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PEOPLE AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA
In Defense of General Buhari
There seems to be an irony of sorts in Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi’s recent harsh criticism of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari over the general’s refusal to bow to pressure from several leading northerners to withdraw his petition against the election of fellow northerner, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’adua, as president in last April’s presidential election.
In an interview with this week’s Weekly Trust, the sheikh condemned Buhari and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as no longer fit to rule Nigerians because, as Muslims, they have refused to heed what he says was Prophet Muhammad’s injunction that a Muslim has an obligation to obey a ruler even when the ruler is unjust and tyrannical. “Islamically,” Sheikh Ahmad said, “they (Buhari and Atiku Abubakar) are incompetent to rule because any Muslim who opposes the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is incapable of being a leader.”
In condemning Buhari for rejecting all overtures to let Yaradua’s election stand, Sheikh Ahmad has apparently taken the opposite view of his father and arguably the most well-known Islamic propagator in contemporary Nigeria, the late Sheikh Abubakar Gumi. Most Nigerians, including Sheikh Ahmad, will, I am sure, recall how the senior Gumi severely criticized Buhari for being an unjust ruler when he was military head of state between December 1983 and Augus1985, especially over his indiscriminate jailing of politicians for alleged corruption.
It seems then that in the eyes of the Gumis, Buhari can do no right; while the more famous father chastised him for being unjust, the son has chosen to condemn him for rejecting what he considers an injustice, albeit as a latter-day democrat. And both father and son have relied on the Qur’an and Hadith for their position.
Sheikh Ahmad would probably reject the equation of Yaradua’s rule with injustice presumably because Yar’adua, unlike Buhari, did not shoot his way into power. True, Yar’adua did not shoot his way into power but surely it can be argued with considerable justification that the kind of rigging Nigeria witnessed in the last general election is worse than shooting one’s way into power, if only because of the hypocritical claim to free choice by its beneficiaries and by those who conducted it.
In criticizing Buhari as a military ruler, Sheikh Abubakar did not, of course, call on anyone to rebel against Buhari, at least not openly. No one can therefore accuse Sheikh Abubakar of encouraging or even endorsing rebellion against the authority of his time. In sharp contrast, however, Sheikh Ahmad has chosen to regard Buhari’s rejection of the April election as rebellion. This is stretching the meaning of the word beyond its breaking point.
Rebellion is any attempt to overthrow a government by the use of violence. Islam condemns rebellion, says Sheikh Ahmad, because worse may follow. “Once a leader is given allegiance by some people, Islam demands that he should be obeyed. This is because if you can attempt to remove him, his own supporters could cause breakdown of law and order or even sabotage the new administration” said Sheikh Ahmad in the newspaper interview in question.
Buhari’s action is, however, anything but rebellion. Far from rebelling against constituted authority what he has done is to follow the due process prescribed in our Constitution and laws for seeking redress for what he believes is both a personal and systemic injury. Surely such an action should attract praise not condemnation.
Even by Sheikh Ahmad’s own logic Buhari has done nothing wrong. When he says once a leader is given allegiance by “some people” the leader deserves absolute obedience, the sheikh knows more than anyone else that it is not allegiance from just anybody. To leave such an important consideration of legitimacy as open-ended as he did, is to court the very anarchy that his condemnation of rebellion against authority seeks to avert.
In the English translation of his book, Diya’al Hukkam (Guide to Administrators), Shehu Abdullahi bin Fodiyo, one of Sheikh Abubakar Gumi’s illustrious 19th century predecessors in Islamic reformation, pointed out that opinions have differed on whether or not it is obligatory for a Muslim to obey his leader even when he engages in reprehensive behaviour. Perhaps the most conservative attitude in this respect is that a Muslim must obey his ruler provided scholars are not unanimous on the makruh (reprehensible) status of his conduct. In the case of the last general elections there has been unanimity among experts and independent lay men alike that they were fundamentally flawed.
Shehu Abdullahi’s own position is that a Muslim must obey his leader only in so far as the leader does not disobey God’s injunctions. And among God’s injunctions, justice and equity surpass obedience because without the two it is not possible to have the peace and stability that Sheikh Ahmad was so much an advocate of in his interview and which, as he rightly says, is necessary if society is to progress.
All of which is to say it is simply not enough for a ruler to enjoy the allegiance of just any group of people in order for him to command absolute obedience. Different polities define Sheikh Ahmad’s “some people” differently. Our Constitution and laws say they must be the majority of voters, among other conditions. What Buhari is saying is that Yar’adua did not fulfill those conditions and would like the courts to agree.
Howbeit, obedience to any ruler cannot, in any case, be absolute. Only God Almighty deserves such obedience. Obedience to any ruler can only be contingent upon the ruler doing what is in the overall best interest of at least the majority of his people.
In pursuing what is in their overall best interest, a leader would inevitably make mistakes. Differences among his people alone mean conflicting demands on his judgment. Since he is not God, he can not get his balancing acts right all the time.
The important thing therefore is that when he makes mistakes, they should be of the head not of the heart. That means he should always be prepared to learn from those mistakes and correct them.
Even the most casual review of our history will reveal that rigging elections have been due more to deliberate subversion of our laws rather than to flaws in the laws themselves. No doubt there have been defects in our laws, some of them fundamental. But there is equally no doubt that if our leaders have respected those laws with all their defects we would still have had reasonably free and fair elections.
Sheikh Ahmad argues that the solution to our long history of electoral fraud is to “build credible electoral infrastructures not nullify faulty elections.” The big question is where is the incentive to respect the rules for such credible electoral infrastructures when each time the rules are ostensibly subverted, we try to sweep things under the carpet instead of establishing who broke the law and punishing them accordingly?
And it is not enough to say, as Sheikh Ahmad in effect did, that the opposition parties too would have done the same if they had the power to do so. This reduces the whole debate to one of survival of the fittest which, of course, is the perfect recipe for anarchy.
Not so long ago when the National Assembly threatened to impeach President Olusegun Obasanjo over his persistent disrespect of the Constitution he swore to upon, I do not remember hearing Sheikh Ahmad raising his voice against the legistlators on the grounds that Obasanjo had the allegiance of some people. Could the difference have been that Obasanjo was a Christian and a southerner, while Yar’adua is a Muslim and a northerner? If this is the case, did the Qur’an in Chapter VI, Verse 152 not say that “… Whenever you speak, speak justly even if a near relative is concerned…”
Of course, both Buhari and Atiku Abubakar, like Yaradua, are Muslims and northerners. But it seems those who want the two to withdraw their petitions believe Yar’adua, as the candidate of the ruling party, represents the north’s and the Muslims’ only chance of retaining power after a devastating eight-year misrule by Obasanjo. If that is the case should those who seek equity not go to it with clean hands?
God did not say you should speak justly only when someone of a different religious persuasion or ethnicity is your object. Nor did He say you should speak justly only when you are sure that the outcome will not be anarchy.
The fact is if we all have to be absolutely sure that our actions would not lead to anarchy before we take them, then mankind would never have made the progress it has made since Adam. After all mankind has progressed only because in time enough people have registered their dissatisfaction with the status quo – and proceeded to do something positive about it.
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