By Sola Isola
Myles Munroe, the world renown Bahamian Evangelist once said, “when the purpose of a thing is unknown, abuse is inevitable”.
This is the only conclusion I came to when I saw the release by Prof Ishaq Akintola of Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) accusing the Osun state Governor, Senator Ademola Adeleke of favouring Christians more than Muslims in the commissioner-nominees list.
MURIC according to its website says its an Islamic human rights organization, and then added that it is peace-loving, law-abiding and dialogue-prone but how does a peace loving organization take steps that can create religious crisis in the state.
To start with, the name was announced on Friday, it is impossible for anyone to come to that conclusion by just scanning through the list, except if they are all known to MURIC in person, MURIC can not tell if anyone is not a muslim because they do not have a muslim name.
Is MURIC in possession of the register of all muslims in the country so that it is able to decipher who is a muslim and who is not?
The motto of MURIC is “dialogue, not violence” but MURIC goes further to accuse Governor Adeleke of being a secret agent of the Christian Association of Nigeria, I do not know what sort of dialogue that is supposed to sprout, if not violence.
On the 12th of June, 2023, the President, Osun Muslim Community, said in a press conference that “Osun State Muslim Community notes with displeasure, the position expressed by the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) which is based on complete misinformation on the person of His Excellency, The Governor of Osun State, Senator Nurudeen Ademola Adeleke.
“We wish to affirm without fear of contradiction that our Governor is a Muslim and no one has any right to think otherwise of someone who pronounces the Kalimah and never denies the faith in the belief of oneness and supremacy of Allah.”
This is enough to say that the Muslim community in Osun have an understanding with Governor Adeleke and its obviously rancour free.
I listened to a radio program this morning and one of the callers said, “we are brothers in Osun, they should leave us alone” and I couldn’t agree less or why would anyone want to create confusion where none exists.
So I ask, what exactly is the vision of MURIC, is it to attack the Christian community or to incite the Muslim community against the Christian community?
MURIC now goes ahead to call out some muslims who it didn’t name as “selfish Muslims”, claiming they are helping Governor Adeleke to oppress Osun Muslims, isn’t this the same Muslims whom MURIC has claimed to be fighting for?
Its important to ask MURIC is what exactly does MURIC stand for?
Build up to the 2018 Governorship Election, MURIC had accused Governor Adeleke, who then the PDP candidate of plans to return missions schools to their owners if elected Governor, the election went the way it went before Governor Adeleke eventually got sworn in as Governor in November 2022.
Its been almost 8 months since Governor Adeleke has taken over the mantle of leadership in Osun state and nothing of such has happened, is MURIC a tool in the hand of God-knows-who or the hatred really is for Governor Adeleke?
