During the second republic, Sheikh Abubakar Gummi, then one of the most respected Islamic scholars in Nigeria, urged Muslims to participate in politics and take part in the electoral process by coming out en masse to elect Muslims as their political leaders. He went as far as saying that participation in the nation’s political process was more important than prayer and hajj. Thus, by that fatwa, if the period of elections coincided with Hajj season, an intending pilgrim should postpone the hajj till the following year. Sheikh Gummi explained his position. If you do not elect good leaders the prayer and hajj could be made impossible for you.
The fatwa of Sheikh Gummi was not received well in many quarters, with each looking at it according to his beliefs and orientation. To many Muslims, Gummi was a heretic for placing secular politics above two pillars of Islam. To the secularists, Gummi was religionising politics and his utterances were capable of creating religious crisis. Sheikh Gummi was undaunted, for even after the military takeover of the mid-1980s he made similar statements. In an interview with a Lagos-based magazine during Babangida regime, Sheikh Gummi openly prayed to Allah to not show him a situation where a non-Muslim would be
Nigeria’s president. Allah answered his prayer, for he died in September 1992, eleven months before Ernest Shonekan became the Nigeria’s interim president.
Gowon and Ironsi were the two non-Muslim presidents under whom Sheikh Gummi worked. We don’t know his experiences with them which were most likely what led to that fatwa and prayer. Be that as it may, I would like to believe that if Gummi had lived a little longer, he would have modified his fatwa. To ask people to vote for “any” Muslim is to tell them to elect a hypocrite, a secularist, a looter, an adulterer, a homosexual, a thief, a 419er, a sadist, etc. just because he says he is a Muslim.
If I were Gummi, I would have asked all Nigerians, regardless of their religious beliefs to vote for good Muslims because I know when they did they would never regret it. To be a good Muslim, one has to know Islam. Islam is a religion of knowledge and practice. A Muslim who does not know Islam and/or constantly update their knowledge of Islam is not a good Muslim. Most of the people who point accusing fingers at Islam do so because of their bitter experience in dealing with ignorant people who profess Islam.
Justice is an integral part of a Muslim’s life, regardless of whether or not the people involved are Muslims. The stories of fairness to all regardless of their faith are many during the time of the Prophet (SAW) and his rightly guided Caliphs. Many non-Muslims embraced Islam after Shariah courts ruled in their favour against Muslim litigants.
A good Muslim does not take what does not belong to them. The looting we see by some Muslims is because such people do not see Islam beyond five daily prayers and going for hajj and Umrah. The first generation of Muslim leaders lived austere lives even with public funds at their disposal.
A good Muslim is practicing. For example, the problem hijabi Muslim women have been going through in the hands of some Muslims stem from the fact that Islamic dress code is not practiced in the homes of their oppressors. What we hear at most times from such people is, “I am also a Muslim”. Muslim women have never had it as bad as when some Muslims are in charge of their affairs.
If electing any Muslim were a panacea for doing justice to Muslims, Muslim women in Kwara and Southwest wouldn’t have gone through the kind of persecution they have been experiencing over the past several years. We may wish to recall that a Muslim lady was once beaten by a soldier at an NYSC orientation camp for observing Islamic dress code even when the NYSC director and the chief of army staff were Muslims. And nothing happened.
A good Muslim values life. When a corpse was found on the street of Madinah during the time of Umar bn Alkhattab, the Caliph thereafter continuously prayed to Allah to show him the killer. Allah answered his prayer and the killer was found. Today, bandits of known identity have been killing innocent people most of them Muslims, but instead of taking action, Muslim governors sit with them and beg them to stop.
In fact, a serving governor was said to have confessed that he was among those who met to create the problem of insecurity in the North so as to make things difficult for the present government. I am sure if Gummi were alive he would have excluded such politicians from the list of Muslims to be elected.
If Sheikh Gummi had critically examined the traits of his close friend, Alhaji Shehu Shagari when he was the president, he would have excluded timid Muslims from the list of those who were supposed to be elected. For example, when the national mosque was to be launched in 1981, Shehu Shagari refused to attend and in fact, did not send a Muslim to represent him. Instead, he sent Joseph Wayas.
That is good, a secularist would say, what is wrong with that? Is he not the president for all? That is okay. But the same president invited the Pope and gave him his head with cap removed to bless. What do you call that? Many Muslim leaders in Nigeria today cannot even mention, “in sha Allah” when they speak for fear of being tagged fundamentalists.
It has been recently reported that the RCCG, a Christian denomination has opened a political wing. Sheikh Gummi should have opened such an outfit when he was alive. The purpose of the wing would be to train Muslims who wanted to join politics on leadership in Islam. The centre should organise intensive training for all Muslim politicians and indeed all interested Nigerian politicians on the meaning, purpose and practice of leadership in Islam.
It is not too late. The onus is on the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs to open such a political wing.
Professor Jibia writes from
Department of Mechatronics,
Bayero University, Kano
