National Issues
Pantami and Buhari: Between Faith and Fame -By Umar Ardo, Ph.D
I don’t, with all respect, agree with the position of the federal government in retaining Sheick Dr. Isa Pantami as a cabinet minister. No person, Muslim or Christian, would express Dr. Pantami’s extremist views in the way and manner he variously did, and at the same time hold a ministerial office, and be left alone except if it’s in a theocratic state and that those views represent government views.
Granted, he didn’t express those views while in government, but the mere fact that he holds those extremist views automatically disqualifies him from holding public offices in a non-theocratic state. There is a danger to any society if people of extreme religious or ideological views hold onto political power for the simple reason that people seek public offices to implement their ideas for society. Therefore there’s always a danger for a religious preacher who has strong views on his faith to delve into the murky waters of politics. The explanation that he has changed his view with the passage of time and maturity is at best an after thought. In fact, it is a very awkward and embarrassing situation for him personally, and even for the government he serves.
Is he saying that the views were false and were adolescently expressed inadvertently at probably the age of 34 years, and that he never meant them? Are we to take it that all those views he expressed in his preachings in that age were also inadvertent and that we should discard them? Afterall, are those strong views he expressed not anchored on the scriptures and therefore the eternal words of the Creator? If that is so, then does he have the right to change or repudiate them and still claim to his faith? Should we therefore, going forward, not be suspicious of the views expressed by all Islamic Sheikhs henceforth because the allure of public office will make them recant their views anchored on Sunna in the face of the new theology of democracy/allure of public office? As it is, I believe Pantami has lost both ways – not even his adherents would take him seriously henceforth and by retaining him in office, he remains a heavy political liability to the government. Henceforth, it will be difficult if not impossible to extricate the government of charges of extremism, Islamization, fulanization, etc. It will also not help the cause of the current war against terrorism, insurgency and banditry – all because of the allure of a ministerial seat and the desire to protect that seat!
That is why it is important clerics spear their adherents their political views. As Islamic clerics, they’re well advised to restrict themselves to the tafsir of the Holy Qur’an and Hadith and stop delving into politics, whether local, national or international. For this and many other reasons including protecting the sanctity of their religions, l advise that all religious leaders be most circumspect in making public their political views shrouded in religious attires during preachings.
A most decent act would have been for Pantami to resign and restate his commitment to his faith if he really is truthful to those views. If I (Dr. Umar Ardo) were Dr. Isa Pantami, I’d’ve owned up to my words and resign, or owned up and hold to my office and allow the government to decide. I would never have repudiated them for anything on earth. But for Pantami repudiating those views claiming that they were made in error on account of adolescence (at 34 years?) and the government, in retaining him in office, to employ deceptive arrangements in his favor is not only dangerous but also a big political mistake on the part of the government. It is incumbent on the president to relieve him of his appointment for his (Pantami’s) own sake, for the sake of the president and his government, for the sake of the country and the religion all of us profess.
SAM ABBD ISRAEL
April 25, 2021 at 2:39 pm
Dear Dr. Umar Ardo,
Your intervention on the Pantami-Buhari debacle is well written and the message is well taken.
However, since you mentioned in passing that you are of the same religious faith with Mohammadu Buhari and Isa Pantami, I have to wonder about which ‘Holy’ Koran and Hadith you are reading. If you have the same holy book, like every Muslim is supposed to, I think you will find that Buhari and Pantami are doing very fine in their current position on faith and fame
They are both ‘Islamically’ covered, protected and they also have the Allah’s immunity too under the Taqiyya of “precautionary disposition”. They are therefore permitted to lie and to be dishonest in the cause of propagating and establishing an Islamic Revolution in Nigeria.
Also, I think you are in moral error with respect to your expectations that: “Henceforth, it will be difficult if not impossible to extricate the government of charges of extremism, Islamization, fulanization, etc. It will also not help the cause of the current war against terrorism, insurgency and banditry – all because of the allure of a ministerial seat and the desire to protect that seat!”
But these are exactly the views that Buhari’s Fulani Government set out to achieve in the first instance. The campaign manifesto of his political party that was crafted by useful idiots was meant for pretence only. The manifesto was a document of intent that was never meant to be implemented. It was only published to disguise, to lure to sleep and to fool all the prying infidels’ eyes.
Buhari has never refuted his original and premeditated agenda, which has been recorded in many of his past public statements, to give an unflinching support to the implementation of the Sharia law and to fulfil the burning irredentist desire to ensure the Fulanisation of Nigeria is accomplished by fire and by force.
From the onset of this project of conquest, it was never an Islamisation agenda because historically the Fulani establishment have always used and abused the religion of Islam as a mere tool for the capturing of political hegemony from all the naive and trusting indigenous nations that happened to be on their migratory pathways.
We are now more than ever convinced that there was never a “war against terrorism, insurgency and banditry” from the beginning.
Drawing inferences from our tragic ongoing experiences, we now know that most of those in the Presidency were in the past privy to the establishment, funding and provisioning of logistics to the Boko Haram insurgency. And we can equally infer that they are also fully aware of the current developments of the Fulani herdsmen, militia and banditry, to which they have neither hidden their support for them nor have they denied them unhindered government protection.
Buhari and the Fulani cabal around him have merely engaged in cynical plots that fashioned the necessary tools for the capturing of the ineluctable political power of Nigeria in order to establish a formidable Fulani suzerainty, the type of which had never been known before, over the indigenous people of Nigeria.
Unfortunately, the Fulani Caliphate will meet its disastrous “Waterloo”. Those behind this inglorious expedition to visit carnage and destruction on innocent ‘compatriots’ were pushed by Hubris against all the fair advice and warnings. They refused to allow common sense, benevolence and compassion to prevail. And now they are going to pay the price of losing everything they thought they owned in Nigeria.
“Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat :
Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason.”
At this moment, we shall not fail to recall with regret the ogre of savage suffering, barbaric callousness, beastly wickedness and the outright dehumanisation that we passed through under the administration of a locust-like pestilence of Mohammadu Buhari.
Viewing all these disturbing and inhuman experiences visited on us from the moral and ethical perspective, We can only wish all those who participated in the dastardly and satanic atrocities of the past six years, the abundance and in many folds of everything that they wished and visited on the innocent, friendly and ever-trusting indigenous peoples of the geographical space hitherto called British-Nigeria.
We are still able to wish them well because we know better and we do sincerely hope it is not too late for them to repent and to amend their diabolical beliefs, beastly thoughts and their crooked monstrous ways of life.
In The Spirit Of Truth
SAM ABBD ISRAEL