When it was almost standard practice for religious clerics to belch hate and goad worshippers to violence, a redemptive balm has come from these same quarters. It reinforces the notion that religiosity without humanity is not only hollow but shallow.
While hideous violence and bedlam visited Plateau State, in the last bout of killings in that state, Alhaji Abdullahi Abubakar, the Imam of Yelwa, Gidin-Akwati, in the Barkin-Ladi Local Government area of the state, voted for love and empathy. While felons were killing and maiming, on the basis of ethnicity and faith, and while even others would hinge their crime on some economic pull, he stoutly stood as a laudable ambassador for the sacredness of life.
To Alhaji Abubakar, faith or creed, tribe or economic hurt, was immaterial. What mattered was common humanity and the sanctity of life. Arrayed against a band of killers baying for blood, he shielded over 300 women and children inside his mosque. That was not only a rare show of courage, it was also a rare show of love, at a most dangerous juncture.
Just as well Governor Solomon Lalong, moved by his heroism, has singled him out for praise. And even better: the governor disclosed, opening a three-day Peace and Security Conference in Jos, the Plateau capital, that the Imam is bound for an appreciative national honour, to be conferred by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“We have discussed the positive role played by the Imam of Yelwa, Gindi-Akwati, Alhaji Abdullahi Abubakar,” he disclosed. “The President has asked me to bring him for a handshake and to confer him a national honour award.” That is the way to go, because Imam Abubakar, by that rare feat, powered by rarer moral authority in the face of danger, is a genuine Nigerian hero.
Indeed, the president should not only not tarry on his proposed national honour, that event, preferably a stand-alone, should be matched with maximum publicity, just to make the point that despite the violence of a loud and virulent minority, the majority of Nigerians are still driven by justice, equity, empathy and decency; and they would go to any length to defend these cherished values, that drive every civilised community.
Besides, our clerics should learn a stiff lesson from the nobility of this Imam. No religion, except wrongly interpreted, preaches hate or hideous violence. So when, even faced with justifiable provocations, they belch hate, they only play Judas to the tenets of the faith.
Every genuine man of God, Christian, Muslim or any other faith, must key into the most basic — and noblest — tenet, common to all faith: sanctity of life. Only God gives life; and it cannot be replaced when taken away. Every cleric, therefore, must be pro-life; and must make it their bounden duty to preserve lives at all times, especially during crises.
Still, Imam Abubakar has done his duty. Let governments, at all level, also do theirs. It is the government’s responsibility to safeguard security of life and property. The most visible part, of that grave responsibility, is effective policing. But that is even the easiest part, notwithstanding its tragic shortfall, resulting in these bouts of killings.
The most complex part is thoroughly grounding equity, justice and fair play in every facet of public policy. The Jos Peace and Security Conference, as other fora like that, should strive to make equity and justice routine in state matters. A just polity is not likely prone to violent flares.
