Obasanjo’s utterance on Fulanisation, Islamisation inciting, says Don

A professor of Islamic studies at the Kwara State University (KWASU) Sulaiman Jamiu has described the statement credited to former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Fulanisation of Nigeria and Islamisation of Africa as in inciting.

Prof Jamiu, who is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academics) of the university, said this in Ilorin at Ramadan lecture organized by the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) Muslim Community.

The lecture was entitled “spirituality in the security of a nation: Lessons from Ramadan.”

The university don added that “when I read that statement I was shocked considering the position of the former president and where the speech was made. That could be inciting. I have great regard for the former president.

He is the only president that has bettered the lot of lecturers in this country. But I least expected statement from a statesman like him.”

Read also: Fed Govt attacks Obasanjo over ‘divisive’ comments

He added that the influence of materialism in the country had turned herdsmen and others to criminals, adding that the stark illiterate in the society want to keep up with the Jones.

Said he: “Let us ask ourselves few questions on why Boko Haram insurgency as one of the security challenges remain up to date insurmountable, despite all measures taken by the Federal Government including military might and strategies? The reason being that the government approach to solving national security is of materialistic provision at the expense of spiritualistic care, forgetting the fact that the most difficult phenomenon to deal with is the influence of belief or ideology already sunk into people’s mind.

“Boko Haram devilish teaching did not start in 2009 or originated by Muhammad Yusuf in Maiduguri as expressed by many writers. (Da’wah coordination council of Nigeria 2009); rather it was a reappearance of the supposed suppressed Maitasine syndrome of 1980 in Kano by the Federal Military forces. As a matter of fact Muhammad Yusuf’s father was an ardent follower of Maitasine who was killed along with their leader Muhammad Marwa Maitasine.

“The point being made here is that the failure to address the problem of insecurity in Nigeria from ideological perspective especially Boko Haram will continue to survive to generation to come. God forbid.”

He urged Muslims to put the lessons of Ramadan into contentious practice at all time as that would reduce the problems of insecurity in Nigeria.

“This is to say, Muslims after being imbibed with the lessons of Ramadan and become spiritually transformed into being conscious of the Omnipresence and Omniscience of God in all spheres of life, it should serve as a model in governance, military services, security agencies, private individual businesses, socio-economically and politically.

Hence, Muslims would be contributing immensely to the efforts of the government in reducing the rate of crime in Nigeria and invariably making lessons learnt in the month of Ramadan felt in tackling our security challenges,” he said.