New Year to Islamic Banking in Nigeria and a Bright future too...
Those are very encouraging words from Okey Iheduru : "Islamic banking
could not have come at a better time than now, given the lingering
global financial meltdown caused by a usurious conventional banking
system."
Those words of encouragement are immediately modified by some
cautionary words of serious concern that the possible "politicisation"
of Islamic Banking & Finance "could imperil an otherwise unassailable
experiment to align Nigeria with over 75 countries where Islamic
financial institutions have assets exceeding US$950 billion.
'Political Islam' is a controversial term that takes different
forms.":
Since we are contending with human nature, the truth of the matter
is that the enemies of Islam and of Muslims will run the extra mile
trying to politicize Islamic Banking.
Therefore, from the beginning the Islamic Banking system in Nigeria
has to be on its guard to protect its reputation for honesty and
fairness – and not to be seen as a facilitator of corruption. Should
that reputation ever be sullied by any crisis of confidence or any of
the major scandals which seem to be so endemic (thinking of the Umaru
Dikko Scandal of 1983-84) it would be difficult to re-brand Halal
Banking across the Federation or win back the innocent customers and
would-be customers confidence, especially since the rumours that can
spread like a bush-fire in the harmattan wind have now been given new
wings called the cell-phone, increasing the power of the social
networks, thereby....
It demands a responsible media that is less prone to the usual media
antics and more reluctant to sensationalize and unnecessarily
politicize finance or personal wealth They always have their own
agenda. The kinds of sensational reports that we all love to read. The
media - the partisan press in particular is ever vigilant and on high
alert especially for financial crime, is ready and is quite capable of
politicizing Islamic Banking, and so are the politicians of every
shade and stripe who will love to make political capital out of it
whenever it should be to their advantage to do so or at least draw
attention to it as a political and not only an economic factor – to
further polarise the country along the already well-established lines
of North -South, Muslim – non-Muslim. And in a country marked by all
the signs of "conspicuous consumption" the impact of Islamic finance
will be clearly visible for all to see some of the show-off life-
styles which the rumour mills easily attribute to the ill-gotten
gains of Nigeria's nouveau riche. Not necessarily ill-gotten.
In Sweden, the banks always want to know where money is coming from
- even paltry sums above a minimum monthly wage, since money
laundering is high on the list of financial crime being tracked and
tackled by the Police......
As Chidi Anthony Opara says "It takes more to protect wealth than it
took to create it."
And in Nigeria,we wish more power to the EFCC watchdogs......
It's possible that Chidi Anthony Opara had the implementation of
Sharia law to guard Sharia Banking when he penned this : " The pen may
be mightier than the sword, but the sword handles issues faster."
On Aug 2, 4:26 pm, olakassi...@aol.com wrote:
> June 30, 2011 Sanusi's_Islamic_Banking_as_Political_Islam[1].JPG
> 2589KViewDownload
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