Intrigues of political containment

Also published in Daily Trust

Though political power invariably comes with privileges, the disproportionate amount of privilege that unnecessarily comes with it in Nigeria explains the desperation of Nigerian politicians to get and keep power at any cost, especially considering the prevailing culture of monumental corruption and impunity in the county.

Nevertheless, in view of how similar challenges in many other rich but underdeveloped countries particularly in Africa easily lead to uncontainable chaos and total systemic failure, Nigerian politicians perhaps deserve some credit for keeping the country away from similar fate ever since the end of its unfortunate civil war more than four decades ago.

Apathy vs. audacity

Also published in Daily Trust

Contrary to the assumption that Boko Haram security crisis is the result of a grand conspiracy plotted against Nigeria, the north or Muslims, I believe and have always argued that there is indeed Boko Haram as a group and as a deviant ideological phenomenon also.   

Nevertheless, in view of how these desperate AK-47-clutching terrorists continue to exhaust and indeed overwhelm the presumably better-trained, better equipped, and supposedly motivated Nigerian army and other security agents, I began to look for a plausible explanation of the mystery behind the recurrent escalation of terror activities and the persistent failure of the military to tackle it.

Re: Islam and revolution [lll]

Also published in Daily Trust 

I admittedly feel somehow guilty for not addressing the recent escalation of terror attacks in the north-east where innocent and defenceless people have been mercilessly massacred over the past few weeks. Yet, it’s worth it anyway since I have been engaged in refuting some misrepresentations intended to cover the 1979 Khomeini revolution in Iran with Islamic cloak.

Now, to conclude this serialised rejoinder, let me address the political aspect of the revolution. First of all, it is important to note that, Iranian political system is basically based on the theory of Wilyatul-Faqeeh i.e. Supreme Guardianship of the Jurist, a concept cleverly created in order dodge a very serious dilemma in Shi’a religious doctrine.

Obviously, one of the fundamentals of the Shi’a Imamate belief is the belief in a heretical doctrine of Imamate (explained in part 1 of this rejoinder). Besides, they believe, among other things, that, world can’t survive without one of the twelve imams, also all Shi’a adherents shall not follow any political leader not among those twelve imams.

Re: Islam and revolution [ll]

Also published in Daily Trust

While still examining the purported link between Khomeini-led revolution in Iran and Islam, and before I draw conclusions in the light of the few quotes from Shi’a’s most recognized books of reference in part one of this rejoinder, let me discuss yet another serious doctrinal contradiction of Shi’a creed that says it all about the unmistakable irreconcilability between it and the fundamentals of Islamic religion.

It could be recalled that, according to Shi’a creed as I quoted, all, except three of the Prophet’s companions (i.e. Salman Al-farisi (RA), Miqdad bin Al-aswad (RA) and Abu-tharr Al-giffari RA) renounced Islam in the aftermath of the Prophet’s demise. This clearly means that, all the narrations of the Prophet’s companions were simply false, according to the Shiites. After all, they have indeed rejected such narrations, which authentically disseminated the entirety of Islamic religious principles, teachings, injunctions and values as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), simply because according to them the narrators were not Muslims in reality.

Re: Islam and revolution [1]

Also published in Daily Trust

I’ll skip the usual pro-Iran slants in the above-titled article by Malam Adamu Adamu, which appeared in his regular column last Friday in Daily Trust. Yet I may still discuss them in due course, subject to space availability. For now I intend to examine the assertions made by the writer over the purported link between the 1979 Khomeini-led revolution in Iran and Islam.

First of all, to determine whether the revolution is actually Islamic or not, one has to look beyond the systematic and sustained media propaganda promoted by the regime’s propagandists and apologists, and gullibly imbibed and chanted by the gullible. Instead one has to look at it against the backdrop of the religious ideology that inspired it hence its link, if any, with Islamic religion.