Recently there was a cheap campaign of not necessarily blackmail but a sadist work circulated not widely on social media by the publisher of Kaduna based inconsistent newspaper Desert Herald Tukur Mamu who claims to as well carry the title of Dan-iyan Fika in Yobe state.
As followers of Izala Sunni organization in Nigeria, we found the Mamu criticism in bad taste and in a similar manner of a rented crowd of protesters that are paid by some anti Islam elements to tarnish the image of our revered scholars especially the national chairman of JIBWIS Sheikh Abdullahi Bala Lau and Secretary General Sheikh Muhammad Kabir Haruna Gombe.
As far as we are concern the publisher of desert herald claims to be journalist and not a religious scholar. A journalist is expected to preserve the ethics of journalism by being fair to all people especially the vicinity within which he works and acquired license. But to our amazement Mr. Mamu was worried that some Christian evangelists convert some nomad Fulanis to Christianity. He emphasized that Izala must use all it's resources to rescue such Fulanis from Christian faith.
One wonders if unbiased journalist who claims to work for all manner of people could deny a segment of Nigerians from practicing the religion they chose.
We shouldn't have worried ourselves to respond to Mamu if at all he was just writing as just Mamu but he emphasized that he is a journalist well-known in exposing dishonest people; but betrayed his trust as he descended heavily on Izala by criticizing it of not abolishing its national preaching and rather rescue Fulanis who he claimed that they are lured into converting to Christianity. Even as Dan Iyan Fika, that will be a serious disservice if Mamy can call on his His highness the emir of Fika to deny the missionaries in his domain to practice their religion and to call on any interested native of the area to join them. Mr. Journalist is really high time for you to stop deceiving yourself and gullible fans if any that you are not blackmailer and only hiding under journalism to amass wealth by your so called investigations that yield no result.
Going through your disjointed paragraphs, you unprofessionally chose to distant yourself from sponsorship and or influence by your friend Dr. Ahmad Gumi.
That was really the style of guilty and dubious soul. Nobody asked you or accused you of connivance with other elements to come up with such a hungry piece. Furthermore you claimed that your write up will generate reactions and criticism.
Why would one worry if not already suffering from inferiority complex and restless conscience that his write up will generate unfavorable reaction?. This is what is termed as ignoratio-elenchi, a fallacious and baseless assertion, pouring venom on the personalities not necessary for their sins but just to serve the deep rooted enmity of their haters and rivals.
Let's just swim into your piece and ask you as an evangelist of desert herald to use your medium and rescue Fulanis in the jungle from converting to Christianity. It will save press council from trauma of querying you if you can be magnanimous enough to convert your paper to faith based journal that will focus on stopping Christians from converting Nomad Fulanis to Christianity.
Why not use your resources and sponsor the scholars you specified as better to you to go to the bush and embark on massive rescue of Fulanis from Christianity?
Or to put it differently as you claimed that you are a student of Islam, why not go to the remote areas and start preaching to the Fulanis?
just leave journalism and metamorphose into preacher.
We thought you too want to get the reward in a more conventional way, what are you waiting, if you so much detest the crop of the Izala leadership just take the bull by the horn and turn to an overnight Islamic preacher. If you can't do that then it would be better to stop embarrassing yourself as Muslims are wiser and can't tolerate the lazy evangelist behind the keyboards of computer to claim holier than thou attitude.
Izala even by its name is always clear that it is poised to eradicate innovations in Islam and not in Christianity.
The primary aim of Izala is to rescue Muslims from innovations and then other services such as attracting converts to Islam come after as a secondary priority.
We also want to enlighten you if you are still ignorant of the facts on Jungle Fulanis and Christianity. The situation has not started yesterday or last year or even in 1979 when Izala was created. Many of such type of Fulanis grew up as Christians or where born and bred in Christian families. Some could trace Christianity from their forefathers.
Thus the issue of somebody converting them to his religion is empty and wrong impression.
The conversion of people to Christianity including such Fulanis could be traced since 16th century when Christian missionaries landed in west Africa to pave way for colonial masters to colonize the continent. The history started over 500 years ago centuries even before the emergence of Sheikh Usman Ben Fodio who embarked on reformation among Muslims to worship Allah devoid of innovation.
The Jihad of Sheikh Ben Fodio was primarily to rescue Muslims from going astray even as they belief that no deity worthy of worship except Almighty Allah. Perhaps such Jihad should have affected the Mamus if they were around to rescue them from building castles in the air.
Yes to the accusation of flamboyance to our revered scholars during national preaching, perhaps Tukur Mamu is not happy that Allah has blessed this organization will people from all sectors of life and with scholars that rely on lawful businesses and contribute to Islam with their health and wealth.
Perhaps Tukur would want to see the scholars wearing rags and conveying themselves in off the road vehicles! while Tukur has vehicles and mansion in Kaduna housing his wives and threatening politicians to expose them in a blackmailing pattern, but is now advocating that our scholars should not have befitting vehicles and should not organize a national preaching to further fight innovation in worship that resurfaced in cities across the country by evil elements.
If Tukur Mamu can claim to have amassed his wealth in legitimate way as a journalist, then why not other hardworking Nigerians can not get such blessings in similar manner?.
Mamu decided to leveled serious allegations of mismanagement on our leaders but could not conclude without refuting all his lies by saying he was looking for facts to sue the scholars to court.
So Mamu don't even have the facts but poured out his allegations and judgments.
Let us tell Mamu that his claim that he has been donating the hide of his Eid sacrifice to Izala is immaterial. Muslims contribute to the organization without anybody forcing them to do so, they do so to get the reward from Allah and not from Mamus eye-service reward. We are sure that nobody writes his name that he contributed to the services of Islam.
We find it not necessary to agree with what you claimed that you have been contributing, we are skeptical that if you ever contributed anything to Izala.
But as the saying goes "pen is mightier than the sword" you can make your shallow claims and freedom of speech can pave such a room to write whatsoever you wish to write ,but note that mischief can not deter the Izala organization from its widespread service for Muslims.
While you threatened to go to court, you are free to go to HAQUE and lodge your worthless petition. For all we know, by Allah's grace, Izala will continue with its genuine service to Islam even after the lifetime of all of us including you Mamu and the scholars you maliciously and unjustifiably accused.
We investigated another irrelevant accusation that only approved scholars are allowed to air their preaching on Manara TV. This is laughable as all journalists and media owners know what is called censorship on what is transmitted via their mediums. Even your Desert Herald if at all sticking to ethics will definitely not publish all stories without verifying their factuality and impact on readers, but with this type of gibberish journalism everything, provided serving the interest of some elements goes. Izala as the owner of Manara TV reserves the right to air the correct teachings of Islam as the organization spent decades fighting innovations smuggled into Islam. We want to believe you don't have the right whatsoever to dictate to Manara what goes on its airwaves.
Thank God that you decided not to buttress your condemnation with mode of dress adopted by our Sheikhs in Europe with a verse from Holy Quran or Hadith of the holy prophet Muhammad Peace be upon Him. But you only based your argument on attires and styles of other scholars and even to the point where you equated the status of the scholars to former Nigerian leaders such as Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa to the immediate past president Goodluck Jonathan. It is a norm widely practiced that world leaders dress in their local attire while traveling to another country to serve as their dress code as representative of governments of their respective countries.
Locally as a political tradition, leaders wear local attire of a particular tribe when visiting its stronghold so that the tribe will feel sense of belonging. At this juncture note that Sheikh Abdullahi Bala Lau has responded to an invitation by Sunni groups in Europe to meet them in order to promote brotherliness and encourage them to remain defiant against all innovations in Islam and more disturbing to propagate the correct teaching of Islam against behaviors of some bad elements disguising as true Muslims but rather perpetrating evil acts such as killings, disdaining companions of the holy prophet among other bad behaviors.
The dress code of the hosts even if not for the cold climate is the local European dress that was not against dress code of Islam.
Sheikh Abdullahi Bala Lau went to Europe as a Muslim to meet fellow Muslims and mingle with them in the way permitted in Islam including their dress code. Thus the Sheikh was representing Islam that is global and therefore should not be equated to political leaders.
Another laughable example was that of a dress code of Sheikh Ahmed Deedat who was dressing in a western way if not for the cap that he chose to wear. Most of such small white caps are made in China by non Muslims. He can go out without a cap and also remain a good Muslim. As an Indian, he was expected to dress in an Indian attire the way some may wish to see our Sheikhs dress in "arewa babbar riga" but rather dressed in western style to attract more non Muslim westerners to like Islam as religion of peace and justice.
Mamu also said that Sheikh Ahmed Deedat visited some countries where our Sheikhs will never visit. Only Allah knows that and that Mamu has no hidden knowledge to conclude that they will never visit areas visited by Sheikh Deedat.
Mamu just ask for Allah's forgiveness as you have crossed your limit of a created being to the extent of concluding what will happen in the future, please poor brother leave that to Allah.
The issue of building a guest house for Izala visiting scholars among other guests in Abuja will only be a misplaced priority to a misplaced mind that does not value decency and hospitality. Even before Mamu's criticism on this guest house, other haters filled the walls of social media within their capacity to label the house named after Sheikh Abubakar Mahmud Gumi as a misplaced priority that rather schools and or hospitals should rather be constructed.
The haters were blind even if they have eyeballs attached to their skulls. Izala has established thousands of schools across Nigeria and it was also able to establish some hospitals. Very soon JIBWIS university will be realized apart from many higher certificate awarding institutions that have been established many years ago.
We can also not grasp the intent of Mamu with his example of sudden death of Sheikh Alhassan Sa'id Adam Jos. We are all mortals and thus must all die one day. Sudden or not sudden, death is inevitable and that the late Sheikh has spent all his life serving Islam with vigor. May his soul rest in perfect peace. Izala is an Islamic organization and all Muslims are free to join it in respect, unity and the fear of God to worship according the dictates of Allah.
It was also a disdain to the leaders if you ever respected them to describe their appearance as uncivilized "KAUYANCI" just because you publish the more of propaganda newspaper; do you consider yourself as civilized?, grow up brother.
We also advise you to always be steadfast on your motives if at all trustworthy and not to play such drama when you were arraigned in court by former FCT minister Bala Muhammed. We saw healthy man was brought into the court room and all of a sudden you slumped and decided to be fainted.
Wake up and fight to finish. Seek and hide game will not fetch to you positive result at the tail end. A word is enough for the wise.
Jibwis Social Media
National Directorate Abuja.
