The Muslim-Muslim ticket prostitute and her Quran –

The News

Separating the Nigerian from his politics and religion is almost like a man trying to forcefully pull off a strand of hair from his moustache. It is akin to trying to prise off the glue that wedges Siamese twins together. Yoruba social worldview also offers an explanation of this difficulty. At a bandstand gig for Alhaji Danjuma, Kano-born wealthy entrepreneur of the 1970s, owner of the defunct Agege Cinema and a man known in the Lagos social circuit as Yaro Maikudi, late Apala music exponent, Ayinla Omowura, had explained  why he showered panegyrics on fans who decorated his forehead with crisp Naira notes. For Ayinla, spenders who forcefully retrieve themselves from this adhesive wedge relationship between money and its spender deserve appreciation. “Irun’mu l’owo o, ko sai han s’anybody pe ko ma se fa tu, eni na mi l’owo, ma s’aponle won,” he had explained.

Politics and religion in Nigeria share that incestuous relationship between the owner of a moustache and his strands of hair. They are barely separable. For politics and religion, the intimacy may be due to the many points of convergence that they share, as well as the complex relationship between them. What most fittingly explains that adhesive wedge relationship is a queer news item which came up last week. Three suspects were charged to court in Lagos for their role in the killing of a sex worker, Hannah Saliu in a Lagos suburb known as Alaba Rago, and setting her corpse ablaze thereafter. Her crime: She had the temerity to keep the Holy Quran in her room where she engaged in the illicit trade of prostitution. One of the suspects, who was her customer, had raised the alarm after an allegation of stealing which resulted in the search of Saliu’s room and the discovery of the holy book underneath her pillow.

Since the primaries of the two leading political parties in Nigeria, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) were concluded, resulting in the victory of a Northern and Southern Muslim as flag-bearers of the parties respectively, the issue of who would be their running mates has been on the front burner. While the PDP dilemma in this regard was more zonal than religious, it was easier for the party to pick a Christian candidate than it is for the APC. As we speak, passions have been inflamed, hats thrown into the ring in argument for each of the divides. Emotions are running at the highest Fahrenheit as well on why the APC flag-bearer must not commit the self immolation of picking a Muslim as his vice presidential candidate.

The Christian Association of Nigeria(CAN) then upped this dilemma. Itwarned the two presidential candidatesagainst picking running mates of their own religious persuasion, stating that doing so would amount to a disruption of and threat to Nigeria’s fragile peace.

“Any party that tries same religion ticket will fail. This is not 1993. Even when we have a joint Muslim/Christian ticket, the church still goes through hell. Only God knows the number of Christians that have been killed in the last seven years with no one apprehended or prosecuted. Imagine how bad it will be if we have two Muslims in power? The extant Nigerian Constitution promotes religious balance. So, if any political party wants to try Muslim/Muslim ticket, it’s at its own peril. CAN is only forewarning but will make a categorical statement in the event our warning is not heeded,” said Joseph Daramola, CAN National Secretary…