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Friday, August 17, 2012

MUJAHID ASARI DOKUBO, MY NEIGHBOUR



                                         Mujahid Asari Dokubo


Peace to all who follow guidance, (Ta Ha 20:47)

Mujahid conjures up the image of a warrior against the repudiators of faith, who desire to blight the Light of Islam. The recent tirades on the issue of insecurity in Nigeria put me in doubt as to what meaning I may attach to the Mujahid in your name. Will I be wrong to reverse the definition of Mujahid in your case to be a warrior against Muslims?

Your residence at Wuse 2, Abuja, as you know, was the next to mine. One of your wives, a Muslim from the North, is a friend of my wife’s; her namesake, actually; that is neighbourhood in every meaning of the word. This correspondence, therefore, is not a rejoinder to anything you said, for you do not merit one, given the level of your knowledge and intellect. This is just a counsel from one neighbour to another. Believers always benefit from counsels.

What will be the fate of your wife, her friends, her kindred, your in-laws and neighbours when the ‘tanks will roll out’ heading towards Maiduguri and Yobe and you start to “shoot and shoot till they say what kind of a man is this?” So the killing will be indiscriminate, mowing down the guilty and the innocent? What a Mujahid! But this position is at variance with that taken by your President who said recently that “members of the dreaded Boko Haram sect are our siblings and you cannot set the army to wipe out your family”. By no means! It is but a word he says (Mu’minun, 23:100); I have no kinship with Boko Haram whatsoever.

The Qur’an exhorts us not to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty (Israa 17:15), and you know that as a Muslim. If Boko Haram, though siblings of your benefactor gave condition that Jonathan should be a Muslim before they accept him as President or he resigns; a condition that you flawed as being against the ways of the Prophet, peace be upon him, why will the innocent be punished?-Especially as that would also be against the teachings of the same Prophet (PBUH). And if as a Muslim you concede that Boko Haram is going against the teachings of the Prophet (SAW) in the issue of coercive conversion to Islam (Al Baqarah, 2:256) and other matters, why do you assume that Boko Haram is the creation of Northern leaders, who are mainly Muslims? You even said: “The prophet (SAW) did not attack innocent people in the church or synagogue, or idol worshippers.” Who is that Muslim, then, who will knowingly support a sect with doctrines contrary to those of the Prophet (SAW)? But you said: “To me Boko Haram is the dumbest product the North has produced and it is not in their interest as it will destroy the North.” You are absolutely right in one sense; it IS destroying the North. What I cannot fathom is the rest of the charge; why would anyone cut his leg merely to spite his shoe? Why would the Northern leaders bring their towns and cities to utter destruction and infamy just to spite President Jonathan? Surely the fact the he was dishonourable to renege on an agreement is not worth even a tenth of the carnage and destruction - any idiot can understand that! Forgive my German.

My grandparents’ generation had a word to describe reverts into Islam: tubabbe. To them tubabbe will hardly understand Islam and its teachings very well; tubabbe lives a quasi-Muslim life while carrying part of the baggage of his pre-Islamic ways. Therefore, my grandparents’ generation was not surprised by any uncalled-for modes of behaviour from tubabbe because it expected that from him. I reject this notion of that past generation. I believe that whoever professes Islam is indeed a Muslim. Reverts around the world are doing wonderful work in the field of da’wah, writing books, propagating Islam using their substance and person, in ways more effective than what I and people like me are doing. I was counting you among this honoured class of reverts, but your disposition since your freedom from detention is urging me to look more closely at the definition of tubabbe as held by my grandparents’ generation. Now that’s a pity!

Rather than insult and accuse Northern leaders like IBB and accuse them of creating Boko Haram; albeit without any proof, you should rather thank them for starting by cancelling the June 12 elections up until when they brought Nigeria under the grip of shoeless leaders and their foolish kinsmen! But for annulling June 12 we would not have seen the eight nightmarish years of Obasanjo or the wonderfully rigged elections of late ‘Yar Adua, and, the worst or best-depends on who is talking, of course Nigeria would not have ended up with an inexperienced, ill-equipped, incompetent and ill-informed President. So, you see, your tribesmen should rather be grateful to Northern leaders who worked hard to bring us this far, including the Northern governors who betrayed their people and supported your kinsman to the throne; the evil that these governors did is now living with them.

It is even too late to regret. Thanks, you must give, also to Jega’s INEC for everything! But praise be to Allah, we are all in it together, breathing the Fresh Air and enjoying the Transformation together. Change is the only constant thing in life; I never thought that in my lifetime people would steal trillions of naira. The wildest my imagination could muster was billion naira thieves. There has been a transformation and behold, people now steal in trillions! That’s some fresh air, isn’t it?

I cannot understand why you are upset because Nigerians attribute cluelessness to your tribesman. “This insult is too much.” You said, and further asked: “Did you do it to Abacha? Did you do it to IBB? You see, I see the arrogance as un-Islamic, the arrogance of Shekau and his followers“ The past leaders you deride – IBB, Abacha, Obasanjo, etc. – possessed the leadership traits of charisma, intelligence, coherent utterance and decisiveness in dealing with trouble makers. When Nigerians see a leader with the right qualifications they recognise him; your kinsman is not one. Even Boko Haram, it appears, knows whom to ask what, and during whose tenure. Also, it is only when Aso Rock is occupied by cluelessness that war mongers and secessionists can challenge the peace and still walk the streets as freemen. Whatever the flaws of Obasanjo, it is on record that he never brooked any nonsense- not that I think your principal would understand what that means.

And speaking about ‘un-Islamic’ arrogance in relation to Boko Haram’s pronouncements; so, you quite correctly labelled what ‘Shekau and his followers’ did as such, but you fail to see as un-Islamic the arrogance of pilfering Nigeria’s oil resources, what you euphemised as ‘to benefit from my resources’, questioning the rationale behind criminalising oil larceny if the culprits are from the region that produces the oil. This stupefied reasoning can only come from the ignorant! I want to believe you were misquoted because I do not think you would stoop that low to justify stealing and brigandage; even from your own state.



My people say: ‘A child does not know the fire until he touches it.’ Let this serve as an allegory against your declaration of war. ‘The North will suffer’ according to you, “what will happen is unimaginable in human history”, because of economic blockade and woe betide its people as destitution and famine shall be their lot; no food will reach it from any quarters. Food?! I did not think your obliviousness has reached this proportion. The North has not discovered oil yet, but it does not wait for nourishment from other parts of the country. The blockade, if anything, will make our rural farmers put their donkeys to better use as beasts of burden, rather than load the poor animals on trucks to those of your people who devour them. We don’t eat donkeys you know!

I pray Allah to grant you total control of your resources, your region’s self-determination and your presidency. Nobody is afraid of that. But one thing is clear: Nigeria is what it is in spite of ourselves and our differences; tribal strife and sectional dissention within each zone will hardly permit any region subsist independent of the rest of Nigeria. Let us see how the South-South will fare given the rivalry inherent among the various nationalities. I am sure you know the import of this verse:  “…thou wouldst think they were united, but their hearts are divided: that is because they are a people devoid of wisdom.” (Hashr, 59:14)

Let me educate you on VAT and ‘proceed from alcohol’ which formed basis for your conclusion that “everybody in the north have been eating haram.” This requires a separate article; suffice it to say that let the proceed be from something worse that alcohol, as far as the wage earner is paid with such money for legitimate work that he has done, that money is halal for him. The dictum, if you can fathom what this means, is that haram does not overlap to the remuneration of a legitimate recipient.

But I write as a Northerner thus far; let me write as a Nigerian. There are distinctions we should make when we categorize those who make comments on public discourse. There are those who speak for their pockets, there are those who speak for their people alone and there are those who speak for their conscience. This last category is the scantiest.

I do not want to say you belong to the first group even if your grandstanding and showboating is a characteristic of that group. I want to believe you know that ethnic jingoism is an abomination in Islam and abhorrent to common sense. I earnestly hope you know what it means to clean faeces with urine because that is what a lot of what you have said amounts to.

Consider that the North is the most affected by the tragedy of Shekau and his horde of mad men. Remember that this ideology they proclaim is alien to Islam. Think about the number of real Muslims who curse them daily across the country. Now recall the sceptre of non-Muslims disguised as Muslims who have been apprehended for attempts to bomb and maim lives; how many got away with it? Remember the numerous lies we have been fed so far by our security agents on issues like these. Think deeply about how easy it is for anyone to claim responsibility on behalf of another. Even your president became a lawyer for MEND in 2010- they claimed responsibility for a bombing and His Excellency begged to differ; he had his own set of culprits ready-made before the crime and MEND was getting too meddlesome, I guess. Add these up and see whether a picture forms in your head; an answer or strong guess.

Have you seen the efforts of Muslims and Christians trying to make order out this chaos? Have you seen the hands of government-manufactured poverty in all these? Only those who have no hope of a better future will take a measly amount of money and strap bombs on their person to blow up as many innocent people as possible. Have you not seen the incompetence of our leaders in general at the crux of this matter? If a president knows what he is doing, how do aliens flock in through the country’s borders? How do weapons find their way into a country with borders and men in charge of those borders? What happened to the so-called street cameras they installed at mind-boggling cost to us? Do they work? In what way have they helped us fish out the perpetrators? Who is stealing the money meant to properly equip the police? What was the amount they requested to do their job since Jonathan became president and how much has been released of that amount?

Brother Mujahid, I could ask these questions ad nauseum, ad infinitum and the president won’t even give a damn! After all, he has people like you to tell him what a wonder he is and how much he has brought salvation to this nation. You can even persuade him to rename Nigeria after his wife. We will show patience and hope for good luck come 2015, insha Allah.




2 comments:

  1. I read this to a group of my friends and they said: the real Abubakar Sadiq is back after a long break

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  2. Malam Jibril, tell your friends Abubakar Sadiq has always been around telling it as it is. When Malams give sermon they favour no body. They just tell it as it is. Most of the time they say Allah says, Rasul says and wether it is their children, friends or neighbours as in this case it does not matter at all.

    Alhaji Mujahideen Asari is my friend fi Sabilil Lah and is a big relief for me that all I need do is read from my Mallam. I don't have to respond to his arrogant display of foolishness and desperation. His real standing on the countries leadership which he knows I know is far from what he wants people to believe. It is so unfortunate.

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