"What is the prospect for peace in the North-East, considering the Boko Haram crisis that has ravaged the region? It is just a pity that we’ve found ourselves in this mess. One factor in this issue is the damage done by those so-called preachers on both sides – Christian and Muslim. The so-called Muslims appear to be preaching Islam as a violent religion, and those on the Christian side give the impression that Christianity is violent. This is not so. This thing didn’t start just in one day.
Some people may have invested heavily in dividing the North. We must come to terms with the reality that there’s nothing like religious war or conflict in the North, but certain persons who have invested so much to create that environment, to breed those animals that kill in the name of God. The Quran talks about peace, and Christianity teaches love. Christians and Jews are called people of the book in Islam.
We must go back and search our souls. Nobody should talk about jihad when he doesn’t know the meaning of jihad. There is the big and the small jihad. The big one is that of oneself – cleansing one’s mind so that people would admire you. For those who want to convert to Islam, they will do so because of your character.
It has been succeeding in the past before September 11, 2001. Now, we hear of Islamic Terrorism. There’s no terror in Islam. Islam is peace! Terrorists are terrorists; they’re criminals and should be treated as such.
For the Christians, the Bible came 640 years before Islam. I’ve read it from Genesis to Revelation. There’s no where it says one should kill in the name of religion. So where did we get that idea of fighting and killing one another in the North? I always ask, don’t we have Christians and Muslims in the Western part of the country? Islam came to Kanem Bornu before it spread to all parts of the North and Christianity came through the Western seacoast. Have you heard of religious crisis in the West? No. That shows that the crisis is not about religion, so let’s look for the cause of the violence.
The small jihad is, when as a Muslim, somebody who is not a Muslim comes with a weapon and says you should stop practising Islam or else I slice off your head. That is when you should take weapon to defend yourself and your religion. You’re not supposed to go to his house. He’s the one who has to come to you. That’s when a jihad is legitimate.
But even then you must not kill his children, women or burn his place of worship. Today in the North people are killing one another in the name of religion. We must go after these people, get a rallying point, and make sure these things are curtailed, otherwise it will degenerate. We may end up having a catastrophic situation in the North. These people have been turned into monsters because they look at things from one prism.
Unless the people come and say, if I have a child who is a criminal I will surrender him to the police to deal with him, this violence will not be curtailed. Those who have tasted human blood in the North must be isolated and dealt with, else they will continue to kill people.
The other aspect is the issue of transparency and corruption within the North. Governors must know that every kobo of government money that we spend that is not in line with appropriation process, we’ll account for them before God.
If I used that money to marry more wives or engage in pleasure, I will account for it. The people must have a stake and should benefit from the resources of the states. The leadership of the North must know they stand accountable before God for every kobo they spent in any way that is not in line with the law.
The next thing I will talk about is empowerment. Jobs must be created. If you build school, market, hospitals and nice infrastructure, and forgetting that somebody is sleeping with his children without food, there’s a problem. In the North money must circulate to the poorest of the poor. People must have purchasing power.
At least 70% to 80% people in the North are starving. It is simply because people don’t have purchasing power; money is not circulating. We have to ask ourselves how we should manage our balance sheet so that money will reach the poorest of the poor. If you go to a community of 1,000 persons and ask them to produce N100,000 so that you support it with an additional N100,000 you will be shocked to find that not more than N20,000 will be produced by the people. The poverty in the North is as serious as that."-he continued
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