Some Nigerian Muslims have continued to relate their personal stories that bother on religious discrimination following an opinion story by a renowned syndicate columnist, Prof. Farooq Kperogi.
His Saturday column titled, ‘Ikoyi Tragedy and Casual Bigotry Against Yoruba Muslims’ originally published by Nigerian Tribune, and later re-published by this medium, offered the media scholar’s perspective on the discriminatory ordeal of a young job seeker, Sikiru Adebowale.
Adebowale, a Yoruba Muslim, in an interview with an online broadcast medium, AN 24, narrated how the Managing Director of Fourscore Homes, Femi Osibona denied him a job because of his religious inclination even when he was deemed qualified.
“Ah, I can’t work with a Muslim,” he quoted Osibona to have said, adding that the MD said he couldn’t work with someone whose response to his chant of ‘Praise God!’ would be ‘Alhamdulillah!’
The job seeker said the denial would later be a blessing for him as the high-rise on which he sought to work collapsed, killing scores of people in it, while leaving others with varying degrees of injuries.
Adebowale left the building an hour before the collapse.
In his column which has gone viral, Kperogi described the development as merely instantiating “the casual bigotry that Yoruba Muslims routinely contend within their own natal region on account of their faith, which I’ve known for years.”
“Unfortunately, Osibona died in the collapsed building, so we have no way of getting his own side of the story. Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem plausible that Sikiru, who didn’t even come across as a devout Muslim during his interview with AN 24, would just wake up and invent the encounter with Osibona. Plus, videos that have emerged of Osibona’s meretriciously outward displays of his Christianity and evangelical exhibitionism are consistent with Sikiru’s account of his encounter with him.
“I followed the social media conversations that Sikiru’s encounter with Osibona was triggered among Yoruba Muslims and came away with the distinct impression that many Yoruba Muslims are seething with frustration and deep-seated inferiority complex on account of their faith-based systematic exclusion and demonization, but they are grinning and bearing their fate in smoldering silence out of social pressure and anxieties about social ostracism. We call this the spectacle of the spiral of silence in communication theory.
“In their safe spaces, multiple Yoruba Muslims shared such similar anecdotal encounters of casual bigotry. They say they are habitually ridiculed for their faith, sneered at for their Muslim sartorial choices, alienated and rhetorically marginalized, and outrightly denied opportunities by people with whom they share the same ethnicity. Several of them are forced to convert to Christianity or hide their faith to fit in.”
Muslims relate similar ugly experiences
Relating with the Adebowale story, some other Muslims in Nigeria have shared their experiences with Muslim News.
Sanusi Abdullahi Abu Murshidah said, “Hmmm… I, together with a friend, experienced this in one of the Private (not a mission) Radio Stations in Ibadan after our outstanding performances during the interview. We both received a congratulatory message and were instructed to bring recommendation letters from the church we attend when they actually knew we are Muslims. That’s the reason I haven’t been working in the area of my expertise despite the great love and passion I have for the media. I’m doing what I’m not good at. Wallahu li musta’an!”
“It’s been the habit of the Christians since inception. I was made to understand that the likes of Baba Richard Akinjide and Baba Adisa Akinloye were Muslims, but they were later converted to Christianity before they could be admitted to schools then and some of their likes, but the reason I’m happy is that Islam is Allah’s religion. No matter how hard they try to extinguish Allah’s religion, the religion of Allah is still waxing stronger,” Adedapo Adeyinka Habeeb said.
According to Kamarudeen Lawal, “Prof’s presentation has been very apt and explicit in exposing the social relegation of Yoruba Muslims. In Qur’an 24, verse 55, Allah (SWT) says if the ummah should embark on the propagation of the deen in line with the Sunnah of our Prophet (PBUH), He would establish them and make the earth their stronghold.
“In Yoruba land, a wave of active propagation is the hallmark of Yoruba Christians and the more people hear, see and feel them, the more they embrace them. Muslim activists are up against one another on the ground of trivial differences in aqeedah. It’s a pathetic scenario. So, Prof., I won’t pass the blame on the Christian Yorubas. We should rather get our acts right. Many of us are incorrigible and unamenable to true guidance. Syncretism is the hallmark of many of our people.
“Three Muslim lawyers were supposed to emerge justices in a South Western state but were stylishly deprived and left to die in rapid succession before the positions were later filled by the Christian governor. The sole purpose of any ideology lies in the propagation machinery, but this is being downplayed by our generation. So we must stop blaming others for our inactions.”
Lack of unity, cause of discrimination
Some Muslim commentators attributed the discriminatory tendencies to disunity among the ummah, saying that it is the loophole the Christians have been riding on.
Also weighing in on the matter, Adeyemi Hamzat wrote: “How would Yoruba Muslims have a voice when we are not united? We call ourselves bad names such as Kafiri. Some set of Muslims will tell you it is not sunnatic to vote or to be voted for despite our population. But we complain about being marginalized. We allow Christians to rule us despite our population.”
