THE Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, on Tuesday, responded to the alarm raised by the Christian Association of Nigeria on what the latter called the lopsided shortlisting of Justices of the Appeal Court in favour of Muslims.
NSCIA noted that except compelled to do so, it had often resisted joining issues with CAN, but that on the issue at hand, the Council would not allow “the serial falsehood of CAN and its propensity for character assassination of people on the basis of their religious identity to stand”.
It said the cacophony of Christian marginalisation being portrayed by CAN was a blatant lie, “a deliberate distortion and a devilish strategy of shedding crocodile tears or crying while flogging Muslims with barefaced oppression and systemic repression in Nigeria.”
The Council said this in a statement co-signed by its Deputy Secretary-General and acting Director of Administration, Salisu Shehu and Haruna Zuberu Usman-Ugwu, respectively.
It said it would no longer tolerate any bigoted propaganda whenever a Muslim was at the helm of affairs in the country.
The apex Islamic group said If CAN had its way, it would annihilate Muslims from Nigeria but added that “one billion CANs of calumny unleashed against us cannot extinguish the light of Islam here and elsewhere, even if they try it.”
NSCIA, however, reiterated its call for a full-scale religious census of the entire workforce of the Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
It said the statistics of the census would be helpful as it would reveal the states of origin and religious affiliations of the Nigerian workforce.
The statement said, “The attention of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) has been drawn to the insinuations and vituperations that trailed the shortlisting of 20 Justices-designate by the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC).
“It would be noted that except it is compelled to do so, the Council has often resisted joining issues with the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) as a matter of principle.
“However, NSCIA would not allow the serial falsehood of CAN and its propensity for character assassination of people on the basis of their religious identity to stand because truth is irrefragable.
“The unassailable truth is that Justices of the Court of Appeal (JCAs) are 70 but the North with 19 States has 34 while the South with 17 States has 36.
“The cacophony of Christian marginalisation that constitutes the singsong of CAN is a blatant lie, a deliberate distortion and a devilish strategy of shedding crocodile tears or crying while flogging Muslims with barefaced oppression and systemic repression in Nigeria.
“Though religion preaches love, honesty, sincerity, tolerance, good neighbourliness and kindness, among other virtues, CAN has succeeded in creating a Nigerian version of Christianity, which is anchored on morbid hatred, undisguised dishonesty, caustic insincerity, religious intolerance, perennial hostility and outright wickedness.
“If CAN has its way, it would annihilate Muslims from Nigeria but one billion CANs of calumny unleashed against us cannot extinguish the light of Islam here and elsewhere, even if they try it.”
On the hijab controversy in Kwara State, the Council noted, “It is given that the right to hijab is constitutionally guaranteed. However, to CAN, constitutionality does not matter where intolerance festers and it has resorted to toe the path of violence.
“The schools in question are public schools which are financed and administered by the state government. It is even ironical that a number of the female teachers in these schools use hijab. Would CAN also ask the state government to disengage all the ‘Hijabi teachers’ in the affected schools?”
It stated, “CAN argued that the use of hijab in the affected schools will ’cause discrimination and allow terrorists to easily identify our children and wards.’ What a jaundiced argument! Assuming that was true, would the withdrawal of all the Hijabi students in the affected schools not make the children to be more easily identified?
“It, therefore, beats imagination that CAN can be so blinded by Islamophobia as to promote anarchy in the land by denying willing Muslim girls the right to hijab in state-funded schools in Ilorin of all towns, repaying the tolerance of the Muslim hosts with intolerance! Even in the West, willing school girls and professionals are accorded their rights to hijab and a Baptist College in Australia less than two years ago changed its dress code to accommodate its Hijabi student.
“However, in Nigeria, CAN leaders appear to practise a different version of Christianity and they undermine democracy by violating the lawful judgements of competent courts of law.”
It added that, for the purpose of hindsight, Muslims had, over the years, been bearing their persecution and marginalisation in Nigeria with religious patience and dignified forbearance without the NSCIA heating up the polity, occupying public spaces or inciting confrontation with constituted authorities.
The Council noted, “As far as those who run the affairs of CAN are concerned, Nigeria may as well descend into war since in their demonic calculations, they will dominate Muslims with the support of their foreign friends and turn Muslim lands to a vast wasteland as obtainable in some Muslim-majority countries.
“They fail to realise that the war they are intent on dragging Nigeria into ultimately does not decide who is right, but who is left and that no soldier in the real sense ever survives a war as something dies in him while fighting.
“It is in this respect that Muslims in Nigeria and the South in particular are warned to be circumspect in being dragged into the ethnic debate of some phantom states to be created out of Nigeria by some irredentist agitators.”
It added, “Behind the mask of ethnicity that the propagandists wear to deceive the unwary is a religious agenda to obliterate Muslims from the socio-political life of the entire South where hijab would be criminalised and the courts of law would be disobeyed at will by the so-called elite, as being witnessed in Kwara state.
“Muslims who listen to the deceit of ‘those-who-wish-others-evil’ or the rants of their megaphones are bound to regret if they continue to toe their divisive ethnic and religious propaganda.
“Muslim opinion leaders, especially politicians, writers and journalists, are to be wary of being subliminally drawn into what will potentially destroy them. You cannot trust those who disobey rightful court orders to guarantee your basic rights when push comes to shove!”
“Muslims can no longer tolerate the psychological terrorism of those whose stock-in-trade is a campaign of calumny and bigoted propaganda anytime a Muslim happens to be at the helm of affairs in Nigeria,” the NSCIA noted.
“This is the way forward at this time as the vilification of Muslims by CAN can only be redressed by publishing the statistics and letting the world know who is marginalising who,” it added.
