Our attention at the Apostolic Round Table has been drawn to the bigotry of Prof. Ishaq Akintola and his MURIC of mischief. As usual, we see the need to caution Akintola and counsel his imaginary followers on the need to embrace political maturity and be more concerned about the counterfeit of piety that a mismanaged economy has made out of a lady in hijab. The Muhammadu Buhari led economy is sparing nobody, feasting on our decency as a society.
Before we address the empty threat of a LASU Professor who cannot win an election in his faculty if one is conducted there today, let me bring to the notice of all Nigerians, the loss of womanhood that the economy is having on all without respect to religions or tribes!
Professor Ishaq Akintola like most Nigerians must have seen a trending video making mockery of the decency and morality that hijab represents to Muslims women world over.
In the video, a young man who referred to himself as a comedian on a challenge mission approached a lady dressed in hijab. “Excuse me, excuse me”, he said. How we dey? The lady was on phone, as courtesy will demand she excused herself from the person at the other end, promising to call back, displaying an ethos of phone conversation.
She turned to the stranger in need of her attention as he said: ‘Please, I am collecting ladies panties”! She doesn’t need to hear anything else, so her body language suggested. As she attempted to walk away, conscious of the threat to her dignity, the guy mentioned twenty thousand naira as the prize for her acceptance of his ignoble request. She was rattled at the mention of only twenty thousand naira, the amount is too much to walk away from!
What has turned most women into prostitution in order to make ends meet was right at the middle of the road. And right there in broad day light our hijab wearing Nigeria lady did the abominable!
Before she did, she reasoned: “Here in public”? “On the road here”? She asked rethorically; She found herself between the devil and the deep blue sea. Loss of dignify or loss of cash. She chose the loss of her woman dignity because of her consciousness of how difficult it has become to earn twenty thousand naira legitimately in this economy. “It’s because of this twenty thousand naira”, she said, repeatedly; She already saw the need for the twenty thousand,.
The dignity of womanhood was cheaply stripped in broad daylight on the street of a nation with a Muslim President, Muslim Senate President, Muslim Speaker of the House of Representatives and Muslim Head of the Judiciary!
What is the pride of these Muslims leaders in power? They ought to bury their heads in shame for what their misrule has brought to the citizenry.
Nigerians irrespective of religions and tribes, should be sensitive to the happenings in the country and strive to have our human dignity back from those who sold it to poverty.
We do not need to remind the Professor of Islamic Studies and Sharia Exponents that the mess created by his colleagues in Sharia movement is the ghost haunting good governance in Osun state today. Ridden with crisis and submerged in contest of supremacy between extreme Islamists led by Rauf Aregbesola who through the same hijab uniform controversy divided the state and Oyetola; a modest Muslim in tune with evolution of how to run a 21st century society in a ‘live and let live’ principle, who has reverted back to the status quo.
If Akintola is not driven by bigotry, one would have expected him to direct his senseless and inciting statement to Oyetola whose re-election is hanging in the balance as a result of minds like Akintola who sees nothing good in any other than a Muslim!
Professor Akintola in his reaction to Governor Seyi Makinde’s warning on the brewing tension being instigated by religious extremists in Oyo State, described the governor’s comment as an “abracadabra”!
If their is anyone who is doing abracadabra with religion and the peace of our society, it is Ishaq Akintola! He is doing it from LASU to Lagos and now to South West and Nigeria as a whole.
Akintola should come and take a lesson in Nation Building from ART in Lagos. We are reaching out to Muslims to build a place of peace and prosperity, a country we all can be proud of. He can as well go to Oyo State and learn from the Christian Community, who has risen above the premordial rudiments of politics of hatred and bitterness to back Balogun against a seating Governor who was defeated by over 79,000 votes! May the soul of Ajimobi continue to rest in peace. Both candidates were Muslims. There were Christians in the race on other political party platform, but the best was backed. We only hope that Balogun will speak out to caution extremists who are fanning the ember of bigotry in the state!
Kwara state at the moment is bleeding because they have a Governor who can’t win a free and fair election without recourse to religion!
“No hijab no vote”, can only come from a confusionist who wouldn’t mind to set the whole country on fire to satisfy his religious extremism.
Today it is: “No hijab, No vote”. If this warped Professor is not called to order, he may come up with: “No Muslim, No vote” tomorrow.
Dr Bolaji O. Akinyemi, is the Convener of Apostolic Round Table.
