Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Laureate, has demanded that Ibrahim Maqari, the Chief Imam of the National Mosque in Abuja, be fired immediately.
Deborah Samuel, a female student at Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto State, was murdered and burned to death for supposed blasphemy, according to Naija02.
Following the tragic occurrence, the Islamic preacher said that Deborah was to blame for her death since she had crossed one of Islam’s red lines.
Maqari remarked in a tweet that if Muslim complaints are not adequately handled, Nigerians should not be chastised for dealing with them themselves.
Soyinka responded by calling Maqari’s views “unfortunate and tragic,” adding that the cleric’s words supported up the death of the female student.
Through his statements, the Islamic leader has pushed his followers to take laws into their own hands, according to the dramatist.
Soyinka made these remarks on Saturday in Abuja, the nation’s capital, during the unveiling of the biography of the late Chief of Army Staff, Ibrahim Attahiru.
As a result, he advocated for the cleric’s removal from office, claiming that he does not deserve to retain any post after his awful remarks.
He said:
“To anyone who cares to listen, Maqari has implicitly directed his followers to take the law into their own hands in the name of religion, and in a nation beset on all sides by wars of ultra-nationalism and religious fanaticism.
“That is the message of a supposedly holy man to youths, to us, his message to a nation embroiled in madness of multiple insurgencies.
“The young woman, Deborah, he declared, deserved her death. This mullah, allegedly a man of learning, since his name is professorially captioned, says that there is a line, a red line that none of us must cross, no matter who we are, what we think, profess or value.”
Soyinka urged Nigerians to refrain from taking their religious beliefs beyond what the law allows, saying that the law should be allowed to run its course.
“So there we are arbitrary lines crisscrossing, drawn by individuals and constituencies of beliefs and non-beliefs, of power and aspirants of power. Nowhere do the belligerents profess the common constitutional line and the boundaries of legitimate conduct that supposedly define the imperatives of cohabitation and respect for a human commonality known as – life.
“It is time for all group interests to draw their lines, to decide where they intersect with others, where they run parallel, and where they diverge and/or snarl into a chaotic maze. If Professor Grand Imam Maqari can draw a line in blood, the rest of the community of equal rights must proceed to draw their own, but they will do so in less primitive, bloodthirsty mode, in full respect of human dignity.
“That apostate of the creed of humanity, Professor Maqari, must be removed from office. It is no longer sufficient for all to declaim that Islam is this and that, that the Sharia is thus and thus, that Prophet Mohammed set this or that example and made this or that humanistic pronouncement,” he added.
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