Free Kano Speaker And Legislators Now –Muslim Group
Featured, Latest Headlines, News Tuesday, December 24th, 2013
25th December 2013
PRESS RELEASE:
FREE KANO SPEAKER & LEGISLATORS NOW
The speaker of the Kano State House of Assembly, Hon Gambo Sallau, clerk of the House and nine other legislators were yesterday arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). They were alleged to have fraudulently approved a supplementary budget of N28 billion.
We are surprised at the newfound agility of EFCC who just a few days ago complained that it had less than N2 million in its account and therefore could not pursue its legitimate functions. Could it mean that the presidency had been deliberately stinting EFCC of funds in order to bring it to its knees and consequently compel it to do its beck and call? It just doesn’t add up. Where and how did EFCC suddenly find its lost appetite for pursuing allegedly corrupt legislators?
Or are we witnessing a conspiracy theory postulating a presidential pound of flesh? The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) finds it very curious that All Progressive Congress (APC) states are beginning to bear the brunt of EFCC’s sharp teeth. Lagos Assembly is already licking its wounds as EFCC operatives keep hounding its speaker and some of its members. Is it now the turn of Kano?
The witch cried yesterday and the child died today. The case is just too glaring. The fact that the five governors who defected to the APC chose Kano as the venue for the announcement of their defection makes EFCC’s descent on Kano more intriguing. Is Kano being punished for its audacity? If this is so, the noose must be tightening around the neck of the governor of Kano.
It had better not be. Politics of vindictiveness is capable of killing Nigeria’s nascent democracy. Napoleon Bonaparte was visionary when he said the only lesson men learn from history is that they learn nothing from history.
Why have our leaders failed to learn from the causes of military intervention in the politics of Nigeria? Why was the South-West called the Wild Wild West in the early 60s? What was the casus belli of ‘operation wet e’? Where are the tyrants of yesterday? Where is Hitler of Germany? Where is Mussolini of Italy? Where is Idi Amin Dada of Uganda?
The rulers of Nigeria today must decide whether they want their names printed in letters of gold or dumped in the dustbin of history. Divisional Police Officers now storm the venue where whole state governors are holding meetings simply because they belong to the opposition. It is infra dignitatem. Policemen block governors from using roads and seal up opposition secretariats. Police chiefs withdraw security details of state chief executives and the opposition is not free to associate or hold meetings. Aircrafts used by opposition members are not allowed to use the Nigerian airspace.
This government’s cup of sins is not only full, it is already spilling over. Civil society must rise now before it is too late. Both the church and the mosque must speak out against totalitarian dictatorship because their followers will all be affected by the consequences of bad governance if they fail to speak out now.
MURIC therefore urges religious leaders to abandon the traditional triangular orientation which takes the faithful from the mosque to work and back to the house. We must watch politicians and caution them when necessary because their actions or inactions, successes and failures, competence and ineptitude, tyranny or kind disposition is bound to affect all and sundry.
Bad governance is responsible for the darkness in Nigeria today: that is why there is no electricity. Executive ineptitude is to blame for the degradation in the education sector. That was why strike paralysed the universities for six months. Neither the church nor the mosque enjoys electricity today. Both Christian and Muslim parents as well as their sons and daughters suffered tremendously from the strike that just ended. Religious leaders are therefore vital stakeholders. We must not remain silent in the face of oppression because what goes round comes around.
We also call on well-meaning Nigerians and elder statesmen not to sit on the fence. We charge the international community to start warning the Nigerian government concerning the threat to the rule of law, restrictions to freedom of movement and abuse of executive power.
Finally, MURIC calls for the immediate and unconditional release of the Kano legislators. EFCC must also drop its charges against Lagos legislators or table water-tight evidence against them if there is any in a court of law. We are constrained to express palpable fear over the conduct of 2015 general elections. A government which stifles the opposition and witch-hunts defectors cannot be trusted to conduct a free and fair election. The law establishing EFCC must also be amended to give the body full autonomy and freedom from intervention or influence from the presidency.
Professor Ishaq Akintola, Director, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
Short URL: https://www.africanexaminer.com/?p=6431
This is a very brilliant analysis from Professor Akintola. My only concern is that he did not address the substantive question of whether the allegation against Kano State legislative officers is true or false. Of course corruption is everywhere in Nigeria and not just in Kano. He is right that the consequences of corruption in Nigeria is an equal opportunity issue, not sparing persons of any religion. But the serious question is whether religion matters in Nigeria with regard to public morality and ethics, given that when one thinks of the country in 1960, the number of Imams, Pastors, fluent readers of Arabic, Greek, Hebrew were few but now many and so they can read the scriptures in original language and not the translation. Moreover, Nigerians have today in 2013 memorized more versus from the Holy Books today than in 1960s, and more have gone to Jerusalem and Mecca for pilgrimage in order to instil God’s fear in their hearts. But what is the empirical evidence with regard to the impact of all these indicators of the deepening of presumed religious commitment on public morality and ethics? I want the reader to think about this. If religion will change Nigeria in the future, it behooves us to show why it has not done so in the past fifty years in spite of the phenomenal expansion and penetration of religion in the culture, state and society of the country? My lamentation.
True, very true that our leaders have learnt nothing from history. A more sobering truth is that our leaders are largely ignorant because they read little if at all. Ignorance destroys!