As usual I stumbled on this picture among others on the
Nigerian blogosphere yesterday and bypassed it because
I saw it as a publicity stunt for APC and Buhari. Just like
the ones he took during his electioneering campaigns.
Buhari ho campaigned mostly in the southern part of the
country where he amassed chieftaincy titles, posed for
photos with males and females of the Nigerian
electorates and even had hand shakes them with them.
Those pictures of handshakes, though there is nothing
wrong with them, are part of the propaganda and
publicity stunt, everyone knows that. They formed part
of public relations package for Buhari. His handlers tried
using them to polish his image from that held popularly
as ethnic and religious bigot to a self-proclaimed new
convert to democracy and nationalist.
However, all of a sudden, posts about the same picture
started popping up on my news feed, and I was reading
a lot of arguments and counter arguments on whether or
not Buhari should shake hands with Oshiomhole's bride.
I saw the raging arguments on several threads notably
those of us from the Northern part of the country.
Honestly, the arguments were between the Muslim
fundamentalists who thought it was haram for Buhari to
shake hands with a non-related female versus the
liberals ones who saw nothing wrong with it.
Though, I was taken aback, I must state that the
conversations were interesting since it caught my
attention for a while. I tried to read as many opinions of
the commenters on many threads as quick as possible.
Seriously, I learnt more Koran and Islamic opinions from
Muslims than I'd seen since the inception of the
Nigerian blogosphere. Even during the Boko Haram's
insurgency, I didn't see such a degree of Koranic
quotations from the North that Boko Haram was a profit
of Islamic or not. Everyone of them kept mute on that,
but used it instead as a tool against the Jonathan's
government.
Those against the handshake seemed to be those who
voted Buhari because he's a Muslim like them, not
because they think he can change Nigeria or whatever.
Religion was their one central consideration. The same
set of fundamentalists are deeply disappointed because
they thought Buhari would and should project the Islam
of their own interpretations above every other secular
considerations of his office.
These individuals are likely to be the source of trouble
for the Buhari in the days to come for the simple reason
that they want to see Nigeria become islamized. One
danger of electing a leader who is a cult figure with
fanatical following in this time and age is about to
unleash itself upon Nigeria in the form of unhappy
followers.
Buhari is not yet officially in Aso Rock as the president,
he has not even been sworn in some religious die-hards
are bent on playing a religious card on whom he should
and should not shake. It has to take an extraordinary
degree of fanaticism and fundamentalism to see
something wrong with this handshake.
It is no exaggeration to say that from 2003, the greater
majority of Buhari's followers have been the almajiri and
other sectionally indoctrinated followers who were
emboldened by his stance on Sharia, Northern Nigeria
and other narrow, sectional issues. Imagine their
disappointment that their beloved General, in their eyes,
isn't even following Sharia! That disappointment must
have caught them from their skin and deeply into their
bone marrow.
Who's to be blamed for this?
The Northern elite are to blamed for this sort of religious
charge against a president-elect in a modern, secular
and democratic state. Over the decades, out of sheer
reason of selfish aggrandizement, they permitted certain
extremist ideas to take hold in the grassroots and if the
fierce reactions against this mere handshake is anything
to go by, they should be held responsible for its adverse
outcomes.
When Mohammed Yusuf was going around telling people
that Western education is haram, the Western-educated
Northern elite did nothing to quell, quench and quash
such a dangerous idea at its source. Today that idea has
birthed a leviathan for which they turn round to harass
and hold President Jonathan responsible for.
No comments:
Post a Comment