At the June 12 memorial a few weeks ago, Senator Shehu Sani took a bold stance to describe President Tinubu as a father of protesters; it’s a flower for their sacrifices during the pro-democracy struggles in the most dangerous time to be a government critic. This episode is a reminder for those who’ve made a transition from demanding essential public services from the government to being in charge of providing them, and it’s a necessary mirror for each of us.
Those of us who grew through the tradition of protests are not allowed to sit out the discourse of that democratic tool as incompatible with Islamic values, for that would be the height of hypocrisy. We never dreaded the threats of a crackdown by the government nor adhered to the perception of the process as proscribed in Islamic doctrine.
What I, however, find distressing is this conspiratorial attempt to paint Muslim clerics in the North as hypocrites for declaring that protests have no place in Islam. I believe this is absolutely unfair because that was their mainstream stance even when we were on the streets protesting as unaligned citizens carrying out their basic civic responsibilities. The clerics were harsh on us, so much so that if you were not standing on principle, you would’ve believed you were bound for hellfire.
I am sharing this bit of history not to question the legitimacy of your anger but to disabuse the minds that believe our clerics were paid to take this position. Any Muslim who has been active in demonstrating their grievances through protests across past governments knows very well that our clerics have been consistent in their opposition to protests. In fact, some of the characters maligning them here are notorious for parroting their “fatwas” to demonise protesters.
So, it’s not the clerics who changed, it’s you who changed, having suddenly realised the utility of an activity for which you once mocked others. It’s you who should stand before the mirror and ask yourself a thousand and one questions to understand why you think protest was Haram yesterday and halal today. It’s you who owe the clerics an apology for standing with them once and making a U-turn now. Not the other way round.
If you are going to accuse your clerics of something as grave as selling their conscience to the government for money, the least you can do is provide evidence of such deals. But fabricating shoddy screenshots of such transactions to malign your cleric is a burden you are going to explain one day.
