Have you read the acerbic statements that Ishaq Akintola, leader of the rabble-rousing Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has been issuing against the Oyo State governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde, in recent times? Mr MURIC has been disparaging Governor Makinde simply because he is a Christian. The internet is replete with his leprous words. Because he hates Christianity/Christians with a passion, the MURIC man has been denouncing anything remotely Christian for years and because no one has really challenged him, he has become a law unto himself, sowing discord. The professor really isn’t worth my time, but I am putting this on record just for historical purposes.
If you are stunned by MURIC’s anti-Makinde rebellion, then consider what the clown has done to Christian governors for years. For instance, no sooner had the Ogun governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, assumed office than this fellow started launching attacks on him, saying that he had sold Ogun State to Christians! Last year, a Sokoto-based group, the United Arewa Support Forum, lambasted Akintola for “promoting religious irredentism in Nigeria”, urging him to “avoid unnecessary incitement in the media with patently false campaigns.” Chairman of the group, Musa Ibrahim Illela, recalled that the same MURIC had bandied false allegations in Ogun State in August 2020, forcing a Muslim group, Community of Muslim Professionals (CMP), to warn him to desist from sowing the seeds of religious friction in Ogun State in a bid to promote his own brand of irredentism. Hear Illela: “Indeed the Ogun-based advocates described Akintola as ‘a well-known rabble-rouser fond of hiding under the guise of Islamic rights advocacy to promote division, sectionalism, and religious strife.’” The Arewa Group warned the people of Sokoto State to “ignore the attempt by MURIC to create bad blood between the administration of Governor Ahmed Aliyu and the Sultanate.”
It is clear that there is another Jihadist onslaught on Yorubaland. That is why foreigners have been promoting division among the Yoruba, claiming that Yoruba Muslims are discriminated against, as if there is any position in Yorubaland that Yoruba Muslims have not attained, or in which they have not excelled, and as if a Yoruba Muslim is not Nigeria’s president today. Did we not all fight tooth and nail for MKO? Look back at history and see the damage that hate vendors like Akintola caused.
Akintola, listen to me. As our people say, only the onset of rebellion can be predicted (Ibere ote lo se ri); the end is ensconced in uncertainty. The vision of Islamic Republic that you nurture will never be achieved, because it has absolutely nothing to do with Yoruba interests. Shariah is not, and can never be, the Yoruba way: it is a ploy to recreate another Ilorin episode in 2025 using willing Yoruba slaves. For years, you have insulted, disparaged and demeaned (Yoruba) Christians. You have called Yoruba governor names and encouraged open rebellion against them. You have prompted religious schism and strife and you have portrayed yourself as the lion of Islamic fundamentalism, the king of religious politics. May you find what you are looking for.
I am sounding this note of warning before the seed of discord that Akintola has sown for years takes root and Yorubaland becomes a cauldron of smoke, tears and ashes. Go ahead with your co-travellers and impose an imam without the Alaafin of Oyo as you have promised. In fact, do everything that you have imagined to do. Get critics out of the way so you can live alone on the land as the Sultan of Yorubaland!
I challenge anyone to show me a single person or organisation that has been insulting Muslims in Nigeria the way Akintola and his organisation have been insulting Christians for years. Akintola has beaten the drums of division for years. Last year, he said GOTV was forcing Christianity on Nigerian Muslims, thus suggesting that Christian programs are anathema on TV. He once claimed that the New Year celebration was “unfair, unjust and undemocratic” to Muslims in Nigeria. In his perverse view, January 1 is a Christian holiday. He took umbrage at Tinubu for appointing Christians into positions, and is on record as saying that “FG under President Muhammadu Buhari,” a government under which thousands of Christians were killed in the North and which even the typically irreligious EU flayed, “is also supporting the Christianisation of Nigeria.” This detestable clown is on record as crafting this drivel: “Christians have five out of the eight holidays enjoyed by Nigerians. Muslims have three only… Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year Day, Easter Monday and Good Friday are all for Christians.”
The moral midget mischievously listed Good Friday/Easter Monday and Christmas /Boxing Day as separate holidays without mentioning that Eid Kabir and Fitri are two days each, aside Eid Maulud that is a one-day affair. Only a moron will list New Year Day and Boxing Day as Christian holidays. In his hypocrisy, Akintola did not tell us that he refused to collect his wages as a lecturer because they were paid using the Gregorian calendar.
Re: Fourteen-year-old bride in this day and age?
I don’t think there is any hope in sight soon because even those who should know better are neck deep in support especially under the garb of Islamic religion. There are so many issues surrounding the child bride in Nigeria and I think it is not just a cultural thing but a misapplication and misinterpretation of Islamic religion. You didn’t mention Yerima and his 13-year-old bride too….As a mother I cannot fathom a situation where my 13-yr-old daughter is given away in marriage to a man old enough to be her grandpa all in the name of marriage. If there is another word stronger that child defilement and abuse, that is the best way to describe it. (Chinwe Jameelah Aiyelabegan: 0812 122 9013).
Well done sir. Underage marriage is not a culture but barbaric! You have done through research on the implications of child marriages in the northern part of the country. They will soon learn their lessons. (Rev Michael Oladimeji, Ibadan: 0802 385 2901)
Child marriage is vexatious to the girl child. It is a “wicked culture” wherever it is practiced globally, and those parents who give their juvenile daughters in marriage to older men do so for ephemeral pecuniary gains. In Nigeria, it is the state leadership that should take the bull by the horns and legislate against child marriage. It is long overdue for a legislative action. The elites/educated in the North don’t embrace the warped culture. They don’t marry their daughters away at a younger/tender age. However, their graveyard silence against the obnoxious practice makes these privileged classes an accomplice to the crime. Child marriage breeds perpetual poverty and a burden on state resources. (Yacoob Abiodun: 0810 350 1024)
READ ALSO: Hate messaging: A plea for restraint and sensitivity
