El-Rufai’s quest for Islamic domination of Nigeria

Mallam Nasir el-Rufai is an unrepentant religious bigot a militant Islamic supremacist, who thinks Islam is exceptional to Christianity, and wishes Islam to dominate the leadership of Nigeria. He does not just hold these views, he actively pursues them. As governor of Kaduna point out for 8 yrs, until finally Might this year, el-Rufai ran an Islamic government, with a Muslim-managed administration, regardless of the point out having a significant Christian population.

Now, out of workplace, he prides himself on installing a successor on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, and entrenching Muslim dominance in the governance of Kaduna state. More appreciably, el-Rufai features of foisting his Kaduna condition Muslim-Muslim leadership product on Nigeria, and warns Nigerians to brace by themselves for a prolonged Muslim leadership of this country.

I cringed at el-Rufai’s current remarks on how Islam was utilized to safe “victory” for Bola Tinubu in this year’s presidential election, and his simply call for entrenched Muslim presidency in Nigeria. Why would any individual behave with such utter recklessness and stoke inter-religious tensions in a region so ethnically and religiously polarised, and so unstable and fragile?

However significantly some loathe to listen to it, the truth of the matter is that Nigeria commenced as an artificial build and remains now, 109 a long time following the British cobbled it together in 1914, a condition without nationhood. It is, effectively, still a mere geographical place, where by ethnicity, faith and other primordial sentiments determine most of the people.

Obviously, consequently, any accountable chief fascinated in country-creating must, in words and deeds, seek to bind this nation together and not deepen its ethnic, religious and other schisms.

Apparently, on the other hand, el-Rufai is not such a chief: he wishes a Nigeria whose management is controlled by Muslims, a Nigeria in which Islam is privileged more than Christianity in nationwide leadership and governance. He wishes, more or less, an Islamic Republic of Nigeria! If you consider that’s hyperbolic, listen to it from his mouth!

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In a new viral video clip, el-Rufai informed Muslim clerics in Kaduna that religion was utilised to give Tinubu “victory” in February’s presidential election. He explained Tinubu knew he “had no option” but to select a Muslim jogging mate, or else “he would shed the election.” Then, he gloated: “What we are able to obtain in Kaduna, has now been realized in Nigeria.” He went on to ridicule the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, indicating it experienced “kept quiet” and “remained mute” since Tinubu’s “victory”.

The presidential poll, el-Rufai reported, showed that Christians lacked electoral benefit and toughness in Nigeria. “There’s no liar that can say he will do politics of Christianity and acquire the election,” he reported, incorporating: “So, if we continue to keep bringing Muslim-Muslim tickets, almost everything will go smoothly for us Muslims.” Put simply, a Muslim-Muslim ticket would trump a Christian-Muslim ticket in any presidential election in Nigeria.

Very first, it is worth pointing out that even the hugely disputed INEC outcomes of the presidential election do not justify el-Rufai’s triumphalism. It is not distinct to me how securing 8.79 million out of 24 million votes, as Tinubu did, can total to acceptance and legitimisation of the Muslim-Muslim ticket when the frustrating the vast majority of voters, 14.6 million, turned down that ticket. How can a person with 36.6 per cent of the full votes assert a sturdy mandate for a Muslim-Muslim ticket when a whopping 63.39 for each cent of the voters rejected that ticket? Definitely, el-Rufai ought to concede that, even with the INEC-declared benefits, Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket did not get the majority, allow on your own mind-boggling, guidance of Nigerians, and hence lacks genuine legitimacy.
But that apart, the real truth is that, with el-Rufai, we are dealing with a hazardous and perverse impact on Nigeria’s politics and polity. I at the time wrote that el-Rufai is a incredibly intelligent technocrat and administrator.

Of study course, he is! But so, in some strategies, ended up Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. And so are numerous autocrats and demagogues all over the world these days. Truth of the matter is, the earth is complete of evil geniuses!

With el-Rufai, we are dealing with a dangerous and perverse influence on Nigeria’s politics and polity

I imply, when a smart individual warned overseas election observers not to interfere in Nigeria’s presidential election or “you will go home in body bags”, as el-Rufai did in 2019, you need to question about that type of smartness. When, in a place break up approximately 50-50 concerning Christians and Muslims, a good particular person identified as for a Muslim-Muslim presidency, declaring “if we do it again and all over again, everything will be normal”, you need to ponder if that “smart” man or woman is, in truth, “normal” himself. Sadly, that’s how a person must watch el-Rufai wise but unsafe, a harmful impact on Nigerian politics!

But this is not just about el-Rufai. What about Mallam Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the Supreme Council of Sharia in Nigeria, SCSN, calls him? He advised Nigerians that he picked Mallam Kashim Shettima as his running mate, not mainly because he was a fellow Muslim but simply because he was a genius, whose talents could not be matched by any Christian member of his party, APC, in the North! Of class, Tinubu was dissembling, his denial was deceptive. El-Rufai has ultimately place the lie to that denial. Fact is, the Muslim-Muslim ticket was about utilizing religion to secure electric power. For Tinubu’s Northern backers, like el-Rufai, it was about making certain Islamic dominance in the leadership of Nigeria!

Ironically, the identical Tinubu who stated, albeit deceptively, that his Muslim-Muslim ticket was centered on competence, not faith, then, the moment in electric power, utilized faith to push for Godswill Akpabio’s election as Senate President. Tinubu’s vice president, Shettima, place it starkly: “The worst and most incompetent Southern Christian is improved than the most puritanical Northern Muslim for the presidency of the Senate.” That comment enraged Shettima’s fellow Northern Muslims, forcing him to apologise and reaffirm his Islamic pedigree. “My family lineage has faithfully adopted the path of Islam for far more than 1,400 many years,” he said.

Of program, the issue Shettima and Tinubu ended up creating with regards to the Senate President position was that it experienced small to do with competence, but all to do with religion. In real truth, offered that Nigeria’s legislature is commonly a rubber stamp, the high-quality of a Senate president is irrelevant. Yet, the reality that Tinubu and Shettima made use of faith so opportunistically to get energy, both in the presidential election and in the election of the Senate president, reveals the dishonesty at the heart of their politics and, probably, also at the heart of their government.

But we should return to el-Rufai. He mentioned that obtaining secured a Muslim-Muslim presidency in Nigeria, replicating his Kaduna product at the centre, he and his fellow APC Northern Muslims “have finished our work”. He then projected that Nigeria would have a prolonged Muslim presidency. He could properly be ideal. For, with Tinubu as president, if the Supreme Court docket validates his election, Nigeria might have a Muslim president for 24 a long time constantly.

Think about it this way. If Tinubu does 8 yrs in workplace, he will, inevitably, be succeeded by a Northern Muslim, who may well also do eight several years. Therefore, by 2039, Nigeria would have had a Muslim president for 24 consecutive a long time considering the fact that 2015!

Unfortunately, some Nigerians are currently overexcited about Tinubu’s exercising of presidential powers, which if anything at all, merely confirms how impressive Nigeria’s president is. But the untimely adulation will fizzle out and the implications of Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim presidency, and the likely for Muslim presidency for 24 consecutive decades, will be unavoidable. Absolutely, in a weather the place there’s popular persecution of Christians and hostility in the direction of the Christian religion, as documented by Release Global, a global NGO, it is inescapable that an Islamisation agenda will seriously test Nigeria’s fragile unity and balance.

El-Rufai says his “work is finished” with the emergence of a Muslim-Muslim presidency. Well, he will stay with the outcomes of his quest for Islamic domination of Nigeria!