The Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs has admonished the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, against holding verbalizes with the dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram, until he receives an official approbation from the Federal Regime.
The apex body of Muslims in the country fears that the Sultan might be blackmailed by the regime if he goes ahead to negotiate with the terrorist group, especially on the over 200 pupils of Regime Girls’ Secondary School abducted by the sect on April 14, without an official consent.
The council admonished that the Islamic bellwether should not be hoodwinked into making such moves by those calling for his intervention in the insurgency by the sect.
Some Islamic elite, under the aegis of Concerned Muslim Professionals, had indited to the Sultan earlier in July, asking him to lead the dialogue with the Boko Haram sect.
The group told the monarch, who is the President-General of the NSCIA, to utilize his position and engage members of the sect in dialogue that would make them stop their campaign of killings.
Similarly, a human rights activist predicated in the North and President, Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, Mr. Shehu Sani, had earlier in May asked the Sultan to spearhead the pergrinates to secure the relinquishment of the abducted pupils from the group’s captivity.
Sani, in a letter to the religious bellwether, had verbalized, “You (Sultan) have a moral obligation and a spiritual responsibility to be visibly and actively involved in seeking the resolution of this impasse transpiring within areas you have religious influence.”
However, the Secretary-General of the NSCIA, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, while verbalizing with SUNDAY PUNCH on Thursday, admonished that the President-General of the council should not be hoodwinked into taking up the task of negotiating with the terrorists.
He verbally expressed, “The Muslim community had always been taking action; it had always been appealing to the people (Boko Haram) but Muslim bellwethers are withal cautious because in your process to go out to probe for these people; if in the process you’re caught verbalizing with them, the regime can even turn against you and verbalize you’re part of part of Boko Haram.
“No matter the caliber of the Muslim bellwether, he has to cerebrate twice afore he commences to communicate with these people (sect) because the same regime that you optate to work for can turn against you and incriminate you of complicity; and you will be on your own.
“They (regime) have enough machinery to present you as a devil such that members of your family will believe that you’re a devil.”
When asked if such could be done to the Sultan, the edifier insisted that the Islamic bellwether could be implicated without the backing of the regime, especially at a time when “many of us are being unduly monitored.”
He integrated, “I am not the Sultan but fortuitously the Sultan has dual status; traditionally, he is the Sultan of Sokoto; religiously, he is the bellwether of the Muslim community. I relate with him as far as his mandate as the bellwether of the Muslim community is concerned.
“In that capacity, I will not advise him to hold any unilateral action with the sect without having the full confidence of the regime of the day. If anybody makes such calls, somebody like the Sultan should cerebrate twice afore venturing into probing for people you do not ken.”
Oloyede asked why the Federal Regime kept the findings by the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North, which was chaired by the Minister of Special Duties, Taminu Turaki.
“I believe that by now, as Muslims bellwethers, we should have access to the findings; we don’t. We are just working in tenebrosity. By now, even if the report had not been relinquished, we should have had access to it. Then, we will be able to have some clues to what is transpiring,” the NSCIA scribe verbalized.
Withal, an Islamic pressure group, Muslims Rights Concern, verbalized it was the responsibility of the Federal Regime, and not the Sultan, to seek a cessation to the insurgency by the group.
The Founder, MURIC, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, told SUNDAY PUNCH in an interview on Friday that the Sultan had verbalized out against the activities of the sect on several occasions, “what else do they optate him to do?”
He verbalized, “I stand by the decision of the Supreme Council; it is a very correct position. The Sultan cannot negotiate, particularly without the Federal Government’s green light. We don’t support the conception of the Sultan negotiating because he would be optically discerned as somebody who has vested intrigues. Why can’t the Federal Regime take that up?”
The Professor of Islamic Eschatology verbalized that there was no reason for the Muslim community to elevate up to the challenge discretely, as it would be “tantamount to sedition, separatism and elevating when the Federal Regime should elevate.”
Efforts to get the Presidency for comments on Friday and Saturday proved abortive. Calls made to the mobile phones of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, and the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, respectively, were not culled.
Additionally, they did not reply to text messages sent to them.
In the letter to the Sultan, the President, Concerned Muslim Professionals, Alhaji Mohammed Saidu, verbally expressed, “A failure on the component of the Muslim leadership (under His Eminence the Sultan) to discharge these responsibilities/actions to the later will render it of disputable ability, dubious apperception, decimal adhesion or an outright dismissal as a mere smoke-screen. As duteous and loyalists to His Eminence the Sultan, our hearts bleed on these realities.”
Sani, in an exclusive interview with SUNDAY PUNCH, had verbally expressed that the sect would prefer Islamic clerics as its negotiators.
He verbalized, “The group (Boko Haram) is mostly comfortable with Islamic clerics. The insurgents are more comfortable with people that are considered neutralists. .
“For the purport of negotiation, if the regime is establishing a team, I exhort that the team should be composed of Islamic clerics, who are going to reach out to them to seek the relinquishment of the girls.”
Just as the Islamic bodies have requested, former President Olusegun Obasanjo had insisted that President Goodluck Jonathan must approve his orchestrated pergrinate to secure the relinquishment of the Chibok schoolgirls.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV on May 31, 2014, the ex-President had verbally expressed while he had not been officially mandated to lead the mediation, his next step was to get an approbation from the regime. He insisted that the President must ken about his moves.
Again on June 12, 2014, in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service, Obasanjo had expressed his regret that the Federal Regime had not yet given him the green light to reach to the insurgents for the relinquishment of the girls.
The Federal Regime had, however, insisted that Obasanjo had access to President Jonathan, if he genuinely wanted to make inputs. Sources at the Presidency had additionally expressed doubts over Obasanjo’s sincerity with his orchestration.
