Ramadan tafsir: Ummah’s current challenges (II)

In his tafsir at Sultan Bello mosque in Kaduna on 2 August 2013, Dr Ahmad Mahmoud Gumi continued with his discourse on the contemporary challenges facing the ummah in Nigeria and the way forward. He called on Muslims to stop wringing their hands in helplessness, end their marginalization and prevent others from making them irrelevant […]

In his tafsir at Sultan Bello mosque in Kaduna on 2 August 2013, Dr Ahmad Mahmoud Gumi continued with his discourse on the contemporary challenges facing the ummah in Nigeria and the way forward. He called on Muslims to stop wringing their hands in helplessness, end their marginalization and prevent others from making them irrelevant in national affairs. He urged them to shake off the garb of inertia and mobilise for effective participation in politics and national deve-lopment.  The preacher said: “If we really stick to the core principles of democracy, there is no way Muslims can be marginalized in national development because they constitute the majority and a force to be reckoned with. All candidates who are contesting for national positions need Muslim votes. Let us examine this from an evidence based position using the voters’ register.’’
It was obvious that the preacher really wanted to carry the audience along, so he directed that a presentation screen be set up for PowerPoint presentation. Dr Ahmad said: “Look at the number of those who registered for the last election in 2011. In the North West 19 million, South West 14 million, North East 10 million, North Central 14 million, South East 7 million and for South South 9 million people registered. The North West could register more voters if we embark on awareness creation on the importance of registering to vote.
The Northwest is the area with lower level of awareness and non-compliance. Some people refused to register in protest against bad governance and marginalization of Muslims. Some even tore their voters’ card! We have to change our attitude by making sure we understand the power of our vote.
 “If we analyse data from the voters’ registration, it is obvious that Northern Nigeria with 37 million has the highest number of voters in spite of pockets of areas of non-compliance. The majority of the people of this region are Muslims. Never mind the red herring being dangled by our opponents that the North Central is populated by predominantly non-Muslim people. Only two states, Plateau and Benue, have a non-Muslim majority. If you look at others, Kwara, Kogi, Niger, Nassarawa all have majority Muslim population. When detractors of Islam realized this, they started exploiting ethnic and religious diversity of the North to create divisions among us. They instigated ethno-religious conflicts, ethnic cleansing and promoted the ‘settler/indigene’ syndrome just to divide people. Now they are saying that the North is too divided to arrive at a consensus on fielding a credible candidate.
 “It is important to let them know that we have seen through their ploy and will resist it. Our task is to mobilise and ensure that all of us register to vote.
“The North on its own cannot use its vote to elect a president but it can stop anyone from becoming one. If we get our acts right, we should be able to claim our right to be involved in who leads us and end our marginalization. The second task is to demand that we must have free and fair elections, our votes must count. To ensure this, we must keep vigil at all vote collation centres. The third strategy is for the North to form alliance with the South West so that we can vote as a block. We, as Muslims, and all those who suffer from bad governance, irrespective of their religious affiliation, must unite to end our suffering in silence. One stick of the broom cannot sweep so we must tie the sticks together so that we will  be able to sweep away our problems and elect  leaders of our choice. I have no apologies for being frank and calling on Muslims to unite wherever they are; after all, the Christian clerics set the precedence during the 2011 elections when they were openly preaching to their congregation not to vote for a Muslim.  Pastor Paul Adefarasin of Lagos is one example. When it suits them they tell us it is wrong to flaunt a candidate’s religion because it is divisive yet in the United States, Barack Obama had to prove that he is a Christian for him to be acceptable to them, in the United Kingdom, a Catholic cannot aspire to be Prime Minister because they are protestants and in Italy only Catholics matter.
“Here when we insist on living according to the tenets of our religion they call us fanatics and threaten us with marginalization and denial of amenities. We do not care about their roads, oil and electricity. Let them keep it and leave us in peace and with our faith intact. Our priority is not this world but the hereafter.”
On peace and security challenges facing Nigeria and particularly the North, Dr Ahmad said “all the strategies we have outlined to ensure that we have free and fair elections will come to nothing if we do not invest in  peace. The first thing we must do is to end the insurgency that has had a devastating effect on our communities. You, the insurgents, must realize that you are providing our enemies with an opportunity to perpetrate all manners of atrocities which they now blame on Muslim extremists! Those in power will kill anybody including their own employees just to retain their hold on power and demonise those who disagree with them! An example is what happened in Egypt when security forces threw a bomb from a helicopter on a police post so that security officials will get killed and they can blame the Muslim Brotherhood for the attack and unleash violence on them and innocent Muslims. Allah thwarted their plans and the bomb refused to explode. Investigations showed that it was the type of bomb that could only be thrown from a helicopter!
Here in Nigeria, Chris-tians were arrested for attempting to bomb their own churches but not a single one among them has been prosecuted! When President Jonathan was asked about this by Muslim leaders he said he heard nothing about these Christian bombers of their own churches!
“Our second strategy for peace is to get the soldiers out of our communities and remove the road blocks that represent extortion and violation of human rights. We cannot have free and fair elections with soldiers at road blocks. Election campaigns cannot be organized under a state of siege.”