Former Imam, Lagos State University, Prof. Amidu Sanni, has urged the Federal Government to go after sponsors and enablers of terrorism in the country to put an end to the challenge.
Sanni made his position known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Tuesday.
The cleric decried the spike in violent attacks on citizens in some parts of the country.
He advised the FG to summon the political Will to bring the sponsors of the subsisting illicit attacks on the country to book and bring the menace to an end.
According to him, responding to the media, and the Western propaganda machinery that has continued to mislead the whole world on the matter is counter productive.
“If an atheist or full-blooded criminal brandishes AK47, kills worshippers in the Church or Mosque and shouts Hallelujah or Allahu Akbar, does that make him a Christian or a Muslim?
“I often ask, which article of faith in Islam justifies the killing of innocent people of whatever faith?
“There’s even a series of prescribed punishment in the Qur’an for perpetrators of such crimes against humanity, hence against God. (Qur’an 5 verse 33).
“So, the starting point is to stop calling these criminals Islamic Jihadists. They have nothing to do with Islam or the Islamic concept of jihadism which is about striving for excellence,” he said.
The cleric frowned at negotiations with bandits and social misfits, describing such as being advocated in some quarters as a “social malady”
He said: “It’s simply an admission of state failure and crass incompetency of those whose primary responsibility is to ensure the welfare of all and protect all from all forms of danger.
“I ask, who pushed identified criminals to carry arms against ordinary citizens, school children and farmers.
“When this government is ready to solve the problems, it will go for the sponsors, the facilitators, sympathisers and even the financial pipelines and pipeliners through which monies are processed as ransom or “settlement baits”.
He noted that the former President Goodluck Jonathan once admitted frustratingly that there were Boko Haram backers or sponsors in his government.
“President Buhari was reported to have been availed of a list of names and institutions involved in the Boko Haram business by the UAE government.”
He said that those were facts the current Minister of Information Mr Idris Muhammad-Malagi admitted in a recent TV interaction.
“So why is it difficult to get these “untouchables” in the overall interest of Nigeria. State negotiation with terrorists, payments of ransom, condonement of payment is by its very nature interpretable as complicity,” he observed.
NAN recalls that, the Lagos Catholic Archbishop, Most. Rev. Alfred Adewale Martins, earlier called on President Ahmed Bola Tinubu led administration to take action to protect citizens from terrorists attacks.
