By Luminous Jannamike
Following his sermon of Friday, April 1, 2022, the Chief Imam of the National Assembly Quarters’ Jum’mat Mosque, Abuja, Sheikh Muhammad Nura Khalid, was first suspended.
However, in a letter dated Monday, April 4, 2022, and titled, ‘Letter of Disengagement from the Services of the National Assembly Mosque’, the management committee of the mosque parted ways with the cleric.
In the letter signed by the committee chairman, Senator Saidu Dansadau, the Imam was accused of not showing remorse following his suspension. Since then, Sheikh Nura Khalid has got another job in Abuja as Chief Imam.
Nonetheless, the issue has generated so much controversy and interest among many Nigerians, especially on social media. In this interview, the Sheikh bares his mind after his sack.
Do you think there’s anything you said in that viral Jum’mat sermon you now regret?
Every word I said (in the sermon) is mine and I stand by it. I pray, may the Almighty put it in my record and read it to me in the hereafter, because I believe the sermon is a rewardable act.
I only tried to preserve the lives of innocent Nigerians by reviving the morale of government. I only tried to remind them that democracy is not all about election, but, more importantly, about the preservation of life. Security is one of the duties of every sensible and reasonable government.
So, what is wrong in that sermon? I don’t see anything wrong, but if someone else sees otherwise, he can educate me.
Do you believe the mosque committee was wrong to pick offence in the first place with some of things you said?
I don’t want to say the mosque management committee was wrong because there was no meeting of the committee before the action. It was a one-man business and decision.
He (Senator Dansadau) took the decision in company of one or two men and not a quorum of the committee. If I say they were wrong that means I want to go back to that place.
I only want them to monitor and evaluate the reaction of Nigerians. Are Nigerians happy with the situation?
By their action, especially that of the committee chairman who hails from Zamfara, they are sending wrong signals to Zamfara people that they are happy with what the bandits are doing. But you can’t say you sack me, because I said let’s have a united Nigeria free from banditry, crime, terrorism, conflict and insecurity. I am asking for a secured Nigeria. Is that an abomination or a sin?
But in the sack letter by Senator Dansadau, which is now in the public domain, he accused you of persuading Nigerians not to vote in the 2023 elections, and not for condemning insecurity.
You have the video. Is it a call not to vote or to vote under a condition? Let him check his English very well. The first statement I made was “Yes, we are going to vote but under a condition that security must be provided before 2023.”
If you become upset because of this, you are telling us that you know that there wouldn’t be security in Nigeria before 2023. It shows that you guys are either not willing or unable to bring security. But if there is a political will to bring security, then you will laugh and tell me after my sermon that before 2023 that there will be security.
Perhaps the point the mosque committee was trying to make is that without voting in 2023, the country will face a constitutional crisis that will be worse than the present insecurity, because there will be no legitimate government…
Do you think I am calling for no voting? That is not my call, but you can reinterpret it the way you want. Let’s assume that without voting in 2023 there will be chaos, but have you forgotten that a sitting governor in this country once said bandits are able to shut down Nigeria, because they have the capacity to do so?
If that is the situation on ground, if we do not take action before 2023, can’t they still shut down Nigeria? Therefore, we must start doing something, and this is what I did; to tell government there could be no election by 2023 if they failed to take action. I am lucky because the message has gone viral and everyone has heard it. So, whether you like it or not, it will bring a positive change in Nigeria.
One of the issues the mosque committee raised in your sack letter is that they think you were not remorseful after you were suspended, because the suspension was supposed to help you reflect and double-check some of the things you said in the Jum’mat sermon. What exactly is there between you and the mosque committee, because Nigerians want to know?
They are the ones calling their actions punishment. They intended to punish me, but they rewarded me, because Nigerians now know about me more than before.
I am more popular now than ever and more people have listened to my sermon in the video. Even if they are really punishing me, I can absorb it. I can’t change. I will never feel free and happy that Nigerians are dying or support incompetence and lack of political will to deal with bandits and crime. It is not me who is saying ‘No’ to killings who is supposed to change, but the bandits.
Vanguard
