ADDRESS BY MR UMAR FARUK LAWAL, PRESIDENT OF NORTHERN YOUTH INITIATIVE FOR PEACE AND GOOD GOVERNANCE (NYIIPGG) AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE ON CONTROVERSY OVER THE ALLEGED RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM VIEWS OF DR ISA IBRAHIM PANTAMI, MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS AND DIGITAL ECONOMY.
GOOD DAY, GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS,
In the past few days, our nation has been enmeshed in a controversy over the alleged religious extremism activities and views of Dr Isa Ibrahim Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy.
This controversy has trended on social media with various hash-tags either calling for the resignation of Dr Pantami or his continuation in office over these alleged views and activities, depending on which side of the divide the person is.
With this large scale domination of the issue on our national polity, our association, The Northern Youth Initiative for Peace and Good Governance (NYIIPGG) cannot claim or pretend to be ignorant of this raging issue. This is the main reason for this Press Conference by the leadership of our association.
When this controversy first started with the publication earlier this month by Independent Newspapers Nigeria and NewsWireNgr, we at the NYIIPGG, as was our policy on such issues, decided to be cautious and make our independent researches and findings on the issue before taking and making our stand known to the public.
We were also concerned by the allegations said to be contained in the videos uploaded online by various sources alluding to a close relationship between Dr Pantami and Mallam Yusuf the late founder of the Boko Haram sect.
Hence, we went about conducting our investigations on this controversial matter. In our researches, we had to depend mainly on our vast membership across Northern Nigeria, especially in the North East and also some researches done by credible media houses in Nigeria. But unfortunately, efforts to personally see Dr Pantami over this issue have not been successful.
Gentlemen of the Media, these are our findings and stand on this controversial issue.
First, there is no doubt that Dr Pantami is eminently qualified to hold his present position of Minister of Communications and Digital Economy. He was an internationally acclaimed ICT expert before assuming his ministerial position. With an MSC from Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Nigeria; and a PhD from Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland; he was a lecturer in Nigeria and Abroad and the immediate Director General and CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). He was also trained in Management and aspects of ICT at Harvard University, USA; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA; Institute of Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland; and Cambridge University, UK.
The basis for the call for Dr Pantami to resign from office was his alleged extreme religious views and activities and the allegation that he was on the watchlist of the United States and other foreign countries as an extremist. Based on our investigation, which included talking to some of the people close to Dr Pantami in his official duties as well as religious circles, there is clear evidence that the minister is a respected Islamic scholar, who has used almost the last two decades to intelligently and physically fight religious extremism in Nigeria and abroad, especially when this scourge resurfaced with renewed vigour in the Nigerian landscape.
These facts are incontrovertible as evidenced by his sermons and speeches either at the Jummah mosques, he presided over as Imam, his contributions at events, debates and even in the media.
He is a well known Islamic scholar/sheikh noted for his strong stand against the doctrine of the dreaded Boko Haram sect. However, there is no doubt that Dr Pantami, whose evidence showed that he started preaching as a teenager, has in the early stage of his preaching career held some charismatic international Islamic scholars in high esteem. But unfortunately, some of these scholars were later exposed to have religious extremist beliefs.
This sad development is certainly no fault of the then young Nigerian, Pantami. It is a known fact that teenagers all over the world are easily won over by charismatic leaders and trendsetters, including religious, political and entertainment leaders. But equity demands that such teenagers in their adult lives should not be judged by their actions at adolescent years and solely by whom they admired but also by how they do follow those leaders then. Did they preach these leaders’ messages and engage in their ways of lives?
In this case of Dr Pantami, we at The Northern Youth Initiative For Peace And Good Governance (NYIIPGG), after a thorough analysis of the available media materials of the Pantami speeches and sermons in audio and video available, have not been able to come across any material that has Pantami preaching or speaking in support of religious extremism. Rather what we found are many materials that have him doing the opposite. One of these was even the touted video material on social media where he was with the late Yusuf, the founder of Boko Haram.
Anyone with a good understanding of the Hausa Language will see and understand that Pantami’s stand in this video was clearly against Boko Haram’s extremist ideology.
Also, we also through some of the published independent investigations of some credible Nigerian media houses on this issue. One of such is the leading Premium Times, a media house noted for its un-bias investigations.
The following were the results of its investigations on the allegations levelled against Dr Pantami.
It is FALSE to claim that the debate between Dr Pantami and the late Yusuf was a friendly chat. It was a heated debate that has now formed the basis for scholarly research on the ideology of Boko Haram.
Premium Timesʼ checks on the list of the intelligence agencies in the U.S. show that there is no such agency as American Intelligence Service as claimed in the piece.
The United States’ Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), a multi-agency centre administered by the FBI, manages a harmonised database called “the watchlist” which contains the identities of those “who are known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activities, use classified intelligence in its works, does not confirm or deny whether any individual may be included in the watchlist. Hence, by implication, even if Dr Pantami was on the watch list, the information would remain discreet.
Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, released a nine-minute video where he threatened Mr Pantami and some journalists, saying they should be cautious about what they report or write about his group. Also, a few days ago Dr Pantami, himself reacted to this controversy. While retracting some of the controversial comments he made in the past that showed he supported Islamic extremist views, he explained that his position on the subject then was based on the information he had at the time, some of which were the consensus opinion among clerics in Northern Nigeria at the dawn of the faceoff between the West and some Islamic countries in the early to mid-2000s.
He said he was a young undergraduate then when many scholars and individuals, like him did not understand some of the international events and therefore took some positions based on their understanding. He revealed that for the past 15 years, he has travelled around the country and the Niger Republic to preach against terrorism while also engaging those with Boko Haram ideologies and stating his position in pamphlets he wrote in Hausa, English and Arabic Languages.
He stated that he had been able to bring back several young persons who have derailed from the right path to moderate religious lives.
While threatening to sue the media house that initially started the controversy, Dr Pantami disclosed that some of the criticism he had received in the past days were politically motivated. Indeed, we at NYIIPGG tend to agree with this assertion of Dr Pantami. This is because there is no basis for this controversy as those alleged views are just teenage fantasy of the late 1990s and early 2000s of many while his achievements and activities as an adult professional and cleric are quite outstanding and clearly show him as a first-class ICT professional and minister and a moderate Islamic cleric.
Since the last two years as the Nigerian Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Pantami has:
Striven to actualise clear policies for a sustainable Digital Economy for Nigeria. Shown diligence in giving the youth adequate space for empowerment within the Nigerian Digital economy space Successfully seen to the taking –off of the full registration of Nigerians in the National Identification Number scheme and linking same with vital national statistical data like mobile line numbers. This is a project that has been attempted without success by successive ministers since 2011.
Dr Pantami was also successful during his watch as the Chief Executive at NITDA where he helped develop the ICT infrastructure in many parts of Nigeria with the Nigerian National Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) programme.
From above findings by the Northern Youth Initiative for Peace and Good Governance (NYIIPGG), the association ,under my leadership is boldly stating that Dr Ali Pantami, the Nigerian Minister of Communications and Digital Economy is not a religious extremist. This young Nigerian also does not have any noted link with any extremist religious group within or outside Nigeria.
It is obvious that these recent attacks on Dr Pantami looks like the usual traditional antics of politicians, disgruntle personalities and/or envious antagonists, who felt threaten by the obvious tremendous achievements of Dr Pantami either as a scholar, government official and honourable minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which have earned him so much recognition within his professional and other circles within and outside Nigeria, globally.
No doubt, Dr Pantami is a rising star in northern Nigeria, Nigeria and globally. This stature is a threat to some, which sees him as capable of outshining them in any possible future political contest locally at state level or nationally.
Also, the recent bold actions of Dr Pantami at the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy which have impacted positively on the Nigerian economy are seen by some corrupt and unscrupulous elements in the society as a threat to their corrupt and illegal means of livelihood.
Gentlemen of the Press, it is these groups of that are fighting back to attack this innocent and high achieving Nigeria by using blackmail and propaganda to smear the image of Dr Pantami in the public domain.
we are using this event to appeal to you to help douse this unnecessary controversy about the religious views of Dr Pantami so that this senseless development can go away and allow the Honourable Minister concentrate on the good work he is doing at the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and for the good people of Nigeria.
Thank you all.
Nigeria Star News 