1. MR President, Good morning. I hope you heeded my note of caution in your engagement with Turkiye during your official visit. Of course, future historians will not record the fact that no one advised the president on the complex issues surrounding Turkiye and Nigeria’s national interests. However, my subject today is the de-secularisation of the Nigerian state project by the Islamists in Nigeria, which must be decisively tackled as it poses a grave danger to the continuity of the country.

The alarm bell has been set off since the inception of the prevailing republic, when some governors in the northern part of the country decided to impose a sharia dispensation in their states in defiance of the country’s basic law. The secularity of the Nigerian stateNigerian state is clearly enshrined in Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, which states that “The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion”. This was the same wording in the 1963 Republican Constitution.

Having just emerged from a brutal dictatorship, and Islamists in the north entered the sharia gambit, Obasanjo, instead of acting decisively in defence of the constitution, was a bit cautious and labeled the exercise a political sharia. They started cutting hands and limbs, in a hypocritical order, presided over by men who drink cognac in London, far away from the prying eyes of the subjected citizens of their respective states. This was at a time when Qatari women were flying F15 aircrafts.
I recall through personal communication that Justice Uwais of blessed memory, a devout Moslem, was shocked that

President ObasanjoPresident Obasanjo did not bring the matter to the Supreme Court for adjudication. It was appeasement per excellence, having ceded an inch, the Islamists have gone ahead to take miles to impose a Sharia dispensation on a multinational country. Even the northern enclave of the country, where the Islamists, a fraction of the population, seek to negate the grundnorm is not a homogeneous entity. And the belief that the Moslems outnumbered people of other faiths is presumptuous and fallacious.

With absolute disdain for the secularity of the state, it was reported recently that Yobe State Hisbah has banned males and females from sitting together in public transport. This ban order dated 6th January was signed by the Hisbah Yobe Commission’s coordinator, Muhammad Yahudi, acting on behalf of Dr Yahuza Hassan Abubakar, the Chairman of the Commission. The directive states inter alia and with justificatory tone that “Intermingling of males and females in public transportation and gatherings.
Isolated discussions between males and females are conducted in a manner that contradicts the teachings of Islam”. Therefore, they are firmly prohibited. The prohibition also includes sitting together at social gatherings across the state. Before our very eyes, a Bama-style scenario, where Boko-Haram modelled everything after the Taliban in Afghanistan, is emerging. The question is what happens to people of other faiths who are residents and citizens of the state.

Another discontent coming from the north is the call for amnesty for the terrorists and their reintegration into the formal security network in the country. To be clear, these are terrorists who have crippled work-a-day lives of the people of the north and have extended their nefarious activities to the southern half of the country. It is becoming clear that some elites in the north are hand in glove with the terrorists and have sought to frame their activities as freedom fighters and establish a parallel between them and the Niger-Delta militants.
According to the Coalition of Northern Elders, “If the Federal Government can pay billions to ex-Niger Delta militants to guard pipelines, why can’t the government give contracts to armed

Fulani herdsmen to guard our forests? They stressed further that “They are already in the bushes; they know the terrain. By engaging them formally, we can finally have peace.”
This met with a rebuttal from several social forces in society. Of importance is the response of the Retired Lt. General Christopher Musa, Defence Minister, who said in unambiguous terms that “We are not paying a dime to any terrorists who killed people at will. We will go after them, make them pay for their killing. Niger Delta militants case is different, they only kidnap for ransom but not to the extent of killing people, children and destroying houses”
Recall that way back in 2021, when some of the diehard Islamist sponsors broached the matter, Pa Edwin Clark of blessed memory had tackled them. According to Clark, the call for amnesty for bandits is not only obnoxious but criminal. He said former Governor of Zamfara State, Ahmad Yerima, and Ahmad Gumi, an Islamic cleric, who called for amnesty for bandits, were merely confusing two contemporary security issues, the fight for resources in the Niger Delta and blatant criminality by bandits in the North. Pa Clark’s points have again been reinstated by the incumbent Minister of Defence, underlining the comparative irrationality of the coalition of northern elders’ stance.

Even before the current blabbing of the so-called northern elders, a memo on plans by Dikko Radda, Katsina State Governor, to grant amnesty to 70 terrorists was in the public sphere. A clear anomaly has been mired in legal niceties. The governor, it is argued, has the power to grant clemency on any offence whatsoever. However, the Terrorism (Prevention & Prohibition) Act, 2022, which is federal law denies the governors power to grant amnesty. All these are happening against the backdrop of escalating activities of the terrorists. On 18 January, 166 citizens were abducted in Kurmin Wali, Kaduna State. There are also surreptitious attempts to arm the Miyetti Allah-affiliated herdsmen.

Mr President, the subtext of all these is preparation for a jihad. Religion should belong to the private realm, the conscience of the individual, not the affairs of the state. This is imperative in a multinational entity. The de-secularisation ploy will not succeed; it would spell the end of Nigeria. Let everyone know that pacifism in some sections of the country is not cowardice; it is the hallmark of humanism.
Professor Akhaine is with the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University.