***Says ‘show infidels their limit’ rhetoric threatens national unity, mocks governance

Former Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, has launched a blistering attack on the reported comments of Sheikh Yahaya Jingir on the Muslim-Muslim ticket, warning that Nigeria risks sliding into a dangerous form of religious majoritarianism if political leadership becomes a contest over which faith has more followers.

Dalung in a statement on his verified facebook wall on Sunday described the argument that continued support for a Muslim-Muslim ticket proves Muslims are numerically superior to Christians as a distortion of democratic politics.

He questioned the wisdom of reducing Nigeria’s complex political and socioeconomic problems to a religious headcount.

According to reports, Jingir urged Muslims to continue supporting the Muslim-Muslim ticket because, in his view, it demonstrates that Muslims are more numerous than Christians in Nigeria. He was also reported to have urged Muslims to “show infidels their limit.”

But Dalung fired back that Nigeria is not a religious trophy to be claimed by whichever faith can establish a numerical advantage.

He said a presidential ticket does not feed hungry families, secure communities from kidnappers, create jobs or repair the country’s collapsing infrastructure.

“A Muslim-Muslim ticket does not put food on a Muslim family’s table,” Dalung argued, adding that it does not rescue a kidnapped Muslim farmer, educate a Muslim child or make fuel, food and medicine affordable.

It also does not fix bad roads, restore reliable electricity or provide functioning hospitals, he said.

For Dalung, the more troubling issue is the language of religious domination.

He questioned who Nigerians are expected to regard as “infidels” and warned against turning fellow citizens into religious enemies.

“Your fellow citizens? Your neighbours? The people whose taxes help fund the government?” he asked.

He also pointed to Christians who have supported Muslim candidates, Muslims who reject religious politics and millions of Nigerians whose principal concern is competent leadership rather than the religious identity of those occupying political office.

Dalung warned that once political arguments become centred on who has the larger religious population, democracy risks being reduced to what he called “religious arithmetic.”

“If the argument has now become ‘we are more numbers, therefore we should dominate,’ then we have moved from democracy into religious arithmetic,” he said.

The former minister insisted that supporters of a Muslim-Muslim ticket should defend it on measurable issues such as competence, security, justice, economic growth and good governance.

He rejected the suggestion that religious identity should determine who deserves political power or who should be made to feel politically subordinate.

Dalung said Nigeria belongs to Muslims, Christians and citizens who subscribe to neither faith, stressing that no Nigerian should be told to “know their limit” because of their religion.

He called instead for a political culture in which leaders compete over their ability to deliver security, jobs, affordable food, quality education, healthcare and justice.

The former minister’s intervention comes as religious identity continues to occupy a contentious place in Nigeria’s political discourse ahead of the 2027 elections.

Dalung warned that politicians and religious leaders should be particularly careful with rhetoric capable of transforming political disagreements into religious confrontation.

He said the real majority that matters in a democracy is not the number of worshippers in mosques or churches, but the number of Nigerians united by a demand for competent and accountable government.

“Not the majority in a mosque. Not the majority in a church,” Dalung said.

“The majority of Nigerians who want a country that works.”