My response to an open letter addressed to Sheikh Yahaya Jingir, which questioned the essence of Muslims occupying political offices while Muslims remain hungry, deprived of their rights and allegedly unable to freely practise their religion, is that the debate must go beyond who occupies political office.f
A friend, Sina Fasakin, recently sent me a copy of the open letter, prompting me to reflect on a question that Muslims and Christians alike ought to ask: What exactly is the meaning and benefit of a Muslim-Muslim ticket in a country as religiously diverse as Nigeria if it does not translate into justice, good governance, security, prosperity and freedom of worship for all citizens?
Nigeria is a country where Muslims and Christians constitute the overwhelming majority of the population. Therefore, the objective of political leadership should not be to create a system in which one religious group feels triumphant over another. Rather, leadership should be about justice, equity, security, economic opportunity and respect for the rights of every citizen, irrespective of religion or ethnicity.
Muslim or Christian Leadership Must Not Become a Substitute for Good Governance
The question we have repeatedly asked is this: When did we begin to allow a politician who may only strongly identify with Islam during an election season—and who may not even be able to recite Al-Fatihah properly—to determine how Muslims should understand or practise their faith?
The issue is not whether a politician in power is Muslim or Christian. The real issue is whether that politician governs with justice.
There are Christians who argue that Christians are numerically stronger and can defeat Muslims electorally whenever they choose. But the appropriate response to such a claim is not necessarily to insist on a Muslim-Muslim ticket. The stronger response is to demonstrate that a Muslim-led administration can govern justly and fairly, protect the rights of Christians and Muslims alike, and create an environment in which nobody is discriminated against because of his or her faith.
Likewise, a Christian-led administration should be judged by the same standard.
The Fourth Republic began with Christian-led administrations, during which Muslims in some parts of the country experienced serious discrimination. In Jos, Plateau State, and its environs, thousands of Muslims were killed or displaced in successive episodes of ethno-religious violence, while in parts of the South-West, Muslims complained of discrimination in employment, education and access to quality healthcare.
It was against experiences such as these that the thought began to gain ground among some Muslims that if Muslims occupied political offices, perhaps their lives, fundamental human rights and freedom of religion would be better protected.
But was the condition of Muslims, particularly in the South-West, significantly better simply because a Muslim, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, succeeded to the presidency?
As president, Yar’Adua faced the enormous responsibilities of governing the entire country, yet many of the complaints about discrimination against Muslims remained unresolved. Whenever the issue of discrimination against Muslims in the South is raised, the counterargument is often: “What about the North?”
But the situation in the North should not automatically be described as discrimination against Christians merely because Muslims constitute the dominant population there. Demographic and religious dominance, by themselves, do not constitute discrimination.
The argument would be more compelling if, for example, Christian female students were systematically forced to wear hijab in public schools; if Christian women were denied quality healthcare in public hospitals because of their faith; if Christians were routinely denied employment because they were Christians; or if churches were deliberately demolished to obstruct Christians from practising their religion.
That is not the standard by which religious discrimination should be measured.
Even in situations of religious crisis in the North, including incidents arising from provocations and reprisals, Muslim leaders have at various times intervened to protect Christian communities and appeal for restraint. There have also been instances in which Christians who suffered losses were compensated or assisted.
The contrast is that Muslims in some parts of the South, particularly in the South-West and Jos, have often complained that when they suffer destruction of lives and property, political authorities have not responded with the same urgency or attention.
Even today, we sometimes hear more about the reprisals than about the original incidents that triggered them. Yet, as the saying goes, when there is smoke, it is important to investigate the fire that produced it.
Experiences such as these naturally contributed to the desire among some Muslims to see Muslims occupy political offices, in the hope that their rights, security, welfare and freedom of religious practice would receive greater protection.
Examples of Muslim Leaders Protecting Christians
Some people conveniently forget examples in which Muslim individuals and leaders have protected Christians at great personal risk.
They forget the widely reported case of Imam Abubakar Abdullahi, who sheltered hundreds of Christians in his mosque and home during violence in Plateau State, thereby helping to save them from being killed.
They forget that, following the destruction of a church in Kano, the then Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, was involved in efforts that led to the rebuilding of the church and its return to the Christian community.
They also forget the longstanding tradition of the Sultanate of Sokoto of accommodating different communities living within and around the traditional domain.
When Deborah Yakubu was killed in Sokoto in May 2022 after an incident involving an alleged blasphemous statement, the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, was among the prominent Muslim leaders who condemned the killing and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. The Sultan’s position was consistent with the principle that no one should take the law into his or her own hands.
Yet, instead of remembering these examples of Muslim intervention to protect Christians and promote peaceful coexistence, some voices have gone as far as appealing to foreign powers, particularly the United States, to intervene against the Sultanate of Sokoto, which remains an important institution of Islamic traditional leadership in Nigeria.
There have also been attempts to portray terrorism in Northern Nigeria, including the atrocities committed by Boko Haram and other terrorist organisations, as part of an Islamic agenda to eliminate Christians from Nigeria.
That argument ignores the fact that Muslim communities have themselves suffered enormously from terrorism in Northern Nigeria. Many of the victims of Boko Haram’s violence have been Muslims, including Muslim clerics, traditional rulers, farmers, traders, students and entire communities.
Terrorism should therefore be confronted as terrorism, rather than being presented as the collective agenda of an entire religion.
The Muslim-Muslim Presidency Has Not Automatically Solved the Problem
Interestingly, many of these questions have remained relevant even under the current Muslim-Muslim presidency.
This is precisely why the debate has evolved. Many Muslims who once believed that having Muslims in power would automatically guarantee the protection of their interests have discovered that political identity alone cannot deliver justice.
What Muslims ultimately need is not merely Muslim-Muslim leadership, but leadership that guarantees peace, unity, security, social justice, religious freedom and equal citizenship for all Nigerians.
A Muslim should not have to be hungry, unemployed, insecure or denied his religious rights simply because the government is led by a Christian. In the same way, a Christian should not suffer discrimination because a Muslim is in power.
What Nigeria desperately needs is leadership that makes citizens understand that religion should not be used as a weapon for dividing the country, just as ethnicity should not be used as a weapon for political mobilisation.
Muslim-Muslim, Christian-Christian Tickets Are Not New
It is also important to put the present debate into historical context.
If Chief Obafemi Awolowo had won election as president of Nigeria in the Second Republic, the case of Nigeria would have been of Christian-Christian ticket presidency because he pursued the idea of such politico-religiously joint ticket arrangement. Earlier before that, the General Yakubu Gowon regime Awolowo served as Federal Commissioner for Finance (Minister of Finance), the military class that had largely Muslim officers agreed on Christian-Christian as Gowon’s deputy was a Christian.
Muslim-Muslim ticket, likewise, did not begin with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Nigeria has experienced similar arrangements at different points in its political history. But, those were days when Nigeria were for Nigerians and not for the politicians whose self interests only matter in their political ideology as we currently experience in the present day country.
Under General Muhammadu Buhari’s military administration, the Buhari-Idiagbon leadership represented a Muslim-Muslim configuration. Yet Nigeria did not collapse because of it.
The most significant democratic example before the present era was the 1993 presidential election, in which Chief M.K.O. Abiola and Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, both Muslims, contested on the Social Democratic Party ticket. Their ticket received substantial support from Muslims and Christians across the country. Recall it was the Awolowo’s Christian-Christian ticket administration of Western Region that created the idea of Muslim Pilgrims Board to manage Muslims travels and performance of their Islamic rites Hajj exercise in the Holy Lands of Makkah and Madinah.
Those periods demonstrated something important: Nigerians could vote across religious lines when political identity was not reduced to religious competition.
The Problem Is Not Muslim-Muslim; It Is the Quality of Leadership
Therefore, the central issue should not simply be whether a government is Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian. The question should be: What kind of government is it?
A Muslim-Muslim administration that promotes justice, protects religious freedom, secures lives and property, reduces poverty and gives every citizen a sense of belonging deserves support from Muslims and Christians alike.
Conversely, a Muslim-Muslim administration that fails to provide security, permits injustice, tolerates discrimination or leaves its citizens in poverty cannot claim moral legitimacy merely because both its principal officers are Muslims.
The same principle applies to a Christian-Christian or Christian-led government.
Religion must not become a political certificate that automatically grants leaders the loyalty of their religious followers.
Nigeria Needs Leaders Who Govern for Nigerians
The tragedy of contemporary Nigerian politics is that politicians have increasingly politicised almost everything—including religion, ethnicity and even the common sense of citizens.
Political leaders should not be allowed to manipulate Muslims into believing that voting for a Muslim automatically means voting for Islam. Nor should Christians be persuaded that supporting a Christian politician automatically means defending Christianity.
Islam is bigger than any politician. Christianity is bigger than any politician. Nigeria is bigger than any political party.
The responsibility of Muslims is therefore to demand justice from Muslim leaders just as they would from Christian leaders. Muslims should be able to criticise a Muslim government without being accused of working against Islam. Similarly, Christians should be able to criticise a Christian government without being accused of attacking Christianity.
That, in my view, is the essence of responsible citizenship.
The open letter to Sheikh Yahaya Jingir raises a legitimate question about the condition of Muslims despite the presence of Muslims in positions of authority. But the answer should not simply be another argument about the superiority of a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
The real measure of Muslim political leadership is not the number of Muslims occupying offices. It is the justice they deliver, the rights they protect, the hunger they alleviate, the insecurity they defeat and the dignity they restore to the people.
If Muslims occupy the highest offices in the land but ordinary Muslims remain hungry, insecure and unable to enjoy their lawful religious rights, then Muslims must have the courage to ask their leaders difficult questions.
And if Christians occupy political offices and Christians suffer similar conditions, Christians must equally hold their leaders accountable.
Nigeria does not need leaders who merely wear the identity of a religion during elections. Nigeria needs leaders who understand justice—and justice is a principle that belongs to humanity, not to one religion.
*Adefaka, a prince of two Ondo State kingdoms, is Nigeria-based media proprietor and publisher of The DEFENDER Newspaper. Reach him via his email: omope72@gmail.com
