like to share with our member in Naijapals.
i will like us to go through and comment and hope this will be paste
on the front bill. though the write up is long but we should take time to read
i wouldn't disclose the address of the writer because of fear of harassing him.
Shira, an Islamic teacher in Niger State writes...
"The Christmas day attack of a church in Madalla, Niger State was, no
doubt, an invitation by the Boko Haram for the rest of us Nigerians to
adopt their method and engage in indiscriminate killings in the name
of a religious cause.
It is clear that the extremist religious group is engaged in
terrorism and as President Goodluck Jonathan said recently, terrorism,
especially the type we have so far seen of the Boko Haram, is not a
fight for any particular religious cause; it has rather been a fight
against all of us, Muslims, Christians, animists, the completely
innocent and even women and children, who in all laws of war are
prohibited from being harmed. Thus we have all fallen victims to the
senseless and relentless assault the sect has visited on this country.
It is a statement of enormous wisdom on the part of all Nigerians that
we saw through the cynical mischief intended by the Boko Haram to lure
us into a fight that is certain to affect us in one way or another and
which also has the potential of leading to the destabilisation of our
nation. This repudiation of the evil invitation to participate in an
orgy of slaughter will certainly cause the tempters not to engage in
what they did on Christmas day in Madalla. If Nigerians, especially
Christians, had risen up that day or the days after to begin to go for
the throats of Muslims they see around, Boko Haram would have
multiplied such attacks on churches across the country by now for its
objective was to set Christians against Muslims and southerners
against northerners in a meaningless fight that will do no one any
good.
Boko Haram does not represent Islam in Nigeria. The Sultan of Sokoto,
Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar, who is the spiritual father of all Muslims in
Nigeria has himself said so, namely, that the people are evil. “They
have no respect for human life. All religions, including Islam, hold
human life as sacred. A true believer does not have the right to take
his own life, not to talk of taking that of others illegally,” the
Sultan had stated.
That attack, previous ones and others since, should open our eyes to
see that the real enemies we Nigerians have right now are the
extremists Boko Haram sect whose agenda spell doom for the rest of us.
If the Boko Haram people were fighting for Muslims or the religion of
Islam, they would have spared Muslims in the murderous attacks they
have waged against the fatherland in the past few years. In fact,
Muslims have even suffered more in these attacks than other Nigerians.
If Muslims are not benefiting from the crusade of the Boko Haram; if
Christians are suffering pains and anguish from the same sect and if
foreigners also have not been spared, then our common enemy is most
assuredly the Boko Haram.
Islam, it has been said for the umpteenth time, is a religion of peace
and not violence. But Boko Haram which says it wants a ‘purer’ form of
Islam imposed on Nigeria is now painting the religion black in the
eyes of some people.
Now that we have identified who our common enemy is, the question is
what do we do? The answer is simple: we must engage them in a clean
fight. We cannot afford to adopt the mode and method of fight adopted
by the group.
We cannot go about killing and maiming or destroying property
indiscriminately. That will not serve any useful purpose, nor will it
portray us as any better than them. But we can all get involved in the
war of identifying and picking out both the sponsors and foot soldiers
of the sect. These clearly misguided compatriots of ours must be
singled out and isolated and brought to face justice for the crimes
they have committed against our society in the false claim of fighting
the cause of God.
As a Muslim, I feel deeply ashamed of the campaign of killing and
hatred which the Boko Haram sect has waged against Nigeria. Its
methods are all against the prescription of the very religion whose
cause it says it is championing. Islam forbids suicide; Islam forbids
the shedding of innocent blood; Islam forbids the destruction or
desecration of places of worship and Islam says that Muslims should
regard Christians and Jews as cousins because they are ‘’People of the
Book’’. But the Boko Haram sect have killed men, women and children in
a senseless orgy of violence. They have destroyed a church; they have
desecrated places of worship with blood. They cannot be a people who
speak for Islam or champion the cause of that great religion. The
Sultan is right in describing them as forces of evil. We must be ready
to confront this new evil.
It is good to have a dream. It is good to have an ambition to achieve
something noble. But a reasonable person has to be realistic in the
dreams or goals he sets for himself. Boko Haram says it wants to
campaign for the imposition of Sharia on the whole of Nigeria. That is
a tall dream, a dream it cannot possibly realise in the type of
society Nigeria is now. Nigeria is a heterogeneous society. No one can
successfully impose any religion or values on others unless we all sit
down and agree. We must tell the Boko Haram people that they are
embarking upon a war they cannot win, no matter how long they are at
it.
| Posted: at | |
cadanre
Solidstonez
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