Muslim Professionals Challenge Sultan, Muslim Leadership Over Boko Haram
SAN FRANCISCO, July 07, (THEWILL) - An Islamic organisation, Concerned Muslim Professionals (CMP), Sunday in Abuja, challenged the Sultan of Sokoto and President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Alhaji Sa'ad Abubakar III, to dialogue with Boko Haram over the activities of the sect.
The group said many Boko Haram members would have embraced peace and many others wouldn't have been recruited into the group if the Muslim leadership had engaged the group in a dialogue.
President of the organisation, Alhaji Mohammed Saidu, in a letter to the Sultan, entitled: “Echoing the message of General Yakubu Gowon (rtd): A call for action on Islamic leadership of Northern Nigeria”, said, “There has not been any visible or invisible effort by the Muslim leadership to convene such engagements at even a single location, let alone covering the whole troubled region. That could be why demand for action on the leadership is repeatedly made by well-meaning citizens.”
It lamented the activities of the sect , saying they have become a great embarrassment to the Islamic faith.
According to CMP, “If the family of billionaire Umar Mutallab could have a terrorist in its midst, then such a disease could be everywhere; it can only take the effort of the Sultan and the other Muslim leaders to mobilise compliance by parents and relatives, which is part of the actions being demanded by well-meaning Nigerians.
“The biggest task before our Muslim and Islamic leaders in the North is to reconcile the warring communities of Muslims and Christians through forgiveness, healing and genuine social integration and coexistence; similar to the one referred to by General Gowon on the Muslims of the South-West geo-political zone. The other task is to make Boko Haram come out of hiding, denounce terrorism and embrace government's overtures.
“A failure on the part of the Muslim leadership (under His Eminence the Sultan) to discharge these responsibilities/actions to the later will render it of questionable ability, doubtful recognition, decimal loyalty or an outright dismissal as a mere smoke-screen. As obedient and loyalists to His Eminence the Sultan, our hearts bleed on these realities.”
The group recalled the condemnation of the Emab Plaza bomb blast in Abuja by the former Head of State when he called on the Muslim leadership in Northern Nigeria to ensure the cessation of Boko Haram carnage and also correct the negative ideology of the sect to the right Islamic teachings of tolerance, peace and love.
The group referred to Gowon's statement which cited Yoruba Muslims as a good example of peace and religious tolerance, to the extent of inter-marriages between Muslims and Christians in Yoruba area of Nigeria.
'Gowon's message was just a repetition of several similar calls by other prominent Nigerians across faith-divide.
“It is therefore becoming embarrassing to some of us that are Muslims and from the Northern extraction. We always ponder over what exactly do these respected Nigerians mean whenever they demand for the action of Muslim leadership to stop the carnage.
“As far as we know, the Muslim and Islamic leadership in Nigeria comprised all the Ulamas and Emirs under the leadership of the Sultan of Sokoto; who doubles as the President-General of NSCIA and also the leader of the Jama'atu Nasril Islam. And as far as we know, the Sultan and his team do not have weapons or control over the security personnel in Nigeria. Then, what action is required of them?
“After deep thoughts and self scrutiny, we got some hints on what additional things (apart from the traditional condemnation) the Sultan and his team ought to do or to have done, in order to save our country from the persistent shocker of the Boko Haram. We wish to respectfully state that some visible and invisible steps, actions and structures were supposed to have been entrenched by the leadership of the Nigerian Muslims, in order to achieve visible objectives,” CMP said.
It therefore called for a visible action to stop the spread of the radical ideologies of Boko Haram among Muslim youths as a way of stopping terrorism.
The group said this could be achieved through intellectual religious engagements/confrontation with the radical Islamic groups that can easily be defeated using superior arguments from Muslim clergy.
“This is supposed to be the preoccupation of all Emirs and Imams; under the leadership of the Sultan. Such an effort is surely capable of yielding the required result,” CMP maintained.