Northern Nigerian Muslims have come under fire from critic and academic, Prof. Pius Adesanmi, for allegedly practising a retrogressive brand of Islam as opposed to the progressive brand practised elsewhere in the world.

Adesanmi, a Professor of English at Carleton University, Canada, wondered how this could be happening in a region that boasts first class brains such as Central bank Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, former FCT Minister Nasir El Rufai, former EFCC Chairman Nuhu Ribadu, and rights activist Shehu Sani.

Adesanmi, who poured out his mind on his Facebook wall, drew attention to the technological wonders taking place in Muslim countries in the Middle East whereas the unprogressive brand of Islam practised in Northern Nigeria has made the region to “harbour the world’s worst indices of poverty, backwardness, and underdevelopment.”

Said Prof. Adesanmi: “You go to Dubai, Kuwait City, and the cities of Saudi Arabia and you see hypermodernity at work. You see futuristic architectural marvels. You see art meeting genius and invention in the planning and ordering of cities. You hear the loudest possible statement of the fact that Islam and modernity are not enemies – at least as far as the conceptualization of the cities of the future is concerned. You read frequently about the marvels that Qatar intends to unleash on the world when she hosts the World Cup in 2022. Qatar is unleashing all kinds of futuristic stadia and buildings which are expanding the borders of human imagination. All over the oil states in the Gulf, the guys making the West pant in an attempt to catch up with the hypermodernity of the oil states are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. Proud, cosmopolitan Moslems, they return from Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Oxbridge, and LSE to take the Gulf States into the 22nd century ahead of the rest of us. Tokyo pants, out of breath, trying to catch up with Dubai’s hypermodernity. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Moslem nation, is also rapidly hypermodernizing. Then, in the name of the same Islam, some idiots in the political elite whose warrens in Northern Nigeria harbour the world’s worst indices of poverty, backwardness, and underdevelopment are breaking beer bottles and building mosques and madrassas with the same oil money in the 21st century. We must ask them: just what sort of Islam are you practicing that is superior to that of the House of Saud? You can’t help feeling that powerful, cosmopolitan, and first class minds such as we have in Nasir El Rufai, Nuhu Ribadu, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Shehu Sani, etc, have failed. How can such stellar cerebral minds be there and we don’t feel the collective impact of their presence on any kind of governance vision for the North? Where is the infusion of their thought into the vision of their society? What sort of advice are they giving the premedieval breakers of bottles and the builders of mosques with Federal allocation? How can these guys be there and the she-goat is left to suffer the pains of parturition before their very before? Are they not collectively embarrassed by what passes for progress and development in the minds of the political leaders of that region? El Rufai and Ribadu are frequent callers in Dubai. What do they tell their friends in the local Dubai elite at dinner table whenever those guys begin to talk about the next phase of development plans for Dubai with their oil money? Do they behave like the toad who changes the topic whenever dinner conversation begins to praise animals with tails?

•Photo shows Prof. Pius Adesanmi.

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