The Centre for Promotion of Shari’ah has read a recent press release penned and signed by one Bishop O.T Daniel, the General Marshal of Assembly of Jesus Army Guard, the military wing of International Network of Christian Organizations for Protection and Defense of Christian Organizations, based and operating in an unidentifiable enclave in Nigeria. In the publication, the Army Guard hides behind the claim of secular status (a notion explicitly unstated in Nigeria’s constitution) of Nigeria and a pretext of upholding the principles of justice and equality to bury the years of agony birthed by a merciless project of violence unleashed on the people of Tafawa Balewa by the Sayawa Christian community.
The press release also calls on the global Christian community to rally around the Sayawa people in Bauchi,and by implication, to blindly support their coreligionists in whatever unjust cause the latter pursue, regardless of the humanitarian costs of doing that.
2. Having emanated from a vanguard of militias of an umbrella forum of Christians, with an international outlook and possibly global presence in some countries apart from Nigeria, it is valid to conclude that the press release is an invitation of violence and an act of beating a drum of war for a grand,gradual plan to perpetrate terrorism against legitimate moves to draw the attention of authorities to do justice to the oppressed Muslim natives of Tafawa Balewa.
3. All the claims made in the document are empty, shallow, naive and deceptive and meant to play with the intelligence and conscience of leaders and objective Nigerians. The document is explicit in its support for the siting of Sayawa chiefdom in Tafawa Balewa, to which they have christened a new name, but it goes on to thoughtlessly cast as right, freedom and justice for Christians.
The Christian memo turns blind eye on the legal debacle of the impasse which has been pending before the Court of Appeal in Jos.
4.To this violent group,freedom and justice refer to an act of confiscating a land,a town and a whole traditional institution and to give them to a different disputant and belligerent faction in a conflict between two parties.
If this myopic and egoistic conception of justice and freedom were to be ever accepted and mainstreamed in inter-ethnic and interreligious relations,would there be peace in a pluralistic society like Nigeria? Should bandits,armed robbers and all sorts of terrorists have legitimate claims over the possessions of their victims, just by virtue of subduing them with superior might or because they enjoy the backing of deadly weapons? When has humanity fallen so low as to normalize the primitive and wild lifestyle of survival of the fittest?
5.The press release of the Assembly of Jesus Army Guard has stressed the concern of religious freedom for Christians, but it is difficult to show when or how this principle is violated. In fact,the real display of injustice and violation of religious freedom manifests in the establishment of chiefdom on a land of Muslims, in which dozens of mosques have been vandalized.
6.It is interesting that Muslims in Tafawa Balewa and Bauchi in general do not object to the creation of Sayawa chiefdom and siting it in an appropriate location,and they in principle do recognize the Sayawa as legitimate citizens of Bauchi State.
This is even against a blow that the creation of the chiefdom serves, since a bloodthirsty tribe is going to be rewarded with a big and handsome gift of a kingdom, instead of healing the wound brought about by the tribe’s savagery.
The justice expected of authority is to do whatever it takes to redress the situation by first, fishing out and punishing all those involved in the displacement of the rightful residents of Tafawa Balewa regardless of the years they have lived in exile, and no matter to what extent
the world seems to forget. Secondly, the return of Tafawa Balewans to their homes should be facilitated and they should be compensated for their losses.
7.The Centre for Promotion of Shari’ah reiterates that it, in equivocal terms,rejects and condemns the plan to site the so-called Sayawa Chiefdom in Tafawa Balewa,calling on His Excellency the Bauchi State Governor, Alhaji Bala Abdulkadir, to do justice to both sides and to avoid leaving a bad legacy that will irredeemably tarnish his image and bequeath a negative record which will never be forgiven in history. We believe the Governor will not like a situation where the generation yet unborn will come and be cursing him for this his single ill-advised action
8. We,in the Centre for Promotion of Shari’ah would continue to stand for and promote peace, justice and fairness- principles upon which Daular Usmaniyyah was founded- and which, coincidentally, the Governor is its Kaura. In line with these fundamental principles, we call upon His Excellency to review his stance.
9. We also call the attention of the Nigerian securityagencies to the internationalisation of the Tafawa Balewa issue by the Assembly of Jesus Army Guard, and its open threat to national peace and security, as explicitly alluded to in their press release.
Aliyu Ibrahim Altukri
Chairman
22 Jumada II 1445 AH (December 23, 2024)
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