A cleric to die for!

The inspiration for this write-up came from a newspaper report that Senator Sani Ahmad, popularly known as Yarima, took some Muslim clerics on a prayer mission to Aso Rock; or more appropriately, to President Goodluck.Anyone following the developments in Nigeria’s political scene knows that Yarima is a serving Senator, and that his party, the ANPP […]

The inspiration for this write-up came from a newspaper report that Senator Sani Ahmad, popularly known as Yarima, took some Muslim clerics on a prayer mission to Aso Rock; or more appropriately, to President Goodluck.
Anyone following the developments in Nigeria’s political scene knows that Yarima is a serving Senator, and that his party, the ANPP held a convention sealing its fate in a new party, All Progressives Congress (APC).
Many can also remember the newspaper quoting General Buhari as saying that Yarima single-handedly dragged ANPP into the unity government of then President Yar’Adua.
It was for that reason, and many other undisclosed stabs in the back, that led the General to form his own party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).
Now they are back in the same party and Yarima is showing that he still does errands for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
When Sheikh Olusegun Obasanjo prophesied that Yarima’s Shariah was political, many were up in defence of the bearded peddler of clerics.
The reader may be offended that I called Obasanjo a Shaykh. Well if Shaykh means a knowledgeable person than Chief Obasanjo deserves it for being an accurate reader of character.
I need not mention the names of the Muslim clerics who were delivered to Aso Rock, probably at a price. But one fact stood out: they represented two main sects of Islam in Nigeria; and interestingly, either head tells his followers the other is an infidel, deserving the sword for heretical practices. But they found a unifying force in Saint Jonathan Goodluck I (the first, that is).
What is the state of Nigeria today: economically, politically, socially? To give a short answer, some Northern elders were quoted as alerting Jonathan of the descent of Nigeria into anarchy.
It is this same Jonathan that Yarima finds so attractive as a leader or customer that he took his human wares to, for purchase as political lackeys.
Would you die for a cleric? Of course you would, were you one of the gullible masses who would commit hara-kiri to please men of god.
Where is decency, where is character, when clerics became oblivious to the carnage and misery unleashed on this nation in the past two years, and went on a ‘prayer’ mission to one who presided over this madness?
It is to this god that they went to pray, who is acknowledged as having divided the nation along religious line, ( for his selfish political purposes).
Yet these same clerics would go back to their communities and incite their illiterate followers when it suits them.
In the end really, it is the secularist who will laugh last. Here is the pinnacle of Islam in Nigeria turning a blind eye to Jonathan’s monumental failures, being conveyed to go and pray for or to him. (CAN’s Ayo is already Jonathan’s de facto spokesman, specifically targeting Buhari.)
But there were dividends, as they claimed: the communication blackout on Adamawa was lifted! So was it all along a political act, rather than a security necessity?
We will be interested in seeing the reaction of General Buhari to this development. Would he close his eyes and go ahead with a merger that will surely lead him in bound form, to the altar of Saint Jonathan ready for sacrifice?
We thank God for the life of Yariman Bakura. He it is who has shown us that those who call themselves men of God are simply men of lusts: for power, wealth, and recognition.
And the common men, and the docile educated weaklings, are simply the expendable fuel they use to power their rockets of ambition.

Musa can be reached at [email protected]