Political pundits believe that urging congregants to choose leaders based on religion may not be the best for Nigeria.
CLAIM: Earlier this year, a viral tweet stated that a northern Imam, Muhammad Bn Uthman, referred to the killings of Christians in Southern Kaduna as "taming the infidels." Another user of the microblogging service also shared that the cleric said all Christians should be removed from power in Nigeria.
VERDICT: DUBAWA found these tweets misleading and false, as there was no evidence to back up the claims of the Twitter users.
Full Text
On January 4, a Twitter user, an adherent of Peter Obi's political movement, quoted a popular Islamic preacher, Shaykh Muhammad Bn Uthman, to have described the terror attacks on the people of Southern Kaduna, who are predominantly Christians as "taming the infidels."
"A northern Imam refers to the killings in Southern Kaduna as 'taming the infidels'," OyinD (@Oyinkitana), a Twitter user with over 11,000 followers, said. His tweet had over 1,000 likes and 912 retweets, while hundreds of users of the microblogging and networking service viewed it.
The social media influencer used the picture of Mr Uthman -- culled from a trending short video of the Imam -- as evidence of the claim. "Imagine what a Muslim-Muslim ticket will do to Christians in Nigeria," he added, urging his audience to "dey play dey go" -- a local sarcastic manner of asking someone to be watchful or vigilant.
Expectedly, several Twitter users who would not verify his claim expressed their views; most of them poured out their resentment over the disturbing statement attributed to the cleric. "So northern Christians from southern Kaduna are the infidels... " said Opeyemi Tunde (@Opeyemi_Tunde1), corroborating OyinD (@Oyinkitana's claim). "We must stop this Muslim-Muslim ticket before it consumes us all."
'All Christians must be removed from power?'
In a similar viral tweet by yet another Twitter influencer with over 76,000 followers, Demagogue (@von_Bismack), attributed a quote to the same Imam, stating he asked that all Christians be removed from power. "All moslems should vote for the Moslem-Moslem ticket. Christians should be removed from every govt in nig; it took the servant of God, Elrufai, in Kaduna state to tame the infidels in the state [sic]," the Twitter influencer claimed, reiterating that "Shaykh Muhammad Bn Uthman Kano" said this "while endorsing Tinubu's Moslem-Moslem ticket."
Again, this post had over 2,000 retweets and over 200,000 views, with hundreds of reactions from other Twitter users, who corroborated the claim with no factual interrogations.
The Twitter user continued, "This is a popular cleric endorsing the ethnic cleansing ongoing in Kaduna state while urging Moslems to make sure that no Christian attains any elective position in Nigeria."
Verification
Both OyinD (@Oyinkitana) and Demagogue (@von_Bismack) referred to a short video that featured the cleric speaking in the Hausa language as evidence of the disturbing assertions attributed to him. All other blogs that also disseminated the claim on the internet, including Nairaland, relied solely on the short video as the source of their information.
However, the acclaimed 1:29 minutes clip was reviewed and analysed by three independent professional Hausa translators and native speakers. All the translators consulted for this fact-check report agreed on the following transcription and translation of the video clip:
"Any of them with a Muslim-Muslim ticket is the one I should campaign for. I am not after anybody or anything. No aspirant will work for Islam. None. Even in Kaduna, God had to use a governor to tame the excesses of the nonbelievers in this state. But for you to keep shouting 'justice." Do they extend justice to you? Do they hide their disdain from you?
"I told the Gombe people. The total number of local governments belonging to non-believers is three. But you gave them Deputy Governor. In Plateau (state), we have many Muslims, but we were denied.
"Malam, do you know justice? You are ignorant; you don't even know justice. You don't even know the concept of justice. So, this is transformation. Go and vote wisely for transformation. Any political juggernaut has to fulfil a certain or ten-point agenda; we need security, food production, quality education, job opportunities, shelters for the citizens and healthcare delivery system, a nonepileptic power supply, and good water."
Unfortunately, both the first and second claimants took the lines of the cleric completely out of context, said the language experts contacted for this report. Mr Uthman, being an Islamic leader, was giving his congregants reasons they should vote and campaign for any political party with a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
Additional context
Since the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, picked Kashim Shettima, a Muslim from Borno, as his running mate for the forthcoming election contest, many Nigerians, especially non-Muslims have accused him of planning to Islamise the country, a phenomenon that stirred controversies on several occasions. Following the development, many religious leaders have been canvassing for or against the Muslim-Muslim ticket.
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In Kaduna, where the Kano preacher made the statements that are now taken out of context, the current governor of the state, Nasir El-Rufai, had won the 2019 governorship election using a Muslim-Muslim ticket. Some of the state's citizens believe his choice of deputy aggravated the tribal and religious crises battling the state.
"There is no place in the quoted video where the speaker endorsed the killings of southern Kaduna Christians," said Abdulrahman Yahya, a Hausa translator and linguist in Sokoto. Other linguists and translators contacted for this story corroborated his verdict. "And the cleric did not say Christians should be removed from power in Nigeria. That's completely outrageous."
Conclusion
Although political pundits believe that urging congregants to choose leaders based on religion may not be the best, the Islamic cleric has not, in any contextual interpretations, described the killings of Christians of southern Kaduna as "taming the infidels." He has also not proclaimed in the video that all Christians should be removed from government. The claims are, therefore, misleading.
The researcher produced this fact-check per the Dubawa 2023 Kwame Karikari Fellowship partnership with Premium Times to facilitate the ethos of truth in journalism and enhance media literacy in the country.
