Sack of Apo Legislative Mosque Chief Imam Irks Online Newspaper, Calls for his Restoration

In a damning editorial, an online news portal says the suspension and subsequent sack of the Chief Imam of Apo Legislative Quarters Mosque, Abuja, Sheikh Nuru Khalid, on April 2 over his sermon of the previous day, will go down in history as another extremely sad narrative of the President Muhammadu Buhari years.

A statement sent to BBC Hausa Service, by Chairman of the Mosque Committee, Senator Saidu Muhammed Dansadau,  on the suspension said the sermon was “inciting public outrage”, and negated the tenets of Islam.

The imam and founder of Islamic Research and Da’awah Foundation criticised the Buhari administration for its many failures and specifically for its inability to provide security for Nigerians. He said Nigeria was facing a lot of challenges that needed to be tackled.

In his words: “Everything is not working well. People are dying. Our roads are not secured. Most of the parts of the country are not secured and the government is always telling us what we don’t understand – that they are doing their best.

“You say that you are doing your best but we as citizens are saying that we deserve more than that your best because we want a secured Nigeria. And you are telling us that all your concern now is about 2023 elections. What I advise the citizens to do is to send a message saying, yes, we are going to vote in 2023, but under condition that there must be security in Nigeria, failure of that we are not going to do anything.

“If that is the only language you understand, we gonna speak it because our lives are important and our dignity as well as our wealth. Therefore, you must do something to spare our lives and to make our security workable”, Khalid had said, adding that Nigerians could not afford to continue like that with bandits killing them, bombing the trains and kidnapping them as if there was no government in the country.

For The Southern Examiner, he spoke from his duty post – the pulpit. It was part of his sermon for the day. He was speaking the minds of Nigerians and pouring out the level of their frustration and the disappointment of the global community over the failure of Nigeria’s national government to discharge her constitutional responsibilities, especially in the area of security of life and property.

There is a separate video showing the imam, this time around, in his office, and saying that what he said in the sermon was not under duress, and that he was ready to bear whatever was going to be the consequence because he was speaking for all Nigerians, thus making himself the sacrificial lamb.

He said it was painful that people were using the cell phone to call relations of kidnap victims to inform that the victim was with them and that the relation must come with a ransom.

‘’But this is the painful state of the nation. Every Nigerian, except perhaps, pretenders and sycophants like the senator chairman of the mosque committee, is in support of the imam.

‘’The truth must be told. Nothing appears to be working again in the country: traveling by air is for the politicians and the very rich and going by road is no longer safe. The cause of fear for road travel has shifted from accident and armed robbery to fear of kidnappers.

‘’Kaduna-Abuja road has become a notorious kidnap zone. The train has become the new target. Herdsmen are killing people in their homes. Bandits, so called, are abducting school children in large numbers. Police formations are being attacked and policemen killed. In the south of the country, deadly cult practices are holding sway. The universities have been shut down for months. There is increasing unemployment and hardship in the land. These days have become the golden era for corrupt politicians’’, the online newspaper says.

Continuing, it says, ‘’the truth, they say, is bitter. What Sheikh Khalid said about the state of the nation is being said everywhere in the country and around the world in all segments of the society including the churches and the mosques. In the south of the country, pastors are saying it on a daily basis.

‘’There is hardly any gathering that top men of God like Pastor Enoch Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God and Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners’ Chapel do not criticise governments in the country and around the world. It is supposed to be like that. From time immemorial, clergies have been advising, criticising and correcting political leaders.

‘’The wise political leaders will heed the advice and correct the wrongs and become popular with their population. But the unwise will always antagonise the clergy: arrest, torment, imprison or even kill him or her. There is freedom of speech and freedom of worship in Nigeria. The imam Khalid was not only discharging his duties as a priest. He was also speaking the mind of the entire Nigerians.

‘’We insist that Khalid be recalled to his duty post. He must not be arrested or even killed by government agents or religious extremists.

Nigerians will hold the government and the mosque committee responsible if any bad thing happens to the Islamic priest and his family. Nigerians and The Southern Examiner celebrate his boldness and desire for a better deal for the people. Federal Government must act on the counsel of Imam Khalid and those of others and without further delay take necessary steps to make the country work once again.’’

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