Fearless
Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has declared President Goodluck
Jonathan “evil” and a failure, and called on him to repent and resign in
order to recreate peace in Nigeria. He also said that many top former
military Heads of State, Generals Yakubu Gowon, Muhammadu Buhari and
Ibrahim Babangida be banned from participating in active Nigerian
politics.
“It is our faith. I mean Islamic faith that looks at every creature
of Allah critically to pass a judgment on whether it is Godly or Evil.
This is how things are categorized. The angels spearheaded by Gabriel
are the Godly spirits while the Evil spirits are spearheaded by
Satan. But when it comes to humans, Godliness can be marred in Evil and
Evil can be marred in Godliness, therefore what we have is a spectrum of
which the extremes are clear cut and demarcated either white or black
while the center is grey.”
He said that the Good can hide or find itself in the middle of Evil and vice versa, drawing attention to verses from the Bible
that read: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s
clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves,” and “For I know this,
that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not
sparing the flock.”
Similarly,
he said, the Muslim traditions also warn, “In end of times there will
be false prophets telling you of things never heard by you or your
parents, beware of them lest they misguide you and try you,” and also,
“Beware of innovations…The most evil of things are innovations for every
innovation is misguidance.”
In that regard, Sheikh Gumi stressed that religious innovators and innovations that change the content or the aim of the divine message is the Evil that sneaked into all the Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam,
and that this fact prompted Islamic scholars from the beginning to have
a profile of every individual that relates to scholarship or preaching
and leadership.
“These
voluminous masses of unique profile documentations are still preserved
and updated to date. Any Muslim can be categorized with these tags as:
trustworthy, reliable, dependable, honest, unknown, liar, fabricator,
dubious, deceptive, confused, not worth a cent, etc. This ability of
Muslims to recognize that evil can creep into them, made the
intra-Islamic conflict necessary so that the truth can never be hidden
or marred in evil. It became necessary that each human being should be
stripped off of everything superficial, attached, gained or ascribed to
him and be seen as a homo-sapien first and foremost before passing a
judgment on him. That is why it is absolutely necessary to know the man
first before you judge whether he is godly or evil.”
Turning
to Jonathan using that prism, Sheik Gumi noted that through his faith,
if he looked at Jonathan the man, not the president, he would not do the
man any justice since he does not know him and I have never met him.
“I
can only deduce from what I hear about him, he said: “You shall know
them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of
thistles?”
He
said what stirred his interest in examining who Jonathan is relates to
the allegation by Henry Okah, Jonathan’s “kinsman”, who was yesterday
convicted in a South African court of involvement in terrorism.
He drew attention to a report on the BBC website (www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21119470),
dated October 5, 2010, and another on the Aljazeera English channel of a
live interview with Mr. Okah “Ex-MEND leader”, who implicated Jonathan
through a presidential aide who wanted Okah to tell the armed group MEND
to withdraw a claim for deadly blasts in Abuja.
Sheik Gumi quoted Okah’s words, “On Saturday morning, just a day after
the attack, a very close associate of President Jonathan called me and
explained to me that there had been a bombing in Nigeria and that
President Jonathan wanted me to reach out to the group, MEND, and get
them to retract the earlier statement they had issued claiming the attacks. They wanted to blame the attacks
on northerners who are trying to fight against him [Jonathan] to come
back as president and if this was done, I was not going to have any
problems with the South African government…I declined to do this and a few hours later I was arrested. It was based on their belief that I was going to do that that Jonathan issued a statement saying that Mend did not carry out the attack.”(www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2010/10/2010105115843516850.html).
Gumi described these as the “shocking
words” of Okah, noting that earlier, Jonathan said investigations had
revealed MEND knew nothing about the attacks, and that the bombings had
been carried out by a small group based outside Nigeria, sponsored by
“unpatriotic elements within the country.”
“This was while innocent people were
arrested by the SSS to augment his presidential political ambition. The
conviction of Okah to me is the conviction of MEND as the first
terrorist bomb attack the nation witnessed, which Jonathan hastily using
the SSS to exonerate and implicate innocent people. Was he misled into
that?”
He described the scenario as exactly
the dilemma Jesus Christ went through – the persecution of an innocent
man of God in the hands of people that claim piety and speak on behalf
of God.
“This is an anti-Christ activity. It is
shameful. This incidence has made me not see Jonathan on the right of
the spectrum. He can still be good but he is definitely marred in Evil.
Evil that either directly kills innocent people or Evil that masks
killers or Evil that takes advantage from the murdêr of the innocents
for political gains. If Jonathan should be a true man of God, let him
repent and step down. That will shed the evil that permeated his regime
and committed so much sin against humanity. An amnesty International
report has affirmed to that.”
Sheik Gumi said that the move would
“stale any pretext of Boko Haram, the Evil that permeated Islam – that
ravening grievous wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
Describing Boko Haram as either
genuinely a northern political ploy as claimed or a smear from the
clandestine Security agents for Jonathan’s political advantage or
strategic metamorphosis of MEND and their agenda, he said Jonathan’s
resignation will save lives and the nation.
“His resignation will promote peaceful
coexistence between Muslims and Christians. It will bring back glory to
the nation Nigeria. He will then probably be a “Christ” of Nigeria or
the last Evil that wrecked the nation. But as he resigns, the national
assembly should promulgate a law – looking at the political situation of
the nation – for early elections and banning all the former heavyweight
politicians from all parties from politics and vying for political
positions. He named such people as Gen. Gowon, Gen. Obasanjo, Gen.
Buhari, Gen. Babangida, Gen Abdulsalam, and Alh. Abubakar Atiku.
“They should be statesmen. Let Nigeria
breed a new crop of leaders and politicians. The healthy state of the
nation should supersede the personal ambitions of individuals
or groups. We all have to give and take. That is if we reflect! May
Allah shower us with His Blessings and bring peace to our Nation.
Ameen.”
Source: Sahara Reporters
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