The Kaduna State governor Mallam El Rufai, last week published new laws about the practice of religion in Kaduna state. It is a law to regulate religious activities. However, it is the usual steps that most Muslim dominated countries have used to kick start their elimination of other religious groups.
EL-Rufai’s new laws.
In Kaduna State you cannot preach without license.
Every preacher will have to go and get ONLY one year license (renewable every year). That is, you must always preach without an expired license or you risk 2 years imprisonment.
If you invite any external preacher (i.e. preacher outside Kaduna State), such a person must be licensed for the duration of his/her stay and the body issuing the license has the right to reject external preacher they feel is not qualify to preach in Kaduna state.
Every preacher who want to be licensed will appear before a screening committee. If he/she scales through, he/she will only be given licensed for one year.
The law criminalizes the use of CDS, Flash Drive and other communication gadgets except in religious building or inside your house.
That means, you will be arrested for listening to preaching or religious music inside your cars or in any open place except in your house or religious building.
If you preach without license, you are guilty of offense punishable with 2 years imprisonment or a fine of 200,000.You can’t use microphones/loudseakers in your church after 8pm you are guilty of offense punishable with 2 years’ imprisonment or a fine of 200,000.
Since all preaching must be done within a building, it means public evangelism will be criminalized. Those who preach early morning, known by some as morning cry and preaching inside bus if arrested will be fined N200,000.
This law could also means, people will not be allowed to go out for evangelism on streets or move with vehicles with address systems to advertise their programs. This is a serious, arrogant, presumptuous and auspicious assault on civil liberties freedom of expression and religious liberty by an Islamist, whose only aim is to ensure the domination of the world by his version of Islam. There is no doubt that the religions targeted by El Rufai are Shia Islam and Christianity.
According to the week Magazine, The number of Christians in the Middle East is around 12 million, but it is falling every day. The largest Christian communities have traditionally lived in Egypt and in an arc around the eastern Mediterranean stretching through Palestine territories, Lebanon and up to Syria, with significant outpost in Iraq.
A century ago, Christians made up an estimated 14% of the population of Middle East, and far more in some areas: 78% of Lebanese were Christians in 1910, as were one in five residents of Jerusalem in 1948.
Today, however, Christians make up only about a third of Lebanon’s population, less than 2% of Jerusalem’s and just 4% of the Middle East as a whole. According to Pope Francis, a form of genocide is taking place.
Islam has succeeded in almost eliminating all other religions in the Middle East by doing exactly what Islamists have done in north Nigeria for many years and now extending to all parts of Nigeria.
For years, minority ethnic groups in north Nigeria, which are mainly Christians, have been subjected to pogroms and sustained attack by Islamic extremist and Fulani herdsmen. These minority groups are frequently slaughtered in large numbers and their villages burnt out, and no prosecution of the protestors have taken place. The same tactics has been extended to Nigeria Middle belt and part of Eastern region.
There is no doubt North Nigeria has an Islamic plan for the whole of Nigeria, which is being implemented piecemeal. In August 2001, President Muhammadu Buhari, said “God-willing, we will not stop the agitation for the total implementation of sharia throughout the federation”.
Before Buhari, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Saurdana of the Sokoto Caliphate and Premier of Northern Nigeria, in Parrot Newspaper, 12th October, 1960, said “The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather Uthman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the North as willing tools and the South as a conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us and never allow them to have control over their future”-
This Jihad Was finally officially kicked off with the declaration and adoption of Sharia in all northern states of Nigeria.
The second phase was the use of Boko Haram to intimidate and drive some people from the north, after the election of Goodluck Jonathan as president.
The publishing of the law to restrict religious liberty by El Rufai is the third stage, which is the the elimination or subjugation of all other religion in the north by curtailing their freedom, hence the laws published by El Rufai, which will soon be replicated in all states under sharia and finally to all Nigeria as promised by Buhari.
In addition to the subtle moves described above, the Boko Haram is advancing the course of Islam in Nigeria by the use of terror. The group received overt and tacit support from Islamists from north Nigeria, when they were only target Christians and Igbos, until they went viral.
Under the circumstance, it would seem that the only thing that can offer Nigeria a chance of surviving as a one country is to adopt true federalism, which would offer the other regions the same freedom the north has to develop at their own pace.
Unfortunately, Nigeria has an arch Islamist and a Fulani as president, whose view of Nigeria is an article of faith that does not entertain rational discussion.
He does not see that it is the Islamic agenda being pursued by north and Fulani herdsmen terrorism and not the agitation for Biafra that put the death nail on Nigeria.
Nigeria cannot survive as a United country, when the north has assumed an Islamic identity and aggressively pursuing an Islamist agenda throughout the country.
They are using money( provided by Saudi Arabia via Islamic Bank) with the help of some politicians from the south to recruit converts from the East and build structures, while restricting the activities and presence of other religious groups in the north.
With the move by El Rufai, the north cannot have it both ways. It can only have a true federated Nigeria or leave the rest of Nigeria and concentrate in its Islamic agenda for the north.
Nigeria cannot survive and prosper with an Islamic north, which restricts the liberty of none Muslims and a south, where it can do whatever it likes. This is an utopia.
The solution is for other ethnic groups to set in motion political mechanism to achieve regional autonomy in form of a loose federation, which would enable them shape their region according to their culture and world view.
Most countries in the world apart from Islamic countries will support this. The first step should be to form a political party that will include in its manifestos the conduct of referendum for true federation.
This may be be accepted by the north. In his recent interview with Aljazera, Buhari alluded to people pursuing their objectives through democratic means.
Once this is done, those who want independent may not find compelling reasons to continue as they would have the autonomy to pursue their future according to their culture, without interference from Islamists from the north. It would also offer the regions opportunity to decide their future through democratic means.
Otherwise, in a few years time, everybody in Nigeria will be studying the Quran, men will be asked to grow beards and women covered in black cloths. The only benefit is that, ‘every man will be entitled to four wives’.
Nigerians need to see this as a project for our survival as a country and a people. It will involve educating Nigerians and engaging the world to see that this is the only viable option for Nigeria. The alternative is too gruesome to contemplate.
Nigerians, who may be persuade to see this as scare mongering should note that north Nigeria already has her allies in form of Saudi Arabis and the gulf state, which will supply the north arms and resources to prosecute a jihad in Nigeria, should some people be minded to take the bait to respond by violence. This is the reality.
It is not by accident that El Rufai published his laws to restrict religion, after the president returned from his tour of Middle East during which it was rumoured that Nigerian Finance minister, who is said to neither read nor understand Arabic, was made to sign a bilateral agreement written in Arabic.
There is no doubt in my mind that Buhari has a similar agenda for Nigeria like the one Omar Bashir had for Sudan before South Sudan broke away.
Nigeria does not need to go through another civil war to realise that no one, who is not Muslim can share a country with Muslims whose aim is to implement sharia law.
A jihad is already going on in Nigeria and Islam does not do Individual liberty, tolerance, equality and democracy. Nigerians need to wake up, hell has come home.
E O Eke is qualified in medicine. At various times he has been a General medical practitioner, Medical missionary, Medical Director and senior medical officer of health in Nigeria. He specializes in child, Adolescent and adult psychiatry and lives in England with his family. His interest is in health, religion philosophy and politics. He cares for body and mind.
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