Our problem with Boko Haram, others – Sultan

You see, that is why I earlier talked about giving you a history or lecture because you have to make things easy. But I don’t want you to go and say what I did not say. For example, the Shiite/Sunni crises didn’t start now and it will not end. This is because as long as […]

You see, that is why I earlier talked about giving you a history or lecture because you have to make things easy. But I don’t want you to go and say what I did not say. For example, the Shiite/Sunni crises didn’t start now and it will not end. This is because as long as people have different views about Islam, then the problem will continue. That is why I said thank you for coming, because if I had known what you would bring, I would have given you a lecture on all these things. And if you go back to some of my presentations which I gave in London recently, you can get these lectures.

On economic meltdown

Even the economic downturn you talked about, it didn’t just start. So it is not that we are experiencing it for the first time. It is like when you have headache, if you didn’t take some drugs, it would keep on coming. Very few of us have so much money to invest in foreign companies, invest in so many number of shares in banks that when they collapse we are fine. This is because the wealth of Nigeria is in the hands of a few. None of us here is hit by the economic meltdown. What we have is the normal poverty.

The whole matter of the economic meltdown has been ongoing, but just came to boiling point now; people allowed the problem before looking for solution. And I think one of the solutions is by our own Central Bank governor about the issue of banks that are now getting well.

Some of the foreign banks have been given true independence now. In Britain and U.S. recently, President Barack Obama was busy tackling some banks which Sanusi has already done. So the issue is all over the world but our own maybe is not so bad. We are not really hit by the world economic meltdown. We are hit by our local poverty which we all experience every day. For example, people come here to eat.  It is not like somebody going to the bank to take a loan of N1bn to go and build a house. These are two different scenarios. So I think you need a lecturer on this, especially if you are organising a Press Week.

It is the same story. The common man in Sokoto believes that once there’s a school where he doesn’t pay school fees, it’s ok. I didn’t pay school fees until I got to secondary school. Throughout my primary and secondary schools, I didn’t pay a kobo. In fact, when we closed for the holidays, I was always given transport money to come back to Sokoto even though I had a driver that would take me from Barewa College, Zaria and bring me to Sokoto. But I was still been given transport fare to come and go back. So these are some of the issues that you have to attend to.

And then the money people have is not enough for you to open an institution. Like now, I am thinking of how to float a school; I have a piece of land, I have already fenced it and I am now thinking of how to start. This is one of the things I want to set up: I want to build a school that a child will go and know that he is in school not a building where teachers will go and shout or whatever. A school means so much; it is not for you to walk in and come out. So it is difficult for us to set up a private institution.

On Boko Haram, Darul-Islam

The issues of Boko Haram and Darul-Islam are security issues and I don’t want to comment on them, because you need to know a lot about them before you can make a comment. Before you now say government of this state or Federal Government is right or wrong. You have to do your own research as journalists. They are security issues which are still being looked at. Like I said before, Boko Haram is not over. If you check, most of the people that brought Maiduguri problem are those who came from outside the place who don’t know anybody there. The original people of Maiduguri ran away.

So the problem is still there. If you think you have killed the leader, what about the followers? They are scattered. There are stories that they are re-grouping. Where? So you need to do your own work as journalists, fish out where they are and then tell the authorities of local and state governments. I am not making any comment about what the government did in Darul-Islam and Boko Haram cases. We issued a press statement on the issues and if you have that statement, you will see our stand on them.

 On the relationship between Islamic preachers

Somebody talked about the ulama’s way of preaching. Well, before the Ramadan, we had a meeting with them in Abuja and Kaduna. In Kaduna in particular, we took a stand that all the ulama should preach without personal attack on any sect. Ulama like Dahiru Usman Bauchi, Ahmad Gummi and so on were in attendance. Even the different sects were there – Izala (Jos and Kaduna), etc, were there. The only people that were not there were the Shiites. But later, they told me that they were not invited.

And we didn’t invite them because we don’t have the same ideology with them. What they believe in is not what we believe in so we kept them away. But our stand has always been once somebody says he is a Muslim, we have to believe him. Practising Islam the way you think without inconveniencing others is what we want.

So if you are Izala, you are free to worship the Almighty Allah the way you have read in the book (the Holy Qur’an). You are free to go and preach. Therefore, whether you’re Izala, Tijjaniyya or whatever, you’re free to preach without inciting people. The only sect that has a problem is the Shiite, because they do not accept us as true Muslims. They have their own view about Islam. So these are things I believe we should be serious about.

But I think there is a lot of understanding this year between various preachers: we had very few nasty comments about somebody condemning others especially outside Sokoto; and I think in a couple of years, Insha Allah, everything will be alright. It is not something that you just wake up and it’s gone; it is not possible. It has been there for a long time, so it is gradual. I think we are getting to understand one another better.

On the role of the media

And now I want to talk about the role of the media. You know you can do and undo. You must be careful about what you publish because once a story is published, you can’t retract it. You have to consider the security of the country before you publish any story.

For example, there was this text message circulating around the country that the Ebonyi State governor has decided to ban the use of loudspeakers when calling for prayers. And Muslims were calling for jihad because of it. Which jihad? Are you going to march from Kano or Sokoto to Ebonyi to go and fight the government?

Or are you going to call on the governor to rethink his decision? So you have to be very careful as journalists in taking such messages and using them in your medium. This is because they have a lot of political connotations. This was a message whose source was not known; anybody could have sent it. I got so many of them from both known and unknown persons drawing my attention to it, but I didn’t do anything.

A day after, the governor himself sent me a text message debunking the claims and said it was the handiwork of his enemies. So who do I believe? Do I believe an anonymous text message sender or the governor who debunked the claim and said he would send Muslim leaders from the state to come to Sokoto and explain what the situation has been?

They will come here and once they are here I will call you to come and hear from them. Therefore, that is one of the dangers of communication in a negative form. This is because the text message has gone round and everybody is commenting on it but we don’t know whether it is true or not.

Another example is a situation where you have a community where 98 per cent are Muslims and two per cent are Christians and vice versa. Now tell me, will this two per cent have equal access to certain things? What I am trying to say is that in Islam we have a mosque but some people will personalise it instead of building it for the whole community so that everybody can go there and pray.

You have a mosque where only two people pray once in a while. Then this mosque for example in is Government Reservation Areas (GRAs) and the majority of the people living there are Christians. What is the importance of using a loudspeaker to call for prayer? This is because the people that will pray are staying in the same place, so you don’t need to use loudspeakers because that will disturb them.

Scenario number two is where you have a community where two per cent of them are Christians while the majority are Muslims. The Christians have loudspeakers lowering into the houses of Muslims, not allowing them to sleep or even say their prayers. So these are the things I want you to look at because they are a public nuisance.

I will also give you the example of Lagos State where the governor demolished mosques and churches because they were built on sewage lines and people started complaining, he didn’t listen to them because what he did was for the benefit of the majority. That is what Islam stands for.