By Compare and contrast these statements:
“Muslim clerics, and indeed all Muslims, should preach peace among the adherents and work to achieve peace with members of other religions.
“It is unfortunate that some Muslims, especially clerics, were hiding under the sanctity and immunity of the holy places to set one part of the society against the other. It is totally against the tenets of Islam.”
AND
“I said any Fulani herdsman you see around you, kill him.
“I have told them in the church here that any Fulani herdsman that just enter by mistake and want to pretend, kill him. Kill him. Cut his head. If they are busy killing Christians and nothing is happening, we will kill them and nothing will happen.”
The first quote was by the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, while the second was by the General Overseer of the Omega Fire Ministries Worldwide, Apostle Johnson Suleiman.
There’s some context though. Suleiman is speaking at a season in which herdsmen have wreaked havoc in several parts of the country with security agencies unable to bring them to book.
However his prescription to kill “any Fulani you see around you” is incendiary and treasonous. For a religious leader with thousands of followers, it’s troubling.
Sanusi’s charge to Muslim clerics was given on Friday while he delivered his sermon at the inauguration of the ultra-modern mosque of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State.
Sanusi used his speech to call for religious tolerance among members of the two major religions in Nigeria, which is easier to say when it is your religion and tribe that’s been perceived as domineering. Nonetheless it is an important charge, one which Suleiman may do well to imbibe.
-Culled from the Scoop
