I have observed with dismay the continuous politicization of the religion of Islam by self-appointed Muslim theological potentates [Ulama] that have wielded enormous power and influence in the Muslim north of Nigeria since the return to civil democratic rule in 1999. Being largely a legacy region of the Sokoto Caliphate and Borno Empire, the Muslim north of Nigeria is deeply religious in culture and political orientation courtesy of the region’s powerful and influential Ulama, which has ensured the conservative Islamic way of life of the people in modern Nigeria. For a deeply religious people that have been socialized overtime on imperatives of living their lives according to Islamic injunctions as exemplified by Prophetic traditions, northern Nigeria Muslims always strive to live in the way of Allah and his Messenger, Muhammad [PBUH].
This has generally enamoured the Ulama with the power to regulate the way of life of the Muslims in northern in very profound ways, including in matters of core religious practices, social interactions, economic endeavours and most importantly, political orientation through the use of the pulpit. The Ulama has been voice of the people in the call for social justice and the advocacy for the introduction of Sharia rule in Nigeria as a panacea for the triumph of virtue over vice in the society. And over the years, the Ulama has grown in influence and power in the Muslim north as they are highly respected, revered and honoured for their role as guardians of societal morality within the theological framework of the Muslim religion.
Unfortunately, with the advent of the 4th Republic in 1999, an incestuous relationship has developed between the political class in the Muslim north and the Ulama and together with the traditional rulership institution has coalesced into a powerful conservative Muslim northern leadership establishment. And with the Muslim north being the crown jewel of Nigeria’s electoral democracy as the region with the largest democratic demography in the country, the influence of the conservative Muslim establishment has been extended across the Federal Republic of Nigeria. With the Ulama as the bulwark of the conservative Muslim northern leadership establishment, whoever or whatever they condemn from the pulpit is condemned by people and whatever or whoever they commend is commended by the people accordingly.
And their greatest achievement thus far has been the successful political orientation of their people to always exercise their democratic franchise in favour of fellow Muslims against non-Muslims under all circumstances. The high point of this power and influence to mobilize the region to align their democratic rights with their Islamic religion was in the 2023 presidential election, when the Muslim north voted exclusively for the Muslim candidacies of Ahmed Bola Tinubu of the APC, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso of the ANPP, while erecting a stone wall against the candidacy of Peter Obi of the LP, a Christian from southern Nigeria. The eventual victory of Tinubu, a southern Muslim who paired with Kashim Shettima, a Muslim from northern Nigeria in what was generally known as the Muslim/Muslim ticket of the APC sign posts the triumph of political Islam in Nigeria and the certification of the Ulama as the ultimate kingmakers in the national politics of Nigeria.
However, with their pet Muslim/Muslim presidency of Ahmed Bola Tinubu and vice president Kashim Shettima coming under the pressure from Nigerians who are protesting the one year of unprecedented socio-economic down turn and heightening insecurity across the country, the dishonesty ,hypocrisy and double operating standards of the Ulama have been laid bare. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The enormous power and influence wielded by the Ulama in the Muslim north have corrupted them to the extent that they now deploy theological subterfuge, deliberate scriptural misinterpretation and outright falsehood to administer the opium of their own version of the Islamic religion on the people in order to achieve a pre-determined political end of their politician paymasters. The latest episode in their tragi-comedy of theological subterfuge is the claim that protest by citizens against endemic bad governance in Nigeria that has been made worse in the last one year of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu led Muslim/Muslim presidency is not Islamic. And nothing is as illogical, fallacious and dishonest as the assertion that protest by citizens against bad governance by their political leadership is not Islamic.
Islam as a religion was birthed as a protestation against the period of ‘’Jahiliya’’ [ignorance] in 610 AD Arabia, which was characterised by idolatry, debauchery, barbaric practices such as the burying alive of female children, tribalism, inequality, exclusivity, injustice and cultural immorality in world that was devoid of empathy and any shred of humanism. In contemporary Nigeria, bad governance arising from leadership debauchery, corruption, incompetence and cluelessness can be likened to the pre-Islamic Jihiliyah period in Arabia against which the religion of Islam was a protestation. While the oppressive and profligate lifestyle the privileged few in power amidst the misery of the majority is akin the debauchery of the Qureishi tribal lords of Jahiliyah Arabia, economic barbarism of subsidy removal on petrol and ignorance of the floatation of the naira is as terrible as the burial of female infants alive at birth.
As it was in the Jahiliyah period in pre-Islamic Arabia so it is in Nigeria today, where life is nasty, brutish and short as a result of hunger, poverty and insecurity brought upon the people by the worst of bad governance in the history of Nigeria. And like the leaders of today’s Nigeria are accusing the would be protesters of causing insurrection, Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam [PBUH] was similarly accused by the lords of Arabia of attempting to upset a ‘’social order’’ that was manifestly inhumane, oppressive , unjust and cruel. And throughout Islamic history Muslims have risen in protests against bad governance from the Rashidun Caliphacy of Uthman bin Affan and Ali ibn Abu Talib to the revolt of Abassids against the Ummayads and the Arab revolt against the decadent Ottoman Empire during the First World War of 1914-1918. In modern times, Muslims have risen up in protests against the governments of their nation states in demand for improved governance.
In Nigeria, the Muslim north has often protested against issues it considers against their political, economic and social interests. Apart from frequent protests in the 1980s and 1990s for the implementation of Sharia law in Nigeria, the Ulama are known to have sanctioned protests against non-Muslim rulers of Nigeria since 1999. Former senate president Chuba Okadigbo was believed to have died from the inhalation of tear gas that was used to disperse a rally in Kano, when Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate of the opposition ANPP led a protest against alleged rigging of the 2003 presidential election by the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency. The protest against perceived electoral heist in the Muslim north will turn violent, when Goodluck Jonathan was declared the winner of the 2011 presidential election against candidate Muhammadu Buhari, who was heavily supported by the Ulama. Again in 2012 when the Goodluck Jonathan administration removed subsidy from the petrol, the Ulama was not heard counselling Ahmed Bola Tinubu, Muhammadu Buhari, Nasir el-Rufai and others against mobilizing their supporters to protest against President Jonathan’s ‘’bad governance’’ at the time.
It will seem as though the position of the Ulama to the effect that protest is not Islamic is a recent innovation [Bid’ah] that was introduced to prevent Muslim citizens of Nigeria from holding their Muslim leaders accountable for their misrule. Nigerians simply want to protest as a means of drawing the attention of their leaders to their miserable plight with the hope for a solution. Fortunately, the protestation of Islam against ignorance and barbarism was peacefully carried out for 23 years between 610 AD and 632 AD, when Allah [SWT] through Muhammad [PBUH] his messenger, admonished humankind against vices and enjoined the upholding the virtue of light in a world that was made dark by ignorance and barbarism until the people themselves willingly and without compulsion embraced the message of Islam. Likewise the protest by Nigerians against bad governance is a peaceful means of ventilating their frustrations and the ruling Nigerian elite are advised to change their ways and accept the demand of the people to end bad governance as the voice of the people is said to be the voice of God.
