By Pascal Chimezie
About a week ago, an online medium published what many had thought to be a “baseless and unverified report” about the Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isah Aliyu Ibrahim Pantami.
The report claimed that the Minister had been placed on the US terror watch-list over his alleged links to jihadist terrorist organization and ties with former Boko Haram leader, Muhammed Yusuf.
The Minister came out very strongly to deny the allegation, threatening that “major publishers will meet my lawyers in the court on this defamation of character.”
But the law, it is often said, is an ass. It can be obstinate, stupid and asinine! It’s not easy to ride smoothly successfully sometimes.
One thing about the law of defamation is that you will have to prove your character first. He who comes to equity must come with clean hands. Secondly, law of defamation defers to truth, because truth is sacred and inviolable. Isah Pantami should know that Nigerians cannot be intimidated by threats of law suit to abandon asking relevant questions.
In his Twitter handle, the Minister said, “My lectures against the doctrines and all other evil people have been available for over 15 years, including debates that endangered my life against many criminals in Nigeria. If you can’t understand Hausa, get an objective Hausa speaker to translate for you objectively.”
Trust the ever vibrant and irrepressible Nigerian media. They took up the challenge, and went beyond the 15 suggested years by Dr. Isah Aliyu Ibrahim Pantami, down to his early days in school, to his sojourn to various institutions of learning within and outside Nigeria, to his religious and public life, including his preachings and teachings as Islamic scholar, to unearth some damning evidence of a radical jihadist disposition of a man, variously known and addressed as “Dr Isa Pantami,” “Sheikh Ali Ibrahim,” and “Shaykh Isa Ali Pantami.”
The Minister has further alleged that some forces were against him because of his insistence on implementing the National Identification Number (NIN) policy, claiming that those linking him with terrorism were those who didn’t want the NIN policy to be implemented because of their criminal activities. This, to say the least, is diversionary. What has NIN policy got to do with his unsettling activity in 2000 -2011? Besides, the Minister has refused to name those he claimed to be sponsoring the allegations against him.
With due respect, the Honourable Minister needs to answer to these weighty allegations. The evidence is overwhelming. Wrecking up his controversial NIN policy to divert attention is like leaving the substance to chase shadows. It will not work. He needs to come clean on these allegations.
Isah Pantami should be made to shed more lights on his public lecture delivered on September 12, 2006 in Bauchi State, titled “Suwaye Yan Taliban” (“Who Are The Taliban”); the recording of which is available on the Nigerian Islamic community website DawahNigeria.com.
He should also clarify his incendiary utterances in his pure Salafi doctrinal teachings in 2000s as captured in audios.
Did Isah Pantami actually said,
“We are all happy whenever unbelievers are being killed. But the Sharia does not allow us to kill them without a reason. Our zeal (hamasa) should not take precedence over our obedience to the sacred law”?
The Minister was alleged to have said this in a three audio recordings of his teachings, when he reacted to deadly operations of the then Al Qaeda and Taliban elements.
Did Isah Pantami also actually lectured on the establishment in Nigeria of an overall Islamic leadership similar to that of Mullah Omar’s Afghanistan, as prelude to successful jihadism in Nigeria?
These are very weighty allegations which must not be allowed to go uninvestigated.
We are very unfortunate to face with tripple jeopardies in this matter.
One is that public officers in Nigeria are not known to have voluntarily resigned from office whenever their often acclaimed reputation is at stake. Otherwise, the minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isah Aliyu Ibrahim Pantami, would have done the needful, honourably.
Two is that the President Muhammadu Buhari does not have the reputation of sacking his ministers whose deeds or misdeeds have generated public outcry and condemnation. Otherwise, he shouldn’t have waited up to this time without showing the minister the exit door.
Three, and this is the most saddening and disheartening aspect of it, all the relevant government security agencies, especially the Department of State Services (DSS), which are supposed to have conducted diligent investigations, even before the appointment and confirmation, as minister, by the President and the Senate, respectively have clearly shown that they failed in their duties. Even now, they appear to be nowhere to be found!
How is it that Isah Pantami was appointed and confirmed as a member of the federal cabinet without anyone digging into his past? Or is it that this information is well known to the authorities, but they chose to ignore? Is Dr. Isah Pantanmi being deliberately and strategically positioned for a purpose?
This is what a people get when corruption, nepotism, sectionalism, religious bigotry and ethnic irredentism defined their political leadership.
Here is a man who is charged with the biometric data of over 200 million Nigerians, and has been threatening that those who failed to obtain their national identification number (NIN) risked between seven and 14 years imprisonment! Such a man, like Ceasar’s wife, should be unimpeachable in character, Nigerians wouldn’t like their bio-data to fall into the wrong hands.
In 2012, former President Goodluck Jonathan admitted that members of the extremist boko haram sect had infiltrated his government, planting its members in government agencies and security.
Fast forward to 2021, under President Muhammadu Buhari regime. Security has worsened across all regions. And we hear stories everyday about powerful people behind banditry, kidnappings and insurgency, but we never get to know who they really are.
Both federal and state governments, including the ruling APC and the opposition party (PDP) have continually shifted bucks on those collaborating and sponsoring insecurity in Nigeria.
The APC had accused a certain governor from the North-west of colluding with criminals to cause violence in the region.
In the same token, the former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr Obadiah Mailafia, disclosed that some repentant terrorists had named a serving Northern governor as the commander of the Boko Haram sect.
Dr. Malaifa was immediately invited by the DSS in Jos, Plateau state capital, for “questioning.” Since then, nothing was heard of the outcome of the DSS investigation.
Gov. Bello Matawalle of Zamfara state, whose pastime it is to pay “bandits” to stop killing, has repeatedly told Nigerians that those collaborating with the bandits are “powerful people.”
Although we must give it to the governor for having the courage to remove the Emir of Maru, Abubakar Chika and the district head of Kanoma, Lawal Ahmed, for allegedly giving support to bandits behind hundreds of deaths in Zamfara state.
What all this seems to boil down to is that the intractable insecurity in Nigeria is being fuelled by powerful people in very strategic positions of leadership. And it is a big challenge to our security agencies to unmask these sabotuers and criminals and bring them to justice.
- NB: Comrade Pascal Chimezie, a former Secretary General, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Ikeja-Lagos, writes from Lagos.
