Dear Dr Wahab Ademola Azeez,
Kindly permit me to state some obvious facts. It is not by happenstance that the word Qur'an contains five alphabets just as the word Bible; and just as the word Mosque contains six alphabets so is the word Church; Qur'an is the holly book of the Muslims just as Bible is the holly book of the Christians. Both Christianity and Islam originated in the Middle East and, mostly, they share the same prophets. The Christian Moses is the same person in Islam called Musa; the Christian Jesus is the same person in Islam called Isa; the Christian Joseph is the same person in Islam called Yusef; the Christian Mary is the same person in Islam called Miriam; the Christian Abraham is the same person in Islam called Ibrahim; and the Christian Isaac is the same person in Islam called Ishaq, etc. Originally, the Bible was written in Hebrew while the Qur'an was written in Arabic. Both Bible and Qur'an consent to slavery. Historically, the enslavement of Black people in Africa by the Arabs commenced long before Europeans adopted Christianity who premised their enslavement of Black Africans on the dictation of the Bible. Not only were Black Africans captured and carted away by Europeans to work as plantation slaves in America, but the continent Africa was sliced into bits by Europeans as their colonies and thereby converted Africans and their territorial resources to the properties of Europeans. My dear Dr Azeez, I am grateful to my parents who not only sent me to the Christian school where I was compelled to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation but also sent me to the school of Qur'an in the evenings where I read Qur'an from Surah Al-Fatiha to Surah Al-Naas. Now, I am a free thinker who believes that the creator of Blackman never intended us to be slaves to anybody. Moreover, if God had any message to the Black race, the just God would have sent it to us in any of the languages with which he created us and not in Hebrew or Arabic. I don't object to the freedom of anyone to adopt Christianity or Islam as a religion, what I object to is the use of religion as hammer to crack each other's head.
I have written the above, because I am impressed by the last paragraph of your post where you claimed to have fought discriminatory tendencies to a standstill and eventually won. You wrote, "One was able to do that because one believes in justice, fairness, merit and competence irrespective of faith the other belongs to. We need more ideological orientation, education and clarity to be able to understand better, the issues at play." I am not sure if I understand you correctly that, as a Yoruba man, you have experienced discrimination from fellow Yoruba because of your belief in Islamic faith. Granting that it was true that you had experienced such discriminations, I doubt if your discriminators had meant that you were an inferior Yoruba person because of your faith as Farooq would like his readers to believe. Religion is something of the mind which cannot be imposed on any person. Since religion is not a science but a belief, one does not need empirical evidence to believe in it. No religion, based on belief, is superior to others and no religion is inferior to others.
For all that we know, the secularity of Nigeria is guaranteed in Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution where it is stipulated that neither the Federal nor State Governments shall adopt a religion. Thus, every Nigerian is free to practise whatever religion one wants and as Farooq himself partially noted, marriage between Muslims and Christians, in which each party within a marriage is free to practise his or her religion unhindered, is very common in Yoruba land. On national stage, Section 10 of the Nigerian Constitution has been breached many folds through warped Islamic and Christian type of religions we practise in Nigeria. In every ten metres of any Nigerian street, one will find a church and a mosque but the behaviour of Nigerians in general is diametrically opposed to Godliness. The Nigerian political leaders, government officials in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, and most of the intellectuals, with no exemption, are all satanic. For those who will accuse me of generalising, they only need to reflect on how the intellectual class always stoke ethno-religious antagonism among Nigerians.
In a country of one people and one destiny, which part of the country the President and public officials come from should be of no importance. What should be important is the competence of the officials and their ability to perform and deliver goodies from their offices to the citizens. Contrary to your belief in justice, fairness, merit and competence, what obtains mostly in Nigeria is ethno-religious affiliations whereby people occupy official positions that are far beyond their merits and competences. In many cases, merits and competences are completely lacking. It is an established fact that those who have been stealing appropriated funds for socio-economic and industrial development of Nigeria are either Christians or Muslims. In the 21st century, Nigerians still believe that pastors and imams can lay hands on the head of house builders and bless them in the name of God/Allah, Jesus/Mohammed, to enable them build a 21-story skyscraper with mixture of ashes and sand. Although the collapse of Ikoyi's skyscraper is tragic, the most tragic is the metaphysical belief, as it is being indirectly proffered, that the collapse of the edifice had to do with the discrimination against the employment of Muslims by the Christian Managing Director of the building company.
Oyindamola Zainab Sanni is a 26-year-old graduate who was initially posted to Maiduguri, Borno State, to do her National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). The fear of Boko Haram forced her to seek redeployment to Lagos, where she was posted to Fourscore Homes Limited, the builder of the Ikoyi 21-story building where she died on November 1, 2021. The Nigerian Sunday Punch of 14 November 2021, disclosed among others that a 17-year-old Toheeb Yusuf, a labourer, died under the rubbles of the collapsed Ikoyi building. Toheeb Yusuf as well as Oyindamola Zainab Sanni are Yoruba Muslims. The Punch disclosed further that four employed Hausa men were working at the site when the building collapsed. Their names were given as Nafiu Dafiru, Atiku Bala, Mikailu Hassan and Aminu Yale. While injured Nafiu Dafiru and Atiku Bala were rescued, the bodies of Mikailu Hassan and Aminu Yale, 20 and 23-year-old respectively, are yet to be recovered. Thus, the employee at the building site contained not only Yoruba Muslims but even Hausa Muslims. That put lie on the insinuation that the Christian pastor, the project manager discriminated against Muslims by refusing to employ anyone of Islamic faith. His alleged refusal to employ Adebowale Sikiru which has been put forward as a marker for how the Yoruba in general treat their fellow Yoruba Muslims as inferior human beings because of their Islamic faith, is totally false. As I have said elsewhere, the collapse of the 21-story Ikoyi skyscraper should not under any circumstance give rise to ethno-religious discussions but rather the competence of its building engineers as well as the quality of materials used.
S. Kadiri
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ademola Azeez <ademolaazeez2016@gmail.com>
Sent: 09 November 2021 03:59
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [External] USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ikoyi Tragedy and Casual Bigotry Against Yoruba Muslims
Sent: 09 November 2021 03:59
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [External] USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ikoyi Tragedy and Casual Bigotry Against Yoruba Muslims
It's very interesting reading Segun Ogungbemi's response on the points raised by Farooq. Every believer of a particular faith would always promote or protect the interest of his faith. It is true that most public institutions and private businesses are headed by Christian adherents in the Yoruba land of South West and you should expect what Farooq exposed in his write up. What Segun Ogungbemi simply did was to corroborate those points raised by Farooq.
The Amotekun example raised here by Segun Ogungbemi would be difficult to be implemented especially for members of a particular faith to discriminate against those who believe in another faith on the simple reason of 'belief in brotherhood". What brotherhood would make you to subject your family or race to extinction? If Amotekun projects are being funded by public funds, what makes the adherents of a particular faith think that they have exclusive rights to isolate the others who are not of their faith. Amotekun project is not for, and can never be for a particular faith. And those who operate on the thinking exposed by Farooq should change that dangerous mindset because it would consume them ultimately.
On the question Ogungbemi wants us to ask Farooq that "how many Muslims who hold loyalty to their brotherhood are employed by the CIA, FBI etc in the United States where he lives? The leaderships of both CIA and FBI would consider merit, competence and nationalism first in doing their recruitments because it is America first and not any other primordial sentiments that include religious faith. It is here in Nigeria that we hide under religious faith to perpetuate all kinds of atrocities at the expenses of the citizens and when we are caught, we simply resort to faith. What a deceit and disaster!
I believe that no reasonable and responsible person will want to subject his family or race to extermination on the sentiments of religious faith and compromise security of his people.
As a person, I will like to know what Muslims have done to the Christian institutions in Ilorin so as to subject it to critical and objective analysis before I can agree with Ogungbemi that "It is an eye opener and warning to the Yoruba anywhere in the country.
In conclusion, I will agree with Farooq on most of the issues he raised because I have personally experienced some of them even though I fought those discriminatory tendencies to a standstill and eventually won. One was able to do that because one believes in justice, fairness, merit and competence irrespective of what faith the other belongs to. We need more ideological orientation, education and clarity to be able to understand better, the issues at play.
Wahab Ademola Azeez, PhD
Provost, Federal College of Education (Technical), Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria
On Mon, 8 Nov 2021, 7:59 am , <seguno2013@gmail.com> wrote:
I think Farooq got it wrong. He cannot use a few examples of people who claimed to be discriminated against in places of employment because of their faith as a general representation of what happen in Yorubaland.I think Farooq should have inquired thoroughly, if indeed, Mr. Femi Osibona never hired any Muslims at all in the entire business enterprise as a developer. Does Farooq know, for instance, if Ahmed Kenleku, Shola Bade Nurudeen and Waliu Lateef listed as survivors of the Ikoyi collapsed building by the Lagos State Government are not his employees?Secondly, the Amotekun security outfit in the Southwest cannot, in all honesty, employ those whose beliefs of brotherhood will undermine the strategic methods of security protection for their States.Ask Farooq, how many Muslims who hold loyalty to their brotherhood are employed by the CIA, FBI etc in the United States where he lives?I believe no reasonable and responsible leader will saddle people whose faith and loyalty will betray security of his people.Is Farooq aware what Muslims have done to the Christian institutions in Ilorin? It is an eye opener and warning to the Yoruba anywhere in the country.Segun Ogungbemi.
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 7, 2021, at 3:19 AM, Assensoh, Akwasi B. <aassenso@indiana.edu> wrote:
Dear Brother Farooq:
Thank you very much for the inspiring Dr. Ibrahim Waziri story; please, note that some of us from
other African countries used your 2009 educational (OND/HND) column to counsel relatives and
others. Thanks to Brother 'Tony Akinola, of blessed memory, we came across your column, which
we shared widely. Today -- several of them with OND/HND diplomas -- have travelled to Canada
and USA, respectively, to earn their terminal academic and professional degrees.
While lauding Bauchi-born Dr. Waziri, I also applaud your poignant columns and blog. Above all,
many of us urge you to keep up the great selfless work, just as Guiding Angels always do for others!
Sincerely,
A.B. Assensoh.
----------
Rev. A.B. Assensoh, LL.M., PH.D.,
Co-Book Review Editor, African & Asian Studies Journal,
Professor Emeritus (Indiana University),
Courtesy Professor Emeritus (University of Oregon),
Department of History,
McKenzie Hall (2nd Floor), University of Oregon,
Eugene, OR 97403, U.S.A.
Telephone: (541) 953-7710
Fax: (541) 346-6576
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, November 5, 2021 9:27 PM
To: USAAfrica Dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [External] USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ikoyi Tragedy and Casual Bigotry Against Yoruba MuslimsThis message was sent from a non-IU address. Please exercise caution when clicking links or opening attachments from external sources.
Today's Saturday Tribune/Peoples Gazette column uses the story of one Adebowale Sikiru whom Foursquare MD Femi Osibona (who sadly died in the collapsed building he managed) denied a job only because of his Muslim faith to call attention to the time-honored casual bigotry and inferiorization of Yoruba Muslims by their own people in their own land. I'm ready and loaded for bear for the predictable attacks from people who'd rather sweep this uncomfortable truth under the drug and attack the messenger.
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogiNigeria's Digital Diaspora: Citizen Media, Democracy, and Participation
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
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