The Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN) rose from a closed-door meeting on Thursday with President Bola Tinubu at the State House, Abuja with a commendation for his administration’s economic policies.
It also advocated for the deployment of required resources to combat incessant threat to national security.
The organization had said earlier on Tuesday the same faith ticket adopted by President Bola Tinubu to emerge victorious in the last general election has not brought any positive changes to the lives of Nigerians.
However, answering reporters’ questions after meeting with the President on Thursday, Vice President of the Council, Dr Bashir Umar, said the group paid a courtesy call on the President to show solidarity and commended him on the decisions he has taken so far on behalf of the country.
He said: “We are here today on a courtesy call to the President and to show our solidarity and commendation for the hard decisions he is taking for the country.”
According to him, the Islamic Council advised the President to expedite action to cushion the effect of the hard economic decisions while also requesting that he tackles insecurity headlong so as to achieve food security.
“And also to request that he expedite action to cushion the effect of the hard economic decisions that were taken and also to request that he brings out everything that is in the arsenal to face the problem of Insecurity and to also achieve food security”.
Umar further disclosed that the Council for Sharia also submitted the communiqué of its just concluded conference, which post mortem the 2023 general elections, to the President.
He added that the Council reviewed the nation’s last general elections so as to create a consensus and proffer the way forward to perceived contending issues in the last elections.
His words: “We also submitted to him the communique of our just concluded conference which brought about Islamic scholars and academics ,intellectuals and civil society organizations to make a post mortem of 2023 elections inorder to create a consensus and the way forward.”
Umar stressed that the President while responding to their requests gave assurances and encouraging remarks that calls for more prayers for the peace and security as well as the development of the country.
According to him: “We got very good assurances from the President and very encouraging remarks that calls for us to continue to pray intensely for the success of the administration and for peace and security and development of the country which we have been doing and we are intensifying our prayers for the leadership of the country.
It should be recalled that a few days ago, the President of SCSN, Sheikh AbdurRasheed Hadiyyatullah, said despite the enormous support received by the President during the election, Nigerians have not enjoyed dividends of democracy since he came to power.
Hadiyyatullah said the reason many Nigerians supported the same faith ticket was to see how it could engender development to the country, adding however that nothing has been achieved for the past seven months.
He said, “The Nigeria of today is too bad. What we are buying at N200 before is N2000 now. We have scarcity of Naira and unemployment is escalating. Nigerians are not enjoying the new government at all. I don’t want to go personal but the Sharia Council helped the Muslim-Muslim ticket to be successful. We campaigned and supported this government until it came to power, but we are suffering.
“Some of the Ministers are siphoning and looting the treasury. I don’t want to mention any name but we have all seen and read it. Nigerians have been suffering since the last seven months when this government came to power.
“We are not making any progress. The reason for the Muslim-Muslim ticket was to progress, triumph, succeed and to have a good government but we didn’t have anything.”
Deji Elumoye, Chioma Kalu
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