The Imam, too, must crosscheck his facts — by Garba Shehu

It is widely believed in the Muslim world (and even among non-followers of the religion) that the rise of the digital media has exposed Islam in its true form and meaning directly to the world, through Islamic scholars, lectures, personal testimonies and translations of the Qur’an that people can access with few clicks, after centuries of sometimes deliberate misrepresentation of the religion.

The timing and speed of these technological changes have made for easy availability of information about the religion, breaking down the wall of ignorance and replacing wrong assumptions with knowledge.

The fall side of this is that the internet has equally become a tool in the hands of some individuals, abusing the opportunity it offers of the unrestricted to spread false information to captive audiences, eroding further, our civic and institutional sanity.

An otherwise great scholar and a respected Imam (prayer leader/preacher) paraded by the very laudable Sunnah Television gave an unbearable shock to many of his admirers including me, by making catastrophic remarks that seemed to vandalize his own reputation; remarks one would describe as misleading, incorrect and misplaced on the issues of security and public concern without checking his facts.

In an hour long preaching between 1:00 a.m to 2:00 a.m on Saturday 15th March, he made untrue and inaccurate claims, among which were:
Democracy as a system of government is designed to protect crime, illegal acts, or things that are morally wrong and to, on the other hand, antagonize people who are law-abiding. He claimed that the last time anyone was punished for banditry and terrorism in the country was under the military. This is contrary to the facts on the ground, given the thousands of trials and convictions that have been witnessed over the past few years under this democracy. These would include the life sentence of separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu in 2025 and the conviction of ISWAP members and Boko Haram financiers. By 2023, there were 860 convictions in about eight years.

He claimed that under democratic control, terrorists such as the notorious Turji in Zamfara forests who kill, cannot in turn be killed because the authorities fear sanctions by the international community over their concerns for human rights, meaning, supposedly, that only a military rule can tackle the problem.

Records are there to show that the Nigerian military has killed numerous high-ranking terrorist commanders during its long-running operations against Boko Haram and the Islamic State West of Africa Province (ISWAP).
He made the wrong claim that President Jonathan bought fighter jets but was not allowed to use them against terrorists. I think he meant to say under the Buhari administration because the Jonathan administration he referred to was under a sanctions regime, so they were not allowed to buy those aircraft he was referring to. Truth is that President Buhari, not Jonathan, bought the Super Tucanoes from the US following the lifting that embargo. The conditions for the sale included that they must be used against terrorists in the Northeast only, and were not for use anywhere, including their use against the murderous bandits in the Northwest and other parts of the country who were not, initially, branded as terrorists. To get over the hurdle, the then administration, using the law, classified the bandits as terrorists paving, thereby a way for the lawful use of the bombers against the non-state actors……..