NSCIA: Persecution of Muslims must stop
The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) has warned the Federal Government to stop using its security agencies to persecute Muslims, saying it will undermine and demystify the military establishment.
“A situation in which religious profiling is camouflaged as part of security measures does not spell good omen for the country,” the council said in a statement yesterday.
The statement, signed by its director of publicity Muhammad K. Qasim, said the apex Muslim body was shocked by media reports that Maiduguri airport was made available for the use of a politician while “the same airport was suddenly shut against for Muslims recently.”
On Monday, the Federal Government reopened the Maiduguri airport which was closed on June 27, for former Borno state governor Ali Modu Sheriff to land.
Sheriff, a former chieftain of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), announced his defection to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) same day.
The council said: “That a public facility was denied Muslims on pilgrimage was granted to a top politician is a proof of bad faith. It is as unfortunate as it is a confirmation of the impression in some quarters that our insecurity is politicized.
“Apart from denying the pilgrims the use of the facility, the Muslims were subjected to physical and psychological trauma as result of their grilling by security apparatus.”
It “warns the federal government that it is dangerous to use the security establishment to persecute Nigerians.”
The NCSIA also urged the federal government to exercise caution “in the discriminatory use of military and aviation facilities in order to protect the political neutrality of national establishment.”
It said the government “has enough powers, constitutionally guaranteed, to tackle its perceived enemies rather than deny tax-paying Nigerians the use of public facilities under the guise of fighting insecurity.”
The council also called on the military authorities to “protect and safeguard the credibility of their profession by not being partisan.”
It said as national institution, the military “under no condition should they trade their professionalism for political expediency, the type of which Nigerians have worryingly begun to observe with openmouthed amazement.”