The Trial of the Nigerian Taliban
Disu Kamor

It is a unique blessing to be a Muslim, but being a Muslim post-9/11 is a challenge that most Muslims across the globe now face with increasing difficulties as the war between  United States and its one time ally and client in the Middle East, the Al-Qaeda, enters various phases. The present circumstances leading to the alleged emergence of extremist groups in Nigeria, and their actions should be a source of prime concern to every Nigerian. The so-called 'Nigerian Taliban' is one group which alleged member, a 40-year old Mallam Mohammed Ashafa, was arraigned on the 22nd of February, in Abuja, over a five-count charge amongst which is recruiting and training of terrorists whose main objective was to attack residences of Americans living in Nigeria. This type of charge, coupled with heavy and steady streaming of United States intelligence reports portraying Nigeria as a country worthy of 'Al Qaeda-type jihad', create a challenge for the Nigerian Muslim community and individual Muslims living in Nigeria. Muslims across the world have become, in replacement to the Russian Communists, a faith community under siege, suspicion and persecution and the profiling of the Nigerian Muslims in series of US intelligence community and expert reports simply follow this predictable pattern to incite further suspicion and persecution. Porter J. Goss, then newly appointed CIA director, while briefing the congress back in 2004 expressed concerns that the allure of fanatical Islam is attracting an alarming number of people from Nigeria's Muslim community. He further stated that the rise of religious extremism is threatening to turn Africa's most populous nation into a breeding ground for international terrorists. Although most of the alerts of imminent and present terrorist attacks on Nigerian soil have turned out to be nothing more the Millennium Bug; a smokescreen, the campaign to create fear and paranoia in the society continue with undiminished vigor. This fact leaves little in the way of the natural conclusion that the massive negative intelligence constantly fed the Nigerian security and intelligence community by foreign intelligence communities and self-styled intelligence experts only come as a means to an end. The Mallam Ashafa trial was the latest in a handful of Al-Qaeda related cases in Nigeria which have included the use of foreign intelligence, surely not the only one. Gone unchecked, this trend will perpetuate a climate of fear, suspicion and persecution on the whole Nigerian Muslim community, its institutions and its organizations.

Hiding behind transparent and irrelevant justifications, the Federal Government prosecutors requested for a secret trial in the case of Mallam Mohammed Ashafa where his 'fair trial' could be staged on classified forensic intelligence that we are not allowed to see, hear or read in this open democratic society. The request was flatly rejected, and rightly so. The judge's rejection of the request in this case will hopefully deter government prosecutors from trying to obtain convictions in secret based on questionable evidence. Reliance on inaccurate and exaggerated foreign intelligence of threat of terrorism on our shores, similar to the American government's 'Iraqi smoking gun evidence' and the British's 'Iraqi dossier' which were cited as clear evidences of material breach of the UN Security Council Resolution 1483 back in 2003, will inevitably lead to the erosion of God-given rights and victimization of innocent Muslims and ordinary Nigerian citizens. This is most likely to happen in this era of global 'war on terrorism' where law abiding citizens can be kidnapped and interned into the US government programme of extraordinary rendition in Guantanamo Bay or transferred to some underground torture bunkers in some of the rougue countries implicated in the damned Members of European Parliament (MEP's) report on the CIA extraordinary rendition programme to suffer subhuman existence. If the victim is lucky, he will be detained indefinitely for something as preposterous as a link to terrorists for reading a controversial book!

The media reports on the concern of the trial judge about the physical appearance of Mallam Mohammed Ashafa in the court and the way he was rough handled and literally bundled away in full glare of newsmen reflect very poorly on the Nigerian State Security Service (SSS) which obviously is yet to discard its culture of high handedness, sheer brutality and rights abuses; thus failing to evolve according to the new political dispensation. It is as if the SSS acted so ineptly to make the point that although the struggle about re-instating civilian government is finished, the fight to balance our security with liberty is far from over. The law enforcement and intelligence agents must not suspend law when they act. The unilateral and unproductive techniques of the law enforcement and state security agents will not change people's ideology, only suppress it. These institutions must engage with the faith communities if it hopes, in the long term, to succeed in assessing and disrupting the recruitment and conversion of vulnerable individuals to radicalized ideologies which advocate violence. The nation's security is very crucial, but its preservation must ensure openness, promote justice and offer suspects the full protection of the Nigerian law. It is in this spirit that the entire individuals currently in the custody of the national security agencies facing charges relating to planned terrorism must be brought to quick trial in an open court of law where their innocence or guilt will be proven.

Many Muslims worldwide are unscrupulously labeled and treated as (suspect) terrorists, only because they want to end Western political and military interference in the domestic affairs of their countries. They see their stand as a patriotic symbol, and the continued vilification of such people or groups shows clearly that Muslim political activism is increasingly being equated with terrorism or extremism. To clump such individuals together with terrorists or extremists is short-sighted and will hinder the execution of an effective campaign against genuine terrorism and extremism. The violent intrusions of the US into the heartland of Muslim nations, in the name of honour, freedom, greed and insatiable pursuit of rotten wealth, inevitably produces rawest emotions and ugliest human behaviours from the unfortunate population that have to endure decades of foreign control and puppet governments.  United States government does not have the moral position to declare people who do not agree with its immoral foreign policies and militant way of life as extremists or terrorists. Our government must not be seen to be acting under foreign control and our national security and intelligence communities must reassert their independence. Political, economic and social justices are necessary to address the grievances of the people and isolate the extremists. Misplaced fear and suspicion, brazen persecution, use of torture to secure information and over reliance on dubious foreign intelligence will inevitably punish innocent people who are entitled to peaceful dissent as a constitutional right, it will gridlock our justice system as well as create recruitment opportunities for merciless criminals who are intent on manipulating religion as a weapon in their political belligerence.

Extremism in religions is a fact and the enduring violent communal conflicts between Nigerian Christians and Muslims conspicuously attest to this. Nigerian non-Muslims must understand that just as it takes time to learn a foreign language so does it take time to learn other people's religion from its sources. Critical thinking takes time. It takes time to address the complexities of the relationships between religions. But it is time well spent. No religion, people or nation has a monopoly of this menace and the outdated hypocrisy of the critics of Islam, people who have never objectively examined the Qur'an but are quick to judge Islam, only show that they have their own demons to deal with. Namely; prejudice, bigotry and ignorance. The collective will of the whole people of Nigeria to espouse the divine virtues of their religions, live peacefully together, tolerate differences and cherish diversities are essential to combat and defeat extremism. One of the challenges before the Nigerian Muslim community post-9/11, under a God-fearing leadership, is to enter into a healthy and long term partnership with the nation's security institutions as a religious and national duty to prevent and tackle crimes from any corner it may come from. Nigerian Muslims must openly reject extremists in our midst or any attempt to justify or tolerate irrational actions of people who neither represent our sentiments nor advance our legitimate causes and interests. Islam, through the example of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), does not tolerate the use of violence for any purpose, regardless of the identity of the aggressors or the nature of their motives. Islamic and mosque leaders must reiterate in their sermons and public discussions that adherents of Islam - in unambiguous terms - not commit any heinous crime in the sight of God. It has become very critical that these things be spelt out thoroughly, become part of our day-to-day sermon and form part of the syllabi in Islamic schools. Muslim leaders and scholars of all schools of thought must reinforce and amplify a united voice that can counteract the destructive force of the ideology that spreads intolerance, hate and violence. People who act in anyway to harm the society and its people, under the pretext of defending Islamic interests or reacting to political issues must be punished as criminals who cannot act in the name of Islam or Muslims. Global warfare declared on people because of their nationality or because of the actions of their political leaders; a select elite or rich and special interests in select corporations, lobbies and "think tanks" who draft evil policies, is sinful and thus contrary to Islamic law. Our community should take its lead from the Majestic Qur'an. Allah, the Exalted, says: Good and evil are not equal, repulse [evil] with that which is better. You will find the one bearing enmity towards you appear as an intimate friend. (Qur'an: 41:34). Despite the tremendous difficulty involved, we should try to find the strength to smile to the one bearing enmity towards us in this troubled time. In such little things there are divine secrets.

Disu Kamor
Director of Media & Communications
Muslim Public Affairs Centre, MPAC
e-mail: kamor.disu@mpac-ng.org
website: www.mpac-ng.org
 

Robot  # 1 | 18.03.2007 01:22

Nigerian non-Muslims must understand that just as it takes time to learn a foreign language so d...Read the full article.

ocnus  # 2 | 18.03.2007 04:25

While the author rightly states that the religion of Islam is not involved in the trial of the Taliban, the article begs the question of what is actually involved in this prosecution. That is the infiltration, expansion and establishment in Nigeria of an international group of political fanatics using the aegis of Islam as their cover. During the past six weeks there have been arrests of nine men in West Africa, Iraqis and Lebanese, travelling on Venezuelan passports offering arms, training and explosives to dissident groups (disaffected generals, failed politicians, etc.) to overthrow the regimes of President Gbgbo in the Ivory Coast and President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson in Liberia). Two more were picked up and deported from Guinea during the recent 'troubles'. Two others were detained and asked to leave Mauritania. The rise of fundamentalists in the Middle East (in Iraq, Iran and the Lebanon) has unleashed a stream of money and military equipment from countries like Iran to Hezbollah, Hamas and Iraqi Shia militants. These funds have trickled, so far, to Africa but are expanding in a new push. The large Lebanese community (the 'Siriman') have provided a good operational base. Their aim, as was shown clearly in Sierra Leone, was the aquisition of diamonds and gold. However, the main reason for their push into West Africa, in particular, has been the increasing role played by West African oil and gas in providing energy sources to the West. The leverage of Iran and Iraq in influencing world politics has been the need of the West (including Japan) to have reliable sources of supply of energy. To the extent that West Africa provides a reasonable alternative to dependence on Middle Eastern oil the bargaining strength of these Middle Eastern states is diminished by the success of West African states in providing an unfettered source of energy to the West. The cloak for this infiltration into West Africa, in particular, is the large Islamic communities who offer them shelter, support and a moral justification for their fanaticism. So, the author is right to decry the stigmatisation of Islam as a dangerous religion but the inability or unwillingness of the Islamic leaders in West Africa to dissociate politics from religion; who tolerate the imposition of Sharia Law in mixed religion states; who tolerate the excesses of religious bigotry in incidents like the Miss World Contest, are contributors to an atmosphere in which anti-Islamic backlash can take place. So, don't be confused by this religious rhetoric. This is a political and, ultimately, a military problem masking as religion. The hesistance and vacillation of the West African states in preparing a response to this inflitration will not be matched by such a hesitance and vacillation on the part of the West in defending its real interests. If the last four years has taught no one any lesson about the West's response to the 'oil question' then they have been blind to newspapers and deaf to radio and tv. This trial is a positive response by Nigeria towards resolving some of its problems, and potential problems, and should be supported; not because there is a need to reject Islam, but because there is a need to protect Nigeria.

AbuSiddiqah  # 3 | 18.03.2007 05:54

I believe that most of the problems arising in the name of religion today are purely political/tribal. One should not deny however that there are real concerns as regards the actions of certain segments of the muslim community,both in Nigeria and abroad. Almost all of the so called religious riots have only occurred in a certain geographic/geopolitical region of the country. Is it that the muslims in other parts of the country do not have the same zeal . It is at this point that one should call on rational and more well integrated muslims in the country to condem in the harshest possible way any unjustified aggression on innocent individuals, be they muslims, or non muslims. Just like a cancer, the political and tribal violence has its root somewhere. The root of this problem i believe lies within the corriders of power. We have infidel politicians who rather than protect the oath they took to develop the people economically, politically and mentally, have rather sold their lives to the devil for a few milion naira notes, and will always be happy to set people against each other, while all of them from all different religious and tribal backgrouds get on perfectly well in Abuja. In education and empowermet lies the key to ending the problem. I believe that Islam teaches one to stand his ground in the face of oppression. But ultimately the religion also tells us that Justice comes before brotherhood. Abusiddiqah Cambridge UK

akuluouno  # 4 | 18.03.2007 07:03

Dear Villagers, I believe that Dr Iyorcha Ayu was charged for terrorism also along with two others from the Niger Delta whose names do not sound moslem to me. However, be that as it may, I believe that Nigerians should do ourselves more good will if we emphasize peace and brotherliness in our worship of God rather than hasty recourse to massive bloodletting of the innocents whenever any little or even big religious misunderstanding occurs. I have always held the belief that no human being born of man is fit to fight for God. God is able to do his battle by himslef and I do not see why mere mortals should assist him in this area. I believe that some of us allow politics to mix with religion, if not most of the things we do at home, how come we eschew them abroad and yet the heavens have not fallen. :mad: :mad:

truthsayer33  # 5 | 18.03.2007 16:16

it is refreshing to have a muslim perspective in our village....you sir have every right to be be here.Your case is not water tight as you fail to see the security threat emanating from some muslims who want sharia law,who murder fellow nigerians at will...remember the mayhem when nigeria was scheduled to host Miss World? the flak around the Danish cartoons? A few months ago a northern governor wanted to zone all non muslims into one section of his state capital ......this was his solution to the problem of religious intolerance. We have many problems in Nigeria but please spare us embassy bombings, suicide bombers and worse atrocities.

Exxcuzme  # 6 | 18.03.2007 18:23

Guess what people, the NA just passed a bill to give 5yr jail term to terrorists instead of life prison. Someone in the senate knows something we dont know about, especially about the Nigerian Taliban or is it for Ayu guy?