Re: Nigeria in anti-terror Islamic military alliance

My attention has been drawn to an article published on Friday 11th March, 2016 by a notorious Daily Trust Wahabi columnist, Mohammed Qaddam Sidq Isa; who has always been controversial regarding anything that has to do other Islamic groups, more especially Ash’ariyya who have the majority among the world Muslims and Shi’a who are also […]

My attention has been drawn to an article published on Friday 11th March, 2016 by a notorious Daily Trust Wahabi columnist, Mohammed Qaddam Sidq Isa; who has always been controversial regarding anything that has to do other Islamic groups, more especially Ash’ariyya who have the majority among the world Muslims and Shi’a who are also populous than his Wahabi faction- who are very few in number compared to said first two. He speaks authoritatively trying to deny their existence in Islam and or deliberately ignoring their Islamic fundamental rights, he has always being one sided- in support of only Saudi Wahabi Islamic faction, and oppose or refuse to speak for them (Ash’ariyya and Shi’a) in the same way he does for other religious thoughts – Christianity for instance; as if Islam encourages only inter religious unity but not intra religious unity.
In his attempt to justify Nigeria’s decision to join newly formed Saudi led Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT), the writer deliberately forgot to mention the reason why many Muslims’ nations world over, most of which are of Arab origin and are geographically closer to Saudi, have not joined the alliance; and failed to state the reason why most Islamic terror groups are of Wahabi origin and got their backings from Wahabism. Surprisingly all those were jumped over and the Nigeria who is very far from Saudi Arabia and that which seems to be more secular was invited to join.
He has this to say in his fifth paragraph, ‘Now, to start with warranted the formation of the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT) in the first place, its pertinent to point out that, though Muslims and Muslims countries suffer the most from nefarious acts of some terrorists who unfortunately happen to be Muslims,…’ I wished he had continued to tell us which factions of Islam do they belong to? Isn’t Wahabism? How can you pave the way for something to exist and ask to support it without you changing the way you had earlier paved for them?
It is clear that all the certified Islamic terror groups like Al’Qaida, Nusra, ISIL, Da’esh, Boko Haram, Shabab, Taliban, etc were formed from Wahabi factions of Islam – which is supported only by the country in question, Saudi Arabia and for which cause it (Saudia) has been spending its petrodollars to advocate for. We have also seen that in Syria, the Saudi has been supporting the rebels (Al-Nusrah), and since 2003 when Saddam Husseini’s government was toppled up to now Saudia has never made its stand on Iraqi’s political status clear to the world.
Indonesia is the most populous Muslims’ nation in the world followed by Pakistan and most of them happen to follow Ash’ariyya Sunni school of thought and were not invited to join anti-terror alliance, why? Algeria, Malaysia, Tunusia, Afghanistan also denied join the alliance and he didn’t mention. This is simply because they follow the Ash’ariyya Sunni faction- which is also opposed by Saudi Arabia, the leading country.
Not to talk of Shia predominate countries like Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen; none of whom was invited to join. And to be fair to Saudia, no doubt for not inviting the Shia countries to join, for; the Saudi King, Salman, during the President Buhari’s visit was also reported to have commended what has happened in Zaria regarding the Shia-Military clash in December last year and termed it as ‘war against terror’.
No doubts, for Saudi Arabia the president Buhari is also Wahabi – that might be why he, as they (Saudi Arabia) strongly perceived, engineered and supported what happened with Shiites in Zaria last December and was approached to join forgetting that the country has a good number of Christians and even among the Muslims, non-Wahabi Muslims are far more than the Wahabi Muslims in number.
Perhaps, this might be why the Izala factions of Wahabism in Nigeria has quickly capitalized on this opportunity to have accused Shiites for abusing Prophet’s (S.A.W) companions instead of the said barricading the road for Chief of Army Staff, Yusuf Tukur Buratai as the Nigerian army has alleged during the Zaria Shia-Army clash and organized a two days international conference on peace; during which they will be strengthening their Wahabi idealogy against other Islamic groups and followership in Nigeria.
How can we fight against terrorism while the Syrian crisis which claims many lives has also been fueled by western countries with support from Saudi Arabia? Which kind anti-terror war would Saudi Arabia lead while it is depressing oil prices by needless overproduction to deprive OPEC members, most of which are Muslim countries, and of hundreds of billion dollars they generate as revenue spends them as cash cow to the west- to the US with which it had a 60 billion dollar arms supply in 2012, which had been dubbed the most lucrative single arms contract in US history; and to Britain with which it signed the even bigger and still continuing 68 billion dollar al-Yamamah defence deal in 1985? Which kind of war against terror are they going to make while the led Saudi Arabia had never participated in any of the many Arab-Isra’el wars? Not once.
Going by the evidences provided above, to Saudi Arabia and its adherents like the said writer, anything Ash’ariyya, Shia both of which were there before the emergence of and have more followers than Wahabism and Iran are not Islam and cannot be considered in anything Islamic. No more no less. It is good to fight terror and until they come to accept those (non-Wahabi Muslims) as their working partners and build a good rapport with other non-Muslims by throwing away their Takfiri idealogy, Islam will be understood to those non-Muslims and will be free of any terror groups, otherwise we are going nowhere rather than deceiving ourselves.

Aboki, a public affairs analyst, writes in from Azare, Bauchi State; [email protected]