Ahmadiya Muslim Jamat Secretary General, Abba Iromini, has urged politicians to stop making political gains out of the abduction of over 200 schoolgirls in Chibok.
Now, more than ever before, politicians should offer suggestions that can assist the government and the international coalition to retrieve the girls from the clutches of Boko Haram terrorists, he pleaded.
Iromini gave the counsel after he delivered a lecture entitled ‘Muslim Youths Between Westernisation and Globalisation’, to Muslim students in Lagos.
According to him, there is nothing wrong in Nigeria being helped in the fight against terrorism since it is a global scourge whose consequences transcend borders, and people should not use that to judge the government as weak.
Said he: “The world is interdependent and we are now in a global village. If we have a challenge and other countries are willing to help us, it is good, provided there is no hidden agenda in it.
“Don’t mix it with politics. Politics is dirty. Even if it is a Christian girl, a Muslim girl, or even one girl, it is not a matter of politics. It should not be politicised. The world is now interdependent and human life is involved.”
Iromini reminded the students that most of the things that now entice Muslim youths were copied from Islamic heritage and improved by the West to make them fanciful.
“Those things that are now enticing us from the Western world were originally Muslim ideas. It is not the British or Americans that invented the alphabet, for example cuneiform and Arabic numerals.
“But most of you don’t know that they are Islamic inventions.”
He argued that Westernisation and globalisation have served both as a bridge in global civilisation and modernisation between Islam and the rest of the world.
But at the same time, he added, they cause a problem that requires a higher degree of understanding and adaptation by Muslims without sacrificing the traditions of Islamic faith on the altar of the “intellectual slumber” of modern day adherents.
He advised youths to strive for chastity, honesty, hard work and faithfulness in Islam and to shun non Islamic attitudes such as fanaticism, promiscuity, drug addiction and fundamentalism, bearing in mind that one day, everyone will return to its maker.
“Islam abhors terrorism. Terrorism is not a code in Islam. Islam does not encourage shedding of blood,” Ironimi stressed.