Source: NaijaSharpNews
Muslims in Nigeria's southwestern region on Monday vowed to resist a selection of regional delegates for an upcoming national conference – and a conference agenda – that they say favors the region's Christians. NaijaSharpNews correspondents have gathered.
Professor Ishaq Akintola, chairman of the outspoken Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), criticized a recent meeting of the Yoruba Committee on National Conference (YCNC), which claims to speak for the Yoruba people.
The Yoruba are a major ethnic group from Nigeria's southwestern region, who represent a major factor in national politics.
"We're perturbed that there's no single Muslim among the prominent Yoruba leaders who attended the meeting. It gives room for suspicion," Akintola said in a statement.
The YCNC meeting, he said, which was reportedly convened to discuss the selection of the region's delegates to the national conference, had featured exclusively Christian clerics, politicians and statesmen.
"Such a gathering lacks balance. It's not only parochial but also myopic," Akintola insisted.
"They should be able to look ahead. Are they saying there are no Muslims in Yorubaland?"
President Goodluck Jonathan is planning a national conference within weeks aimed at addressing mounting complaints of socioeconomic and political imbalance in Nigeria.
In October, the president set up a committee to prepare for the conference, expected to address the many grievances that he believes threaten national unity.
On January 30, the government issued an outline for the conference, which is to be attended by a total 492 delegates.
Six seats at the conference have been reserved specifically for Muslims and six for Christians, to allow each group to air their grievances.
Federal and state governments and other interest groups – including local ethnic groups, the media and labor federations – will also nominate delegates.
A final date for the conference will be set after the conclusion of the nomination process.
'Coup'
Professor Akintola described the exclusion of Muslim religious and political leaders from the YCNC meeting as a "plot to undermine" Muslims of the southern region.
"The YCNC is a coup against Muslims. It's a Christian agenda," he asserted.
"The committee is on its own. We reject its deliberations and whatever the outcome may have been," Akintola said. "For it to be credible and relevant, it must convene another meeting where Muslims will be well represented."
"The notion of a 'Christian South' is misleading," he added. "Islam had been in Yorubaland more than a hundred years before the British bombarded Lagos in 1851."
"Today, Muslims form a large majority in Yorubaland," he went on.
"Any attempt, therefore, to take a stand among the Yoruba on the proposed National Conference without due recognition for and consultation with prominent Yoruba Muslim leaders and scholars isn't only an exercise in futility, but also autocratic and therefore unacceptable."
The Conference of Islamic Organizations (CIO) and the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN) have both voiced similar concerns.
"MURIC's observation gels entirely with our position: that there is a consistent and wicked agenda to give the impression that Muslims are in the minority in the southwest region," CIO chief Abdullahi Shuaib told AA.
He called on the YCNC to reverse course or be denounced in no ambiguous terms.
MSSN President Qasim Badrudeen said his group would write a letter condemning "such an affront, as well as tell the presidency or the secretariat of the conference not to accept any list given to them by the YCNC."
YCNC chairman Olaniwun Ajayi, for his part, promised to "look into" Muslim grievances.
"I must point out that no deliberate attempt is being made to undermine the Muslims – or anyone for that matter," he said.
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