through political manipulations and the use of religious undertone in campaigns and in blackmailing political opponent. The Northern massess be it christians and muslims alike have been suffering from this great injustice, inequality and supression of their fundamental human rights.
This grievious and criminal attitude of our ruling class has further strengthened my long term interest to understand the issues of political development in the North which originated from my contact with Malam Aminu Kano whose charisma and personality was built over three decades of confrontations with the emirate and the ruling elite. His efforts and political-determination towards freeing and ensuring independence for common man in the north have earned him credentials that brought him to the limelight of the northern politics.
Similarly, the ideolology of the people-oriented-leadership has become his landmark as a democratic humanist who stand to fight for justice, equity, faireness and independence from the domination of the ruling class. Even though Islamic religion was one of the fundamental factor in his lifetime politics. Yet, Malam has never proclaimed to institutionalized islamic shariah throughout his campaigns. His characteristics and attitude was symbolized by those simple qualities of a true muslim believer.
But most disheartengly today, the hypocrisy of our elites and military politicians does not radically conform with the right attitude before contesting for any election. How can we reconcile the behaviour of an ex-government civil servant who out of greed and selfishness enriches himself and after retirement joined a political party as well won election to claim the implementation of islamic shariah without declaring all he accumulated illegally or returning the looted fund back to public treasury? Under Islamic Law, we agitate the amputation of hands while we do worst of an ordinary thief, does that really portray our sincerity of intention, and the adoption of the right attitude among us.
It is a fact for instance, that the second Caliph, Umar bin Khadab (RA) stopped the punishment of the thief by cutting-off the hand in a year of famine due to the possibility of the thief having been compelled to steal due to hunger. As such, it is better in times of economic hardship and austerity, such as ours, true proponent of Shariah should address the question of proper economic management by downplaying massive corruption and mismanagement. It has become possible for muslim elite to engage in diversionary propaganda and express a hypocratical commitment to shariah while impacting on objective conditions in a a manner that would make the implementation of shariah unjustifiable.
Let me qoute Sanusi who in his paper mentioned that, full application of shariah succeeds, rather than precedes, the creation of its objective conditions. It is the irony of our political situation that in the vanguard of those calling for full implementation of shariah we find some who have over the years condoned, rationalised, encouraged, initiated, participated in or benefited from the very processes whose logical culmination is the total negation of the said objective conditions.
Even though we differ in our various position with my mentor on the understanding of the argument that, the issue of implementation of shariah in Nigeria can best be solved through the evolution of true federalism which allows constituent states to evolve and adopt laws that take full congnisance of their religious and cultural peculiarities. Whereas in my own opinion, I see Parliamentary System as best suitable for the implementation of sharia whereby regions maintain their historical identity and value system to managed themselves in their own traditional way and custom.
I was made to understand that, Kano State is one of those states where religion strongly influence and determine who wins election of various political offices in the state. The present state governor Malam Shekarau was said to have won election through the influence of his religious inclination. But how true is this arguments depends on the genuity of the argument and the proven evidence to support the claim.
A sad development, the attitude of our muslim elders have left negative mark boldly written on the wall for their failure to manage the fund put aside for the renovation of the central mosque Abuja. Their acts of indecency prompted the President to take over the management and the rehabilation of the mosque. Now, what moral obligation do they have to claim honesty, sincerity of intention to religiously manage their people without the usual technique of deception.
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