A businessman in northern Nigeria, Mahdi Shehu, has lambasted Islamic clerics including Sheikhs, Mallams and Ulamas for keeping quiet amid growing hardship, rising insecurity and killings in the country under President Bola Tinubu’s government.
According to Shehu, the Islamic clerics went silent after convincing Nigerians, especially the Muslims to believe that a Muslim-Muslim ticket of Tinubu and Kashim Shettima was best for them.
Shehu said before the 2023 general elections, Islamic clerics including Sheikhs, Mallams and Ulamas sold the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to their followers, convincing them to believe that no Christian of Northern extraction was worthy of being the vice president of Nigeria.
Shehu, who described the Muslim-Muslim ticket as venom, said the Muslim clerics promoted and projected an unwholesome Muslim-Muslim ticket.
He said, “I am asking this question because prior to the 2023 general elections, many Sheikhs with a few exceptions, many Mallams with a few exceptions, Ulamas with a few exceptions, were all over. They took over the pulpit of their mosques, they took over the microphones, they were in all media houses, in all public gazettes, promoting the venom of Muslim-Muslim ticket in wholesale and retail.