When I wrote on the politics of Boko Haram, I did promise to write on the economy (business) of Boko Haram. Though time had lingered, it is important to read that article before reading this which is a prelude to the revelation of the biggest and thriving economy of non state actors in the history of sub-sharan Africa. It is the entrenchment of evil complimented by a deliberately docile government that built the network and bided its time till they got power. The mining of gemstones in Sambisa, gold in Zamfara, ransom collection on kidnapping, military arms trading, hostages exchanging, unprecedented crude oil stealing, the list is endless and the depth of it we may never be able to determine until those evil “comrades” are rid off the government.
The wrestle against Muslim/Muslim ticket might have been made to look like Christians hatred for Muslims by politicians and their business partners who are benefiting from the unbalanced polity but It is about time this masquerades of mischief among us are unveiled for who they are. In the words of Jesus the Christ; they are whitewash sepulchre, religiously beautified but in them lies carcasses of human devoured as meal.
On the tripod of equity, fairness and justice rests the demand for Christian/Muslim or Muslim/Christian tickets in the context of our Nation Nigeria; by the reasonable! Whatever the unreasonable are making of it, we leave to their conscience.
Islam is not evil and Muslims are not bad. Christians are not good and Christianity is not holy. If Christianity was holy, the only holy God wouldn’t have screamed his expectations of holiness to Christians; “Be ye holy, for I am holy!”
How evil is Islam and how bad can a Muslim be? Islam can be as evil as Christianity and a Muslim as bad as a Christian! Why? Because religion as a practice is at the mercy of its practitioners. The compromises of religion stems from complications of its conflicting systems. Faith is internal. The habitation of God is the heart of the people. The practice of it, however, is external!
It was God the creator of people and the inventor of the heart that said; “the heart of men are desperately wicked; who can know it?”
Whence God is on a conquest mission of the desperately wicked territory of our hearts so that our environment can find the same proportion of peace that governs conquered hearts by God’s love individually. Unconquered power mongering hearts in their wickedness have devised religion as a means to achieving their inordinate mission to power, with practices often overboard and stakes raised above divine heights! Calamity is often the results for Christianity in the circumstance and insurrections the pattern for Islam.
Jim Jones laid claim to Christianity and his prescriptions for its practice swayed him off into cultism!
Building towns and cities are not part of the mandate of Christ for Christianity. Though there is nothing wrong with it but the simplicity of faith must never be overshadowed by human ambitions for “mundanity”. The betterment of humanity is the vision of true faith and the redemption of their hearts, its mission!
In the “holy city” of Jim Jones occurred the “Jonestown Massacre” on November 18, 1978, otherwise known as the Guyana Tragedy which had more than 900 members of an American cult called the People’s Temple dead in a mass sucide under the directives of their leader Jim – Jones (1931-1978), it was indeed calamitous!
While all loving citizens of our country must be worried about calamity of claims by extreme christian sects, Insurrection of Islamic extreme sects must equally be of concern. In Maiduguri; Borno State, North East Nigeria, stands an edifice of pride to human achievement, a Mosque built by Alhaji Mohammed Indimi; whose son, Ahmed Indimi married Zahra the daughter of retired Army General Muhammadu Buhari, a former head of state and now the civilian President since 2015. Ndimi and Buhari thus became in-laws in 2016; by which they became covenanted after years of political association. This of course seems to be the beginning of trouble for Rahana the daughter of the billionaire who was married to Mohammed Babangida Jnr since 2004 following the pattern of Buhari-Babangida relationship since the military coup that ousted Buhari from power and brought in Babangida.
From the north-eastern state of Borno and the beautiful dome of Indimi’s Mosque will originate the boom of insecurity called Boko Haram! A group of Muslim youths with extreme radical views were grown from there! Radicalism is usually a product of deliberate teaching for which de-radicalization suffices as a reverse order!
It is a common practice in Islam for persons blessed by Allah to further the cause of religion by building mosques and hiring an Islamic Cleric who teaches adherents that come there to worship and lead the Jumah (people assembling for prayers) as Imam in prayers. The motive for Boko Haram may be hidden forever with the Cleric who was hired by Indimi except his personality, country of origin, terms and conditions of contract with financier and his sect in Islam is known. For among the young men instructed by him from Indimi’s Mosque came Mohammed Yusuf of the Izala sect, who became the progenitor of Boko Haram ideology!
Across Oyo state are existing sects of Islam. In my growing up days in Ibadan its capital city, was a man nicknamed; “ajagbemo keferi” rebuker of the unbelievers. While Boko Haram frowns at the unbelievers system of education, Ajagbemo keferi frowns at unbelievers (infidels).
Ibadan as a city is replete with Mosques built and named after prosperous persons of Islam.
A pattern similar to Borno, where persons who are beneficiaries of the establishment of government institutions, of contracts and sundry businesses of government are building Mosques, hiring clerics and instructing young Muslim minds, has been in place. Suffice to say Indimi is the beneficiary of oil prospecting license granted him in 1990 by General Ibrahim Babangida, making him Founder and Chairman of Oriental Energy Resources (OER). It was Babangida whose lot it was to REGULARIZE Nigeria’s membership of Organization of Islamic Countries.
Contrary to wide spread propaganda that he led Nigeria into OIC; it was Gowon who led Nigeria into OIC in 1969. Christian leaders, particularly Gowon, Obasanjo and Jonathan exhibited respects for rights of Muslims and privileges. As Christians, we live in hope that this gesture will be reciprocated by our Muslim brothers and sisters in power .
In recent times, the visibility and vocality of Ishaq Akintola’s radicalism in the same Oyo State calls for worry. His energy is channelled towards the emergence of Islamic state similar to the passion exhibited by Yusuf. Oyo is a must lose to christians and a must win for Muslims according to him, not for good governance but for better practice of his own brand of Islam!
At about 1:00 am at Queens School, Apata, Ibadan, an attack in the manner of Chibok girls’ abduction was foiled by a Muslim, Mr Olayiwola, who today has entered into the hall of fame of students he laid down his own life to save the innocent girls the abductors must have come for!
The question is, has Oyo state the political capital of southwest Nigeria matured for evil manipulations of religion for political gains as witnessed since 2015 in Nigeria, particularly northeast and northwest?
To be continued as
Boko Haram: A plot for the plundering of Nigeria.
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