By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer
    
 Is Nigeria the Sick Man of Africa that may or may not survive as a united country in the near future?
This is the question doing the rounds in not only the capital Abuja but all over Africa’s most populous country of nearly 210 million people, over half of whom are Muslims – concentrated mostly in the north.
Oil-rich Nigeria, which on October 1 celebrated its 60th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule, is steeped in poverty, with unemployment running at 56 percent, mainly because of widespread corruption, mismanagement by successive administrations, ceaseless plunder of national treasury, lack of public accountability, moral bankruptcy, and rampant injustice – as is evident by the continued imprisonment of prominent Muslim leader, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, despite the verdict of the Federal Court for his release.
Nigeria, which was created as a unified country by Britain in 1914 by merging the Muslim Protectorate of the north with the southern mostly Christian-Animist Protectorate, is still poles apart from unity as a nation state.
It is a deeply divided country inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups with over 500 distinct languages – all identifying with a wide variety of cultures.
Although the Hausa speaking Fulani Muslim tribes account for half of the country’s population, the shortsighted policies of the central government, which has allowed infiltration by the seditious Wahhabi cult of Saudi Arabia, has led to the emergence of terrorist groups such as the murderous Boko Haram outfit which is tarnishing the image of Islam.
Sufism, with its tolerant practices that had attracted Christians and Animists towards Islam, is facing threats from the Salafist seditionists, especially their criminal targeting of the 10-million plus Shi’a Muslims.
Unfortunately, the government of President Muhamedu Buhari has succumbed to pressures from both Riyadh and the illegal Zionist entity, to adopt step-motherly treatment of the growing Shi’a Muslim citizens who are being deprived of their constitutional rights of holding Islamic ceremonies, including the International Qods Day rallies on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadhan to mobilize the Ummah’s efforts for the cherished goal of the liberation of Palestine.
Last Tuesday, when the Leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, was after years of procrastination brought before the High Court of Kaduna state, he clearly said "not guilty” to the eight trumped up charges leveled against him by the military.
The court was asked to quash the charges against the esteemed Sheikh, but Judge Karuda, obviously under pressure from President Buhari, adjourned the trial until November 18.
In his recent statement, IMN spokesperson, Abdullahi Muhammad Musa, deplored the injustice and charged Buhari of toying with the health of Sheikh Zakzaky by denying him urgent medical attention.
He said: "Inalienable as fundamental rights are, Buhari has practically violated all against Sheikh Zakzaky and his wife, Malama Zeenah, who are seriously sick and their health is steadily deteriorating.”
He added: "There is no human right as enshrined in the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which Buhari has not trampled upon, especially against the IMN Leader.”
In view of these undeniable facts, it could rightly be said that after 60 years of independence, Nigeria, looks like a battered vehicle still struggling to climb a hilly road, while smaller Africans, such as Ghana, Rwanda, and Ivory Coast, are surging ahead.