It is time for Nigerians to put pressure on the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Conference to get leaders across northern Nigeria to abandon their dream of an 8th century purist state?

By Ayo Akinfe

(1) Yesterday, a fringe northern socio cultural group launched an outfit called Shege-Ka-Fasa in Kaduna. Floated as a response to Amotekun, this new association has nothing to do with confronting criminals, providing security, offering intelligence on the activities of kidnappers or providing security. It is simply a response to a perceived ethnic threat

(2) As far as I am aware, no governor in northern Nigeria is backing this Shege-Ka-Fasa and it has no mandate from any elected representative. However, somehow, it has been given vehicles and some men have been recruited into its ranks and provided with uniforms

(3) Knowing Nigerians, this matter will divide us along ethnic and religious lines again. Asking people to look at the merits of the matter will be tantamount to whistling in the wind. There is no way any governor in the North Central geo-political zone for instance would subscribe to a security outfit unless its primary objection is curbing the menace of these armed herdsmen

(4) When the US is imposing visa bans on Nigeria because of the absence of a security policy, surely this is the time to jettison this primordial attachment to ethnic domination. Everyone has to acknowledge that it is time to abandon dreams of recreating the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates across Nigeria in 2020

(5) During the reign of the Rashidun from 632 to 661, we had the world’s first ever Islamic theocracy during which the Middle East thrived. After this period, we witnessed the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates during which Arab culture blossomed. Massive mosques were built, cities were constructed, the Arab world gave us mathematics and Islam as a religion spread

(6) Come the 21st century, however, things have moved on. Today, nobody in the Middle East is looking to create a caliphate or a Muslim theocracy. Countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Kuwait are all looking to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) and are dismantling their historic Islamist structures

(7) In 2018 for instance, the United Arab Emirates alone attracted $10bn worth of FDI, while Oman pulled in $6bn. In all these places, specialist trading zones are being opened and tourist havens are being built from scratch, where visitors are allowed to drink as much alcohol as they please and none of the strict religious edicts of 7AD still hold sway. They are building schools, universities, libraries, airlines, new cities, hotels etc, while we are building mosques

(8) Islamic finance, once the domain of Muslim investors only, continues to grow at a healthy pace of more than 20% each year. In 2018 alone, the size of the market totalled $500bn. Capital from such funds have been used to build hotels, stadia, roads, railway lines, etc across the Middle East. Unfortunately, Nigeria’s Islamic leaders have been blind to all this. They only see the purist caliphate of the 8th century

(9) If our elected governors in say northwest Nigeria wanted to, I believe they could easily match the UAE’s annual FDI of $10bn to create wealth. This in turn would enable them to fund education, eliminate illiteracy, end banditry and provide an atmosphere in which their people live at ease with one another. I think it is time we started putting pressure on organisations like the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Conference to drag their Nigerian brethren into the 21st century

(10) Nowhere in the Middle East today will you find a political leader take his four wives to parliament and brag about how them giving him 27 children makes him a strong man. Many of the things we witness among Nigerian Muslims today have long been abandoned in the Middle East, the home of Islam. It is time for Nigerian Muslims to catch up with the rest of the Islamic world