Sharia council condemns Danjuma’s ‘unguarded’ utterance
The Kaduna State chapter of the Supreme Council for Shari’ah in Nigeria (SCSN) has frowned upon what it describes as unguarded utterance by former Minister of Defence, Gen Theophilus Danjuma (rtd), against the Nigerian Army.
The Chairman, Board of Trustees (BOT) of the council, Sheikh Yusuf Sambo Rigachikurn and the Secretary, Engineer AbdurRahman Hassan told a press conference in Kaduna Tuesday that the Federal Government must prosecute the general “for such provocative statement.”
Danjuma had last Saturday at the Taraba State University said, among other things, “The armed forces are not neutral. They collude... with the armed bandits that kill people and kill Nigerians. They facilitate their movements, they cover them. If you are depending on the armed forces, you’ll all die one by one.”
The SCSN said it was a call for anarchy for Danjuma to have openly called on citizens to take up arms, and that efforts by the Nigerian Army at neutrality and demilitarization of the armed militias were yielding positive results.
In a similar reaction to Danjuma’s comment, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) said in a statement signed by its National Secretary, Baba Othman Ngelzarma, “Has the general who accused the Nigerian Army of colluding with armed bandits to perpetrate attacks shown any empathy to the hundreds of pastoralists, including women and children that were hacked to death by an ethnic militia from his own state?”
MACBAN said that on the contrary, it viewed the Nigerian Army not only as a patriotic organization but as a distinguished institution that had excelled in resolving conflicts.
“MACBAN views the conflicts between pastoralists and farmers as resource based and for the general to advocate insurrection and lawlessness; he should … consider himself an ethnic jingoist. MACBAN wants the nation to note that the general’s disregarding of the Nigerian Army and undermining the corporate existence of Nigeria is a recipe to disaster,” the association said.