Deborah Yakubu: Our Deja Vu

Deborah Yakubu: Our Deja Vu

DURING the late1970s and early 1980s, there were the Maitatsine  and Yan Tatsine uprisings, leading to several thousand deaths. In October 1982, Muslim zealots prevented the expansion of the Anglican Church house which was built before a nearby mosque  was built. In 1986, a Muslim-Christian riot that  started in College of Education, Kafanchan later spread to the whole town and neighbouring villages. Houses, mosques, churches were burnt and many people died. In 1991, the late German evangelist, Reinhard Bonnke was to hold a crusade in Kano but was stopped after about a dozen people died in the  ensuing religious riot. In 1995, Gideon Akaluka, a young Igbo trader, was  beheaded in Kano for an alleged blasphemy. Up till today, the  alleged perpetrators are walking free and even became VIPs. On 14 July 1999, in the village of Randali in Kebbi State, a Muslim mob beheaded one Abdullabi Umaru. The mob accused him of blasphemy  against  Prophet Mohammad. In 2000 and 2001, riots in Abuja and Jos between Christians and Muslims about the  appointment of a Muslim politician, Alhaji Muktar Mohammed as a local coordinator of the  Federal Programme to fight poverty led to a mass riot in the  two cities. In October 2001, another religious riot occurred in Kano over the implementation of Sharia law where more than 100 people were killed. On 20 November 2002, a Nigerian journalist, Isioma Daniel wrote an article in ThisDay newspaper about the 2002 Miss World that was to be hosted by Nigeria. The  article was deemed insulting to Prophet Mohammad. The violence that happened left more than 250 people dead in its wake. The beauty contest was moved from Abuja to London and a fatwa was placed on Isioma Daniel. The rest of the 2000s decade saw repeated inter-religious violence in Jos and Kaduna.

On September 30, 2005, the reaction to Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons crisis began after the  Danish newspaper published 12 editorial cartoons considered offensive to Muslims. This led to violent demonstrations in the world, especially Nigeria. There were clashes between rioters and police that claimed several lives up to a hundred. This led to reprisal attacks in Southern Nigeria, especially in Onitsha. In February 2006 in Bauchi, Florence Chukwu, a Christian teacher, confiscated a copy of a Quran from a pupil who was reading it during  an English language lesson. The incident provoked rioting by Muslims. The  riot killed more than  20 Christians and destroyed two churches. On 21 March 2007, a mob of Muslim students and neighbourhood extremists beat to death Christianah Oluwatoyin Oluwasesin, a mother of two from Ekiti State and a teacher at Government  Secondary School of Gandu, Gombe. A student complained that Oluwasesin, a Christian, had touched a bag which allegedly contained a Quran, and had thereby defiled the  Quran. On September 28, 2007, a Muslim mob rioted at Tudun Wada in Kano State. The mob killed nine Christians, burned several churches, and destroyed the homes and businesses of some non-Muslims. The Muslims complained that Christian students had drawn a picture of Prophet Muhammad. The Christians reported that the violence erupted after they had prevented one of their  own from converting to Islam. On  February 4,  2008, a Muslim mob besieged a police station and set it on fire in the city of Yano in Bauchi State. A Christian woman, who spurned a marriage proposal of a Muslim man took refuge in the police station. She was also accused of desecrating the Quran. In the  ensuing snafus, five churches were set alight by Muslims, Christian shops were torched and policemen’s homes were attacked.

On  February 9 2008, a Muslim mob rioted in the town of Sumaila in Kano State. The mob acted upon an alleged distribution  of a leaflet deemed to have slandered Prophet Muhammad. The mob killed a Christian police inspector and two civilians, and wounded 20 others. The fundamentalists set vehicles and the police station ablaze. On April 20 2008, Muslim rioters in the  city of Kano burned the shops and vehicles of Christian merchants after one was alleged to have disparaged prophet Mohammed. On August 9, 2008, a Muslim mob in Kano State beat to death a 50-year-old Muslim man who blasphemed prophet Mohammed. From 2009 till date, Boko Haram has fought a fratricidal war in the country and many people considered enemies  of the version of Islam being propagated were killed. On June 19 2009, A Muslim mob in the town of Sara in Jigawa State burned a police outpost and injured about 12 people over an alleged blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad. The mob complained  that someone was distributing  blasphemous  pamphlets and it demanded that the police give up a mad man who had sought refuge  at the police outpost. On July 9 2016, A 42-year old mother of seven children, Mrs Eunice  Elisha, was murdered  for alleged evangelism around Gbazango-West area of Kubwa, a satellite town in the Federal Capital Territory. On August 10 2020, a  Kano State Shariah Court pronounced the sentencing of two perceived blasphemers. Yahaya Sharif, aged 22 years, was sentenced to death by hanging  for the offence of blasphemy against the prophet in his song which was circulated on Whatsapp in March 2020. His family home was burnt. Omar Farouq, aged 13 years, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for blasphemy.

In the aftermath of the gruesome killing of Miss Deborah Yakubu by some depraved beastly goons and religious fanatics at the College of Education, Sokoto State, on Thursday May 12 2022, the  nation has, once again been plunged into another dark abyss of religious upheavals which have been a recurrent decimal in the annals of our chequered history. It was another sombre day in our unenviable recording of needless, horror-stricken deaths arising from ethno-religious intolerance, perfidy and rabid insensitivity that appallingly lent credence to the cheapness of human lives  in our perilous enclave.

The usual avalanche of rhetorics of condemnation and bland promises of “fishing out the perpetrators” trailed the dastardly act from our theocratic monarchs, government officials at all levels and many people across the geopolitical and religious divides. Before long, the whole story will be consigned into the dustbin of history while the ever-insatiable blood-lusting fetid maggots—sweeping into our terrains with unabashed hauteur—will be targeting their next unsuspecting victims. The knee-jerk reflexes since this latest murder only showed many Nigerians as nothing but mawkish crybabies not interested in laying to eternal rest the roving ghost of murders from religious fanaticism.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We have trod this inglorious and famished path many times as a people but the antidotes to this malady remains  a mirage. No lessons have been learnt from the previous incidences of religious riots and attendant needless deaths and therefore, the savages are increasingly more emboldened to commit more heinous crimes against their victims, now and in the future. The fungating sore of religious bigotry keeps festering, unfortunately to our detriment as a people.

The insensate ferocity of mayhem and the frighteningly-low threshold to kill and maim in the name of God are gallingly sickening. Unfortunately, the perpetrators of these crimes—often mired in moral turpitude—have been brainwashed to believe that they can always fight  and avenge for God and earn eternal glory. Blasphemy, which is often the reason behind these cases of killings and violence is an impious utterance or action concerning God, including not only the mocking or vilifying of attributes of Islam but denying any of the fundamental beliefs of the religion. Examples include denying  that the Quran  was divinely revealed, the prophethood of one of the Islamic prophets, insulting an angel, or maintaining God had a son.

According  to some islamic scholars, Quran curses  those who commit blasphemy and promises blasphemers humiliation  in the Hereafter. However, whether any Quranic verses prescribe worldly punishments is debatable:some Muslims believe that no worldly punishment is prescribed while others disagree. The interpretation  of hadiths, which  are another source of Sharia, is similarly debatable. Some have interpreted hadith as prescribing  punishments for  blasphemy, which may  include death, while others  argue that death penalty applies  only to cases  where a perpetrator commits treasonable crimes, especially during times of war. Different traditional schools of jurisprudence prescribe different punishment for blasphemy, depending on whether the  blasphemer is Muslim or non-Muslim, a man or woman.

In the modern Muslim world, the laws pertaining to blasphemy vary by country, and some countries prescribe punishments consisting of fines, imprisonment, flogging, hanging, or beheading. Capital punishment for  blasphemy was rare in medieval  Islamic societies. In the modern era, some  states and radical groups have used charges of blasphemy in an effort to burnish their religious credentials  and gain popular support at the expense of neo-liberal Muslim intellectuals and religious minorities. Other Muslims, instead, push for  greater  freedom of expression.

The Bible also frowns at blasphemy. In Leviticus 24: 16: “anyone who blasphemes the name of the  Lord is to be put to death”. The  entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the name, they are to be put to death. There have been series of blasphemies against the Church, Bible and Christians but at no time did any Christian invoke that particular passage to resort to violence or killing of the alleged  masterminds. Christians  often have implicit beliefs in God, being almighty, to fight His own battle and bring any blasphemers to justice. To Christians, fighting to avenge blasphemies is akin to implying that God is powerless and the Bible is replete with many cases where God fought for His own children who diligently sought after Him against many adversaries and also proved His supremacy as our inimitable and immutable God.Therefore, avenging for God on the basis of blasphemy is one of the most labyrinthine religious swindles and hypocrisies so pervasive in our country. Herein lies the cognitive dissonance between the faithful of both religions.

Late Deborah Yakubu was said to have written against sanctimonious  proselytization of what was to be a strict academic discussion group among her colleagues. This position was misconstrued and was asked to apologize and recant her statement. Her steely defiance was borne out of the fact that she didn’t see any figment of insult or blasphemy in her innocuous statement. It was possible that there could have been a further nocturnal continuation  of WhatsApp correspondences among a few individuals who felt her statement was offensive to Islam and therefore, had to be sacrilegiously martyred.The plan to kill her the next day could possibly have been hatched  among the few colleagues online after she had logged out.

The security outpost within the College where she ran to for refuge also fell short of expectations. Every school should  be know that it is responsible for the safety of lives of students within its jurisdiction when it is in session. To have sheepishly and voluntarily surrendered a female student in distress being pursued by her blood-thirsty assailants left much to be desired and demanded many answers. Diplomacy, tactical manoeuvring, deliberate pleading to calm tempestuous ocean and frayed nerves with promises of assuagement and official retributions, resolutions and negotiations could have come handy as weapons while one of them could have subterraneanly called the nearest police station to mobilize its personnel to quell  the violence and nip in the  bud the  agonizing death of the victim.

The gruesome appropriateness of death to any perceived blasphemer—as advocated by some die-hard religious bigots—can only serve to nourish their burgeoning bodies and catalyze their penchant for blood-letting at any remotest inkling of blasphemy. However, through continual dialogical approaches, we can tame the monster. We can terminate the evil precocity of this abnormal foetus, and let it collapse on its own social disequilibrium, shorn of its external sustenance. We can make it wither like an aborted foetus if it will not cease to smother the minds and sinews of our authentic beings.

A thorough investigation to unravel the immediate and remote causes of this dastardly crime is the least one expects from the State government.The thread of conversation the night before Deborah’s  death must be dug into for everyone to see what constituted blasphemy—the trumped-up charge for which she paid the supreme sacrifice. All perpetrators of the crime must be made to face justice and nothing must be swept under the carpet. They deserve to live among wild animals. They don’t belong in the habitation of human beings. The security personnel who released her to the roaring lions as an easy prey must be made to account for their tawdriness, inefficiency, lack of circumspection  and introspection. Serious efforts must be painstakingly deployed to know the level of culpability—or lack of—of all the security personnel in this murder case. The natural law of retributive justice must be applied  to the letters. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen by all to be done.

Deborah’s murder was emblematic  of everything  wrong in our system at all levels. Hers was the latest in the long list of those killed by inveterate and sadistic religious extremists who deserve an agonizing capital punishment. She was a metaphor of helplessness at her dying moment; a blossoming beautiful flower that withered at morn, a pulchritudinous avatar cut down in her prime, our candle in the wind and a determined heroine who deserved to live and make her own contributions to the  development of our  country. May your killers know no peace.

Deborah Yakubu, may your soul rest in peace.