Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Census: Muslims Give Conditions THISDAY Census: Muslims Give Conditions From Agaju Madugba in Kaduna, 04.05.2005 Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN) has listed conditions for the participation of Muslims in the forthcoming national population census. Speaking at a press conference in Kaduna yesterday, SCSN Presibent, Dr. Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, said Federal Government must give Muslims more command positions in the nation's armed forces and security services, include religion and ethnicity in the census questionnaire and also resolve the controversial imbalance in the composition of delegates at the on-going National Political Reform Conference. He spoke after a national delegates meeting of SCSN which drew representations from across the six geo-political zones of the country. According to him, “the resolutions constitute concensus opinion of all Muslims in this country because we have toured all the areas and we are all united on this.” He accused President Olusegun Obasanjo of executing a programme of action aimed at annihilating Muslims from the armed forces and the security services. He tendered a document indicating that out of the 54 topmost positions in these services, only four are Muslims - Director-General of State Security Service (SSS), Air Officer Commanding, Logistics Command, Lagos, Deputy Commandant Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna and the Commandant, Armoured Centre  Bauchi. The document also showed that, out of 32 commissioners of police in the states, 12 are Muslims with 20 Christians. Ahmed said, “this cannot be an accident, only a fool can call this an accident. This is a calculated attempt to remove Muslims from the armed forcesof the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If religion is not a factor in Obasanjo’s calculations, the how do you explain this, in a country where Muslims constitute 70-75 per cent of the population. “We hope he will not put this country on fire because of irresponsible leadership. It is only an irresponsible leader who can do this, knowing it can lead to the break up of the country. “Obasanjo does noy know that Muslims can wipe out the Nigerian Army, he does not know what Islam means to Muslims.” Ahmed said that delegates at the meeting also resolved to ask all Muslims in the country to boycott the census programme if religion, ethnicity and tribe are not included in the census questionnaire. He said, “the Christian Associiation of Nigeria has also taken this position, so, we are wth them.any census without these items should not be regarded as census, it is rubbish. 'Duuring the colonial period,the census programmes then indicated that Muslims were about 60 per cent of the population.Obasanjo has often said that the ratio of Muslim/christian is 50/50 but we know he is lying and we know he knows that he is lying.' On the national conference,ahmed insisted that obasanjo must address the imbalance in the muslim/Christian ratio of the delegates.According to him,'Muslim leaders have directed the Sultan of sokoto to order the withdrawal of all Muslim delegates from the conference if this imbalance is not corrected as soon as possible. 12:26:37 AM    comment []