The call for the appointment of a Christian as communication minister in President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet has been criticised by the Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC.
The Islamic human rights organisation disclosed this after the Computer Guild of Nigeria, CGN, demanded the appointment of a Christian as communication minister.
The group said a Christian is needed due to a lack of religious diversity in the ministry of communication, adding that two successive ministers of communication were all Muslims.
However, in its reaction, MURIC Executive Director Prof. Ishaq Akintola described the demand as bizarre, suspicious and motivated by a sinister design.
He said: “We are bewildered by this strange demand. It is bizarre, suspicious and motivated by a sinister design. It is unfortunate that a so-called professional body is making a most unprofessional demand. We urge the president to ignore this call.”
Mr Akintola alleged that the Christians dominated and monopolised the secretarial and computer professions for decades, saying that Muslims were blocked from entering the profession.
“It is an open secret that Christians dominated and monopolised the secretarial and computer professions for decades.
“But this privilege was grossly abused as they used it to intimidate and block Muslims from entering into the profession while secretarial and computer services sought by Muslims for Islamic matters were rebuffed.
“They turned the profession into a cult until very recently,” he alleged.
Mr Akintola recalled that more Christians were appointed ministers of communication than Muslims.
He said: “CGN tried to distort and shorten human history when it limited its examples to only the two Muslims (Adebayo Shittu 2015 – 2019 and Professor Ali Isa Pantami 2019 – 2023). What happened before those two? Was Nigeria not in existence before those two or was the ministry of communications newly created in 2015?
“CGN elected to conveniently forget that there must have been yesteryears if there were yesterdays. But when a child rejects pounded yam for dinner, his parents will narrate the story of how his mother was married into that family. We are therefore constrained to go down the lanes of history.
“The ministry of communications is almost as old as Nigeria itself. Arthur Prest was the first minister of communications (1951 – 1954) and the first four ministers were all Christians (Arthur Prest, Mbadiwe, Akintola and Akinfosile from 1951 to 1964, a period of fourteen years).
“Nigeria had fourteen ministers of communications from 1951 to 1983. Out of this figure, eleven were Christians, and only three were Muslims. Four of the eleven Christians held office back-to-back, i.e. in a row, without any Muslim coming between them.
“Again from 2003 to 2015, a period of twelve years, six Christians were appointed in succession to the ministry of communications and Nigerian Muslims did not complain (Chief Cornelius Adebayo 2003-2006, Engr Dr. Obafemi Ani-Baba 2006 – 2007, John Odey 2007 – 2008, Prof Dora Akunyili 2008 – 2010, Labaran Maku 2010-2011, Omobola Johnson 2011-2015).
“But all hell has broken loose now because just two Muslims have occupied the ministry. When will CGN learn to be professional? President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must not return Nigerian Muslims to secretarial slavery and a world of computer illiteracy. Nigeria belongs to all of us.”
