Terrorists use Arabic to blackmail Islam – Coomassie
A former Inspector-General of Police, Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie, said terrorists speak Arabic language to trick people into believing that they are struggling to promote Islam.
Coomassie made the assertion in his remarks at the 11th national conference of the Academic Society for Arabic Language and Literature in Nigeria (ASALLIN), held at the University of Abuja on Tuesday.
He said that by speaking Arabic, the terrorists deceived non-Arabic speakers into believing that they were struggling to propagate Islam and that terror attacks were synonymous to Islam.
He said the terrorists use of Arabic as their language of communication when they posted audio or video materials on the internet should not be seen as Islamic.
“Terrorists speak Arabic language which is the richest language in the world and through which the Holy Qur’an was revealed. Some thought that terrorist activities prompted nonspeakers of the language to believe, though wrongly, that Arabic is synonymous with terrorism.
“This is because these terrorists use it as their medium of communication when they post any audio or video materials on the internet on their nefarious activities,” he stated.
Also speaking, the President of ASALLIN, Dr. M. U. Ndagi, described the association as a professional academic society that brings together lecturers of Arabic language, literature and linguistics from tertiary institutions in the country.
Dr. Ndagi who is a senior lecturer with the Department of Linguistics and African Languages of the University of Abuja, stated that the association encourages research in the field of Arabic Language, Literature and Linguistics.
He said the aims of the association are to promote the study of Arabic at all levels of the country’s education system and make efforts in finding solutions to challenges militating against Arabic Language in the country among others.
He called on the federal government to include Arabic in the curriculum of the Police Academy, Wudil in Kano State. The House of Representatives has called on the federal government to immediately review the downgrading of four federal universities to colleges of education.
The House mandated its committee on tertiary education and services to interface with the Federal Ministry of Education on the matter and report back to the House within two weeks.
Adopting a motion by Rep Ezenwa Francis Onyewuchi and four others, the House noted that the administration of former president Goodluck Jonathan had upgraded the Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri, Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo and Colleges of Education in Kano and Zaria, to universities.
It was noted that the upgrade was “mainly because they had been conducting degree programmes and awarding degrees in affiliation with various universities.”
The House however regretted that there was a recent government directive reversing the upgrade of the four institutions, “which will worsen the already poor standard of education which requires complete overhauling and could serve as a further impediment to the provision of quality education in the country.”
In another motion, the House mandated its committee on basic education and services to investigate the reported cases of lopsided admission into unity schools and report back in four weeks.
The second resolution followed adoption of a motion by Rep Garba Chede Hamman Julde (APC, Taraba), who said the recent admission into the junior cadre of the Queen’s College, Lagos for the 2015/2016 academic session “was skewed very much against students from the northern states.”
The two motions unanimously adopted.
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