You can’t be radical, killing shouting “Allahu Akbar” and still be Muslims, Buhari speaks on extremists hiding under religion in Nigeria

*If you mean your word, move against extremists in our universities now, Buhari told

“If Buhari means his word as reported now, he should move against those people who are now rampant in our various universities.  What is worse is that, these extremists are either university lecturers themselves or they are provided backup by the lecturers and influential people in the society.”

Time appears ripe for members of radical groups claiming to be acting for the fear and love of Allah to start having their deserved treatment from the fire power of Nigerian authorities.

This is as President of the country, Muhammadu Buhari, said on Wednesday that people killing others while shouting “Allahu Akbar” are wicked and are not Muslims, a presidential pronouncement indicating the government’s wake up action against any such group or its members operating anywhere in the country.

Buhari, who spoke when he visited Internally Displaced Persons (IDP’s) in eight Local Government Areas of Katsina State who were displaced by armed banditry, commiserated with the victims.

He was at the camp to sympathise with the victims from Batsari, Safana, Danmusa, Kankara, Jibiya, Sabuwa, Faskari and Dandume Local Government Areas.

According to him, ‘’All those whose activities is to kill people and saying “Allahu Akbar” are lying because God is not wicked. You can’t carry bomb or gun, sword or knife to go and kill innocent somebody and say “Allahu Akbar”. This implies that you either don’t believe in God or you don’t know what you are saying.

“There is a popular Hausa adage which says it’s the rat in the house that tells the rat outside that there is fish in the house, so within yourselves, your neighbours and even your relatives there are informants.”

“I am here to sympathize with the entire people of the state over the unfortunate incidents that have been claiming lives of innocent people,” he said.

The president said that the bandits that have been killing people should not claim to be true Muslims.

“Islam did not give individuals the right to kill others without following due process in the court of law.

“The Federal and states government will do everything possible to eradicate all forms of insecurity in the nation as soldiers and police have been given all the necessary support by the government.

“We are doing our best to checkmate the activities of armed bandits and insurgents in the country.”

Earlier, Gov. Aminu Masari of Katsina said: “We have assembled some of the victims, and their representative comprising their traditional, religious and community leader before the president.

“The communities living along the fringes of Rugu Forest across these eight LGA’s had to contend with series of recurring incidents of armed bandits,” he said.

In his remarks, the Emir of Katsina, Alhaji Abdulmumini Kabir, called on the rural people not to hoard information’s about the bandits.

Kabir advised the rural people to always pass information about the armed bandits to their traditional rulers or the security agencies for action.

Eight local government areas of the state had been experiencing the activities of armed bandits and cattle rustlers for the past two years.

The DEFENDER gathered that extremism has permeated activities of so many religious youths particularly of Muslim background who now force their personal will on young innocent students and do so by instigating them against their parents and the society.

A source told this newspaper that, “If Buhari means his word as reported now, he should move against those people who are now rampant in our various universities.

“What is worse is that, these extremists are either university lecturers themselves or they are provided backup by the lecturers and influential people in the society.

“The fact that they destroy the lives of our young children especially daughters is the very reason bold steps must be taken now against them without let.

“At early level in university they start by luring fresh, innocent students, especially girls, into their radical group, then indoctrinating them to be instigated seeing their parents who sponsor their education as enemies and thereafter organise adopted parents who marry them out to their male members. This is how those killing shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ started and they are already with us outside the North.

“Recall when Boko Haram started, it started by capturing fresh, innocent young students particularly in a North East federal university and made them to see Western education as forbidden.  Those victims, having received that negative indoctrination, dropped out of school some at final year left school claiming to want to go to Arabic school.

“Today, not only their activities have plunged Nigeria into security complicity but also, they make many non-Muslims see Islam and Muslims in bad light as if Islam is a religion in accord with terrorism,” he exclaimed.