In Nigeria recently, there have been killings in the Northern part of the country by the terrorist group called Boko Haram. The groups have killed civilians, military men in the country. They have kidnapped young girls, set bombs in churches and caused much havoc in Nigeria, giving it a bad reputation around the world, aside from the fraudulent activities it used to be known for.
The thought of some young men going around and killing people, kidnapping young girls is one of the issues in Nigeria I can quite wrap my head around, I ask if these terrorist groups have no conscience, and I have been curious about their motivation, but the same thing is re-echoed to me, "They are looking to build an Islamic empire promised in the Quran". The same thing with ISIS, it sounds like a brainwash by some psychopaths that have his way to teach the youth complete nonsense.
The killing of Christians, or kidnapping of young kids or blowing up parks should not be a pre-requisite to achieve this aim, any god that had whispered these ideas into the Muslim teacher's ears is not worthy of worship, and should be hanged.
The US President Donald Trump has called Islam a radical religion, and the followers are not the enemy of the United States. Muslim scholars and teachers have read the Quran, and have twisted its meanings to the followers, it is either this is the basic reasons for senseless motivations of the killings, or just a bunch of crazies roaming the land.
Growing up in a small community in Lagos state in Nigeria, there is a Muslim preacher called Alfa Akodo, he is well known, and very popular in the Epe axis of Lagos state. He was not popular for healing the sick, or popular for healing the deaf, or popular for his captivating preachings, but instead he was well known for preaching hate messages. Alfa Akodo was a nasty preacher of the Islamic faith, though he is being called a hero and still remembered by the people in the Epe community, but he is not any of this, but a man of low IQ. I have listened to him because he does outdoor outreach especially during Ramadans, and all he talked about his the stupidity of Christians, he attacked different Christian denominations, he would talk about the way they dance, how they bible is misleading, and why a particular denomination won't wear shoes to church. He would attack Christmas celebration and warn his followers to throw away gifts or food shared on this day as it is idol food. He also would warn against wishing Christians "Merry Christmas".
Alfa Akodo does not preach peace of unity in the Epe community, he was a bigot that preaches hate only messages. When Akodo is not talking about Christians and their religion, he attacks the traditional worshippers in the Epe community, a town known for his traditional worshippers and festivals. While the Christian would walk by Akodo, the traditional worshippers warned and reported him. He disobeyed their warnings every time, and would even want to start fighting with them physically.
Alfa Akodo was killed on March 9, 2003 by traditionalist who won't take anymore of his deadly messages and attacks on their religion and members.
When normal people want segregation from their country, they call for a referendum, when ISIS wanted to leave Syria, he went into rebellion. And the way to recruit armies to help him fight his Islamic fantasy country is confuse young Muslims that Allah wants them to create their own country, a country with Islamic rule of law, and freedom. He called it Jihad, and a promise of 99 virgins to Muslims that dies on the battlefield fighting for Jihad. His God failed him already, and he is wanted by different military officials and will face the wrath of law if caught, or suffer same fate like Osama Bin-Laden.
I have tried to listen to different Muslim teachings in the past to be able to understand what is being taught in that world, at some point, I had picked a preacher I often listened to, and he went on to attack Christianity, dedicating another 30mins, using words like "Kafir" to describe Christians, and he told his followers Kafir will die, and Muslims should be happy they are in a good religion, and will be saved during the last days.
I stopped listening to his man, but what happened to the young boys and girls that continues to listen to this man, and his attack on Christians?
Boko Haram
A group started by Mohammed Yusuf in 2002. When the group was created, there is definitely some teaching he had said about the government or Christians, because one of the goals of the group was to make sure children don't go to school, because they believed school is a sin that will teach kids the way of the Western world, and not teach them how to kidnap, rape or kill people. When security officials get to know about the plans of Yusuf, he was arrested and would later die in Prison. When the leader of the group was killed by the police due to increasing radicalisation in the country by his followers, power was transferred to Abubakar Shekau, leading the group that killed around 6,600 people in 2014. 2.3 Million has been displaced in the Boko Haram conflicts, and over 250,000 people have fled the country due to the violence in the Northern part of the country.
It has shown that the only thing Yusuf was teaching his followers was "an eye for an eye". If a death of a man killed 6,600 people alone in 2014, and also kidnapped 276 school girls that were later married away to their followers. These are girls that are under 18 years old writing their School Certification Exam.
The Shiites
There has been reports about the government treatment of Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky in the media, with some calling for the release of Ibrahim to his followers. Instead, the Nigerian Army has not reply any of the calls, and had instead battle with the followers of Ibrahim which led to the killing of 348 Shiites in 2015.
Who is Ibrahim Zakzaky? He is a man that was well known for his harsh comment on the Nigerian system. He had called the Nigerian army and policemen different names, and had asked that is followers in one of his videos which was in the Hausa language to kill any military personnel that wanders into their area of worship or near him, he asked for their trucks to be blown apart. Zakzaky and his followers do not believe in Nigeria, they also do not vote or follow laws in Nigeria, they have pledged allegiance to the brotherhood in Iran, and have received donation from Iran.
Iran was also the only country that had sent word to the Nigerian government to release Zakzaky from prosecution, though the pleas went on deaf ears.
The fast response from the current government is to prevent a coming together of another Islamic radicals like Boko-haram into the country, a re-occurrence of the Boko-haram menance.
Random Islamic Preacher
Why Abubakar Shekau and Zakzaky might have made it to the news, what about preachers like Alfa Akodo, also some preachers in different communities with hate speech. A recent tweet by Rere Ayodele(@therereayodele) is a sample of this. The Muslim Association Of Nigeria, ibadan had invited young children on Christmas day to camp just to lure them away from celebrating Christmas.
Read the tweets and you can come up with your judgement.
Solution
1 -The government will need to step up in eradicating the hate preachers from the Nigerian society. Though, allowing the government to interfere with religion in a country might seems far-fetched in a democracy, but in my opinion in curbing the senseless uprising of hate preachers, a little help from government or putting together government body that will stamp out the hate preachers is necessary.
2- The Nigerian government will need to run a campaign that will reach the hearts of Muslims in Nigeria to call their leader into the sensible world, or report to the nearest police with evidence of any preacher calling for the bombing and killing of others because they are not part of a particular religion.
3- Thorough investigations needs to be conducted that will help block foreign government of groups that donates to the cause of groups that preach hate or disobeyed the government of a country, while pledging allegiance to foreign government.
4- Islamic group leaders and organisation that does not align with the sermons of these preachers should call them to order, because when the issues becomes rampant, everybody will be affected, including the good and good leaders.