The Amir Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at of Nigeria, Alhaji Barrister Alatoye Abdulazeez, has urged the elected leaders in the last general elections to be ready to run the country with transparency and accountability, thus promoting good governance. Governance, is a question of winning heaven or hell and forgetting it in our dealings is suicidal in our next phase of life.
Alatoye stated this during a press conference held at Ahmadiyya headquarters, Ojokoro, Lagos, last Friday with the theme “Accountability to God and People Deliver on Your Duties of Trust and Competencies to The Satisfaction of Allah.”
The press conference was for the newly elected officials into various positions in the country, like the president-elect, the Vice-President-elect, all the new and returned elected Governors, and the National and State Assemblies members. And the main thrust of the conference is to draw the attention of elected leaders to accountability to Allah.
The Amir advised them not to use power to convert the land, position, money or other resources entrusted to them for personal use. Allah is the owner of government, and governance must be under His universal rules equally applicable to all. He specifically told the elected officials that. “election into offices must be with the rules of Allah, and the rules are fundamental with general universal rules. They are human rules without region, colour, and no grade. These rules include truthfulness, avoidance of deception, justice and fairness, goodness, giving the right of others to them, avoidance of evil, avoidance of indecency, avoidance of rebellion and promotion of peaceful co-existence irrespective of the tribe, colour, or race.”
He commended the efforts of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for conducting the elections without a major crisis. He also commended Nigerians for their turnout during the 2023 general elections. The Amir, however, made mention of areas he wishes to see improvement in subsequent elections. Like vote buying and materials mobilization for elections, prevention of situations that led to cash crunch, fuel scarcity, threatening violence, disruptions of electioneering processes and casualties in some places, failure to transmit of election results electronically and engineering of voters apathy.
He urged all the elected leaders and the led to reflect upon the declaration of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be on him): “The best of your leaders are those whom you love and who love you, and who invoke Allah blessings upon you and you invoke His blessings upon them. And the worst of your leaders are those whom you hate, and they hate you, and whom you curse, and they curse you,” (Sahih Muslim).
He appealed to all Nigerian politicians and other stakeholders to avoid negativities such as a call for the subversion of the concluded electoral processes, interim government or any form of rebellion or insurrection. “Any unlawful takeover is an act of evil and an ill wind that will blow no one any good.”
He then assured the political leaders that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at of Nigeria would continue to support them in prayers for the administration at all levels to succeed and for the country to remain peaceful. He, therefore, implored the leaders and the lead to focus more on the act of governance and leave other things in the hands of Allah.
Reports
ABDULAZEEZ ABDUL RASHEED
Lagos