‘Yes, let us Islamicise Nigeria’
‘Yes, let us Islamicise Nigeria’
If indeed there is
something very hard to make sense of in our reality these days, it is the
nonsense that constantly assails our sensibilities – the bananas that certain
powers in this country are forever intent on Islamicizing this country; the
claim that some people somewhere would not sleep until the cross become the
crescent in the United States of Nigeria. Call this a lie, you would be right.
Call it an empty alarm from political jobbers masquerading under the cassock
and the tie, you would be correct. But the pain in the claim is and has always
been its consistency, its politics. This lie is being told on a daily basis.
Brethren, the lie has
always been told, and is still being told that the so-called Hausa-Fulani
oligarchy in the north of this country has always had two agenda, not three:
the control of the political power without let or hindrance and the
Islamicisation of this country. Brethren, the assumption is popular that the
“north”, that fetishised category, supposedly backed and ‘oiled’ by the Saudi
authorities, has no other programme other than the forceful conversion of
Christians in this country to Islam. The “Islamisation” agenda, they have
argued, was evident in the appearance, during the late 1980s, of Hauwa Baba
Ahmed on the screen of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) to cast the 9p.m
news. The appearance of a Muslim woman in hijab, a woman who was watched by
millions of Nigerians, Muslims, Christians and others, was a spectacle beyond
imagination of the anti-Islam other. In fact that spectacle ran contrary to the
script; the script hitherto written about who and who shall constitute the
ornaments of this nation. In other words, before she staged her appearance, to
wear the hijab was seen as a marker of and for backwardness. To be in hijab was
a metaphor for life on the fringe of life, on the periphery of existence. To
appear on the television, in hijab, in that hallowed ‘space’ which belonged to
“them”, therefore, meant the carpet was being removed from under “our” feet. We
had to shout.
Thus Hauwa Baba Ahmed
became the prima donna of the “Islamicisation outcry”. “She must be stopped”,
they chorused. Islam had to be stopped. We suggested. Hauwa had to be stopped
not because she lacked the professional qualifications to be one other “image”
of the nation. No. She had to be stopped simply because she bore the Islamic
identity. Remember the 1980s. During that decade, approval was sought for the
hours between 1pm and 3pm every Friday as work-free in order for Muslims to
observe Jumat services. After all, it was canvassed then, the other has a whole
day, namely Sundays, to sing His praises to the heaven. Again that request was
pooh-poohed. It was “seen” as an attempt to “Islamicise” this nation.
But that is not all.
Remember the membership of Nigeria of the Organization of Islamic Conference
(OIC); remember the brouhaha and the ruckus that broke out when the Central
Bank announced the decision to license Islamic Banking in this country during
the third republic and under the suzerainty of the then ‘emperor’ from the
state on the rock. It did not matter to the wailing rejecters and interlocutors
of beauty during that period that the benefits to the nation transcended tribal
and religious affiliations. In fact the last time I checked, poverty still
remained what it had always been across generations and civilizations. It
remains a condition which recognizes neither the hijab nor the habit; the poor
in the mosque is as poor as the poor in the church.
Thus when the agitation
became vociferous once again that the federal government had a sinister plan to
Islamicise this nation through the “removal” of Christian religious studies
from the curriculum, all discerning citizens of this nation knew we were back
to the familiar terrain. It did not matter that the negative policy affected
both Christian religious knowledge and Islamic religious knowledge. Accusations
of Islamisation have become a very strong weapon of blackmail. But upon a
deeper reflection, I thought we do indeed need to Islamise this country. Yes. Let us Islamise Nigeria by ensuring
that Muslims become real Muslims, whose private life would strengthen their
public life; Muslims whose public life and conduct would image the values and
ideals of Islam. Let us Islamicise this country through the inculcation and
manifestation of the eternal principles of Islam featuring honesty, probity and
transparency. Let us Islamize this country by showing that whenever we say we
are Muslims, we are actually telling the others that their lives and properties
are in safe hands. These essentially are the gravitas of the “Islamisation”
agenda. It is not and will never be the forceful conversion of Christians to
Islam.