by Balogun Oluwalonimi Mayowa

Your Excellency sir,
The Governor of Zamfara State, and as well the Chairman of the Nigeria Governor’s Forum (NGF) and a card carrier of All Progressive Congress.

Sir, with due respect, I will like to relate to you that, the purpose of my letter is base on the recent religious intolerance that led to chaos and killings in Zamfara State. Precisely, your own community Talafa Marafa.

Sir, as been circulated on line on Tuesday, the report reads… “A Muslim student of a polytechnic got converted into Christianity, and as it requires of him, he was preaching to his fellow students, which later accused him of blasphemy. He was beaten badly by invited mobs and in other to safe his life, he pretended to be dead. The mob left him, and a Muslim man came up to offer a Samaritan aid. Which later backfired on him. His car was burnt. The boy was taken to an hospital which the mob knew about, they went there, but the boy had been taken away from… The report later says, houses were burnt with eight persons in it ! It was reported that they were Christians.”

Your excellently, I was not pleased with the intelligence report you gave to the President (Mr. Buhari, GCFR), and the public. The report you gave says the eight persons were not Christians, and that you were not sure if the boy was a Christian or a Muslim. Worse still, you said to the President that no arrest had been made yet as at the time you left Zamfara.

Sir, if there should be any fact you were sure of, it’s that the boy is a Yoruba from Kogi state. And you were not sure if the boy is still alive as reported in This Day Newspapers yesterday.

My sharp disagreement comes in these ways sir,
One, the boy is/was a Christian.
Two, a Muslim cannot speak “against” the Prophet, not even in Zamfara where you have Islamic Court.
Three, the angry mob cannot brutally beat a fellow Muslim.
Four, it will take a person of another religion to speak against the Prophet, before he “might” not know how sacrilege it is.

Sir, I challenge you to make available to the public the names, religion and states of origin of these eight been burnt in your home town ! Do it with the fear of Allah, don’t be political on it.

I understand your position, but do this to clear the “rumors” that they were Christians !

Again sir, I will like to relate to you the lexical meaning of the word “Blasphemy”. It means the action or offence of speaking sacrilegiously about God or scared things. Profane talks.” Sir, a real Muslim won’t do this against his/her Allah ! Neither would a real Christian speak against Jesus Christ.

I will like to pen it down here by saying, until we see the end of this matter, I’ll continue to write. There should be religious tolerance in our country. Zamfara is not a separate country, it’s under Nigeria, by it, freedom of religion is allow.

Thank you you Excellency,
I hope this get to your table
God bless you.

We await judgment sir.

Maranathan.

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