By Salisu Ibrahim
President of the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, and Chief Imam of Al Furqan Mosque in Kano, Dr. Bashir Aliyu Umar, OON, has expressed strong dissatisfaction with the conduct of Professor Joash Amupitan, as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“His actions are strongly against Nigerian Muslims and a clear recipe for chaos”, the Chief Imam said during a Friday Sermon.
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He therefore called on him to resign immediately, and further called on the President to sack him in the interest of peace and tranquility,.
According to the Chief Imam, the INEC Chairman is clearly partisan and his avowed hatred for Nigerian Muslims are palpable, he said during the Friday Sermon.
“Just look at the voters revalidation exercise the Chairman introduced. How can a voter register that took over two years to produce could be reviewed and corrected in just forty-five days? How is this even possible?” he queried.
He described the 45-day window given to all voters to revalidate their permanent voter cards as suspicious and unjust. They are clearly aimed at disenfranchising Nigerian Muslims, especially from the Northern part of the country, he said.
The Islamic scholar also accused the INEC boss of harbouring “bad intentions” especially towards Muslims, warning that the Chairman’s action are clearly posing threats to Nigeria’s democracy. “His open bigotry against Islam and his demonstration of unfair treatment to Muslims Muslims is very clear”, he said.
He said that the policy is a deliberate attempt to sideline Muslims, who form the majority and weaken their strength in determining who rules the country, by making it difficult for people in insecure northern areas to renew their cards.
The cleric warned that disenfranchising voters through such policies could lead to unrest. “When injustice, lack of trust in judicial decisions, and the desire for change in government cannot be addressed peacefully through democratic voting, the alternative is for people to rise against injustice and start protests,” he said, citing examples of what happened in Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
He therefore challenged Muslim representatives in the National Assembly to speak out and called on authorities to immediately stop the revalidation exercise.
