By Nigerian journalist, Rotimi Akinola
Muhammadu Buhari’s comments deriding his Christian critics and disgustedly urging them to go fight Boko Haram or shut the hell up is an insult on every Nigerian soldier who identifies as ‘Christian’.
I want to believe there are Christians in Nigeria’s military who, alongside their Muslim brothers, fearlessly fight Boko Haram. How would Buhari, their Commander-In-Chief, look those Christians in the eye after calling their civilian brethren ‘religious bigots’?
Buhari’s comments fell short of presidential. It was inappropriate.
I grab the point he was trying to make and the point is valid: Nigeria comes first.
But he could have driven that home without calling his countrymen bigots. Jeez! Must you say horrible things about Nigerians every time you’re away from home?
This administration has not only embarrassed Nigerians with unwholesome labelling and name-calling. It has also lied, and that blatantly, to the people.
Buhari’s government lied about the whole Islamic coalition thing. Or wasn’t Buhari the one who instructed Garba Shehu to tell Nigerians the government won’t be part of the Saudi-led formation?
I could almost hear Shehu saying:
Listen up people. Stop this religious shouts. My president, your president…the one and only Buhari looked the Desert Kingdom’s king in the eye and blurted ‘Nope dude, we’re a secular country and so won’t be part of this Islamic coalition’.
But the story has changed. And it did without apology.
Mind you, even the formation of that Saudi-led coalition was scandalous. Some of the countries who’re part of it said they never knew they belonged there till they saw it in the news. Now, that’s cray.
They were invited to a ‘normal’ meeting only to be told that ‘this is now the Islamic blah blah blah.’ Saudi, last December, invited 34 ‘Islamic’ countries to join a coordination centre. But when the partners met, Saudi went to the media and said they were there to form an Islamic military alliance. It’s practically an Islamic army.
But Saudi Arabia could have called this another name without involving religion. After all, this is about kicking terrorists butts, right? Perhaps not.
Saudi did it to probably prove to the West that Muslim countries are not in support of terrorism. But who needs to prove that. We know Muslim countries are against terrorists.
Since this may be all about Saudi’s bid to retrieve Islam’s narrative from terrorists, Nigeria’s involvement becomes even dubious because the giant of Africa is not an Islamic country.
This seems like a move by mainstream Sunni Islam to distance itself from terrorism. That’s why Shiite Iran which explicitly calls itself an ‘Islamic Republic’ was not invited to the table. Even Syria and Iraq, Tehran’s allies didn’t make the list.
Nigeria is not an Islamic country. I repeat: Nigeria is not an Islamic country. And the Buhari government, a government millions voted for over ‘bungling’ Goodluck Jonathan’s, shamelessly lied to its own people to drag a secular country into a coalition needlessly tainted by religion.
Why on earth would a secular country – one evenly split between Christians and Muslims – commit itself to what could be an Islamic agenda?
Yes, Nigeria feels the brunt of what Buhari calls ‘Islamic terrorism’ (if such term exists). But it’s this same government that declared victory over Boko Haram.
Buhari is not running to Saudi and other Islamic countries to help Nigeria as a country. He has actually dragged Nigeria into an Islamic army.
There are fears Buhari has an Islamic, and a ‘northern’ agenda; fears I totally believe are nonsensical….utter rubbish. I suggest folks who think there’s such an agenda go for mentality surgery.
But this Islamic coalition thing and Buhari’s body language towards the activities of Fulani herdsmen who decapitate human babies to avenge cows worry me.
Didn’t Buhari say ‘only Nigeria matters’? Do Nigerian cows matter more than Nigerian lives?
This post first appeared on Newsroom.ng
