<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Abimbola Adelakun (Punch)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ordinarily, one should ignore the director of Muslim Rights Congress, Prof\nIshaq Akintola. His predilection for inciting controversy via religious\nconspiracy, mostly for its own sake, makes him a public nuisance. However, we\nhave been Nigerians for long enough to know religious matters easily escalate.\nBesides, inflammatory words thrown around amidst a pandemic can gain traction\namong people holed up in their homes and seeking distractions to keep their\nminds active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just lately, the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump,\nsuggested that ingesting disinfectants or taking in sunlight could treat\nCOVID-19. One would have imagined that no one would be stupid enough to believe\nsuch a ludicrous idea, but some people did, and to their detriment too. With\nAkintola too, who knows which simpleton mind will take this his latest oddity\nseriously?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday, Akintola authored a press statement that was widely reported in\nthe media. He stated, \u201cMore disturbing is the rumour that the National Centre\nfor Disease Control in the state has locked up its offices and its officials\nare not responding to distress calls. The only testing centre in Kano which is\nsituated at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital has also been allegedly locked up.\nSo, where did the NCDC get its figure on Kano? Something is fishy here. We are\nsurprised that testing centres are almost nonexistent in the North. Is this a\ndeliberate attempt at debilitating Northern population with its attendant\nimpact on Muslim majority population in the country?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whatever he meant to achieve with that last sentence, framed as a\nrhetorical question, should be taken seriously. We should not dismiss his words\nas the rant of a man whose mind has been addled by the prolonged lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By now, almost everybody knows that Akintola has a penchant for religious\npropaganda, but this latest assertion goes too far. As we have seen this season\nof COVID-19, people look to their leaders for the moral meaning of these\nmoments even when -as it turned out- some of those people do not know more than\nanyone else. Yet, before one knows it, one fellow somewhere will take up\nAkintola\u2019s chorus. If they combust Nigeria on account of his unfounded claims,\nwill he take responsibility for what he said?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a pattern to Akintola\u2019s public engagement. He sees every issue\nthrough the narrowed prism of anti-Muslim conspiracy. His paranoia is so\nextreme it embarrasses even his fellow Muslims who see the world beyond his\nwhite-and-black world of colour blindness. The fact that Akintola runs an\norganisation that no other person publicly identifies with is instructive in\nitself. Does he really speak for Muslims, or he is a lone wolf trolling the\npublic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This time, just what did he plan to achieve by making such wild and\nfrivolous accusations? Why is he waving the victim card on behalf of the Kano\nState Government? We know Kano could be in bad shape already, and the paucity of\navailable resources might make their case grow worse soon. On Monday, the\ngovernor, Abdullahi Ganduje, told the BBC that the Presidential Task Force on\nCOVID-19 had done poorly by the state in fighting the epidemic. While he\ncomplained of a shortage of test kits and overall inefficiency of those who\nshould be managing the situation, he was probably unaware their situation is\nnot different from what obtains in the South-East and South-South as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the NCDC has not done enough for Kano, Akintola should at least give\nthem the benefit of the doubt and not spew silly conspiracy theories. From\nvarious reports, the NCDC is doing its best within the circumstances of limited\nresources and the ever-mounting rate of infection. If test kits are available,\nwhy would the NCDC be so malicious to keep it from Kano? What would they\nachieve by watching Kano people die needlessly? Are there no non-Muslims in\nKano? Was Akintola aware that on Sunday, the NCDC, Director-General, Chikwe\nIhekweazu, announced on Twitter that they were looking for RNA extraction kit\nto expand their capability at testing? Should that not tell him that those\npeople are in short supply of resources and might not be able to do much for\neither Kano or others at present? Even if the NCDC, for some curious reason,\nhates Kano, they still have a responsibility to quench the epidemic outbreak\nthere otherwise the entire country will go down with them. The enemy we are\nfighting does not discriminate based on ethnicity and religion, it is an\nequal-opportunity affliction. On this, our fates are tied together regardless\nof faith or politics, and it is in the collective interest to stem the disease\neverywhere in the country. Otherwise, we will all perish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given that Akintola has been a consistent apologist for the Buhari regime,\nyou suspect his irresponsible accusation could not have been meant for the\nFederal Government. Although his allegation did not directly state who was\nbehind the supposed grand plot to kill Muslims, but in that paragraph, it was\nthe NCDC he accused of being unresponsive to Kano\u2019s situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My interpretation is that the aim of the charge was meant for the NCDC. But\nwhy accuse them of genocidal attacks against Muslims? Well, it could be because\nthe NCDC leadership is composed mostly of southerners (and probably\nChristians). He knows the kind of controversies that sell in Nigeria, a country\nwhere people have long been fractured along the fault lines of religion and\nethnicity. I hope he realises that by making frivolous accusations, he is\nsetting people up for terrible mischief. That is also why we need to push back\nagainst that line of thinking. It must not catch on. If some other people begin\nto read a religious and ethnic agenda to the work of the NCDC management, we\nwill deal with a fate worse than COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, Akintola also wrote that \u201cNigerian Muslims are currently enjoying\na majority status in the area of demography. We must avoid anything capable of\ndecimating our population.\u201d Just what kind of human construes people\u2019s lives as\nworth preserving only so they can maintain their hegemony over others? First,\nthere is no objective truth in his claim that Muslims are the majority. It is\none of those many Nigerian puzzles that cannot be solved because the truth\ncould come at a high cost to the longstanding beneficiaries of this unverified claim.\nWe do not even know it for a fact that Kano State is as densely populated as\nthe figures they tout during elections (and also, when benefits need to be\nshared according to population rate). We could have had a credible census in\nthe days of President Goodluck Jonathan to enlighten some of this historical\nignorance, but some of these reactionary forces stood against it. So, we\ncontinue to work in the dark, and people like Akintola can spin tales of what\nis not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, other than the bragging rights that the so-called \u201cmajority status\u201d\nhas brought for the likes of Akintola, what other useful purpose does it serve?\nOf what use is a \u201cmajority status\u201d that feeds only the elite who get to gallop\nthe streets of Kano in Rolls Royce while millions of benighted almajiri\nchildren look on, the spectacle of the grandeur so dazzling, that their begging\nbowls fall from their hands? Does he suppose that Muslims live a better life in\nNigeria than their non-Muslim counterparts? Do they access better resources\nthan others? What exactly are they currently \u201cenjoying\u201d? If Muslim lives are\njust imperilled by the poor management of resources, then what exactly is the\npoint of their \u201cmajority status\u201d? Third, a man who looks at a fate that might\nbefall a poor city like Kano and still could not see beyond a loss of voting\nstrength is the kind of person we should all fear. He did not see the humanity\nof Kano people, just their thumbs and what it can do on a ballot paper. If that\nkind of person were placed in the position to determine who should live or die,\nit is almost too certain the criteria he will use to gauge whose lives matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Abimbola Adelakun (Punch) Ordinarily, one should ignore the director of Muslim Rights Congress, Prof Ishaq Akintola. His predilection for inciting controversy via religious conspiracy, mostly for its own sake, makes him a public nuisance….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[357],"class_list":["post-1351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-politics-governance","tag-muric"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n