2023: Vote Gov Makinde out for his anti-Muslim activities, MURIC tells Oyo Muslims
*Faults impeachment plot against Deputy Governor
By KEMI KASUMU
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has picked holes in the move by Oyo State House of Assembly to impeach the Deputy Governor, Engr Rauf Olaniyan, even as it calls on Muslims in the state to vote out the governor, Engr Seyi Makinde, over his anti-Muslim activities.
The positions on both the impeachment of Olaniyan and anti-Muslim activities of Makinde were contained in a statement circulated among the media (including The DEFENDER) by the Director of MURIC, Professor Ishaq Akintola, on Tuesday, 21st June, 2022.
The statement reads in full: “The Oyo State House of Assembly last week served an impeachment notice on the deputy governor of the state, Engr Rauf Olaniyan. We reject this move. We are aware that there has been no love lost between Governor Makinde and his deputy. But the governor himself knows the true motive of wanting his deputy out of the way.
“We put it to Makinde that his desire to remove his deputy is religiously motivated. He wants his deputy removed because the latter is not on the same page with him in his Christianization agenda in Oyo State. Impeachment is therefore a ruse, Christianization is the agenda.
“The new Muslim running mate will also be used and dumped like Olaniyan. Makinde cannot stomach the company of a deputy who does not share his vision of exclusionism targeted at Muslims. The new running mate will also be benched
He will also be benched when the governor is done with him and it is the same feeding-bottle lawmakers that will be used to get rid of him.
“Makinde intends to run an Alpha and Omega system where Muslim deputies will be changed at will. This is his own way of protecting his anti-Muslim policy where the evangelisation of the school system will continue unchallenged with undue preference given to Kollendar crusaders to access the state schools and students indiscriminately.
“It is also his own way of continuing the unjust, unlawful, illegal, illegitimate and unconstitutional denial of Allah-given fundamental human rights of Muslims to timely promotion for Muslim judges in the state despite merit and due qualifications.
“Equally noteworthy is Makinde’s deliberate cancellation of the Muslim Hijrah holiday ab initio without due consultation and the imbalance in appointments of commissioners at the inception of the administration.
“In the education sector, the imports of Makinde’s deliberate exclusion of teachers of Arabic and Islamic studies in the teachers recruitment exercise, deliberate inclusion of CRS content in employment interview questions to put Muslim candidates at a disadvantage, deliberate selection of missionary-named schools for rehabilitation in the special school remodeling project have not been lost on Oyo State Muslims.
“But it is in the discrimination against, harassment and intimidation of Muslim girls in hijab by recalcitrant principals in some schools in the state that Makinde has out-Heroded King Herod.
“Makinde’s anti-Muslim policies, actions and inactions are too many to mention. But he is not done yet. After impoverishing the Muslim population in the state by robbing them of political offices, after denying Muslim children of their much loved Arabic and Islamic education, after exposing female Muslim students to intimidation and coercion and their parents to pain and anguish, he wants to bring down the sledge-hammer on his Muslim deputy.
“It was Ian Flemming, author of the James Bond series, who once wrote, ‘Once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence, the third time is enemy action’. The governor’s anti-Muslim antics have long become enemy action against Muslims of Oyo State.
“This is why the Muslims of Oyo State have only one option left and that is to ensure that their oppressor does not return in 2023 for a second term of injustice, a second term of oppression and a second term of downpression of Muslims under him. Makinde must be voted out. He has misused and outlived his mandate. Oyo State Muslims will speak to him in the only language understood by oppressive governors.”
