 And welcome once again to the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. Our first major conversation this morning is once again, of course, talking about a Yoruba Muslim president as declared by Merrick, and they have said that that is a candidate that they would like to support in 2023. This morning we're speaking with Professor Ishaq Akinthala, the director of Merrick Muslim Rights Concern. Good morning, Professor Akinthala. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. All right. We started this conversation yesterday, but I think I would like us to go to the start again to clarify exactly what Merrick's demands are and why exactly. Thank you very much and good morning. And you see, we are in a democracy, a democracy to be right, but democracy to be appeal, then that democracy must be inclusive. Inclusivity is a major, a major factor in democracy. I am talking about inclusivity concerning Yoruba Muslims. They've been excluded for so long, marginalized, persecuted. The youth, Muslim youth graduates will not get jobs. Muslim women are humiliated when they go for international passports, when they go for driving licenses, when they attempt to register for elections. To register for elections, you need capturing. Driving licenses, you need capturing. International traveling documents, you need capturing. During capturing, the women, our mothers, our wives, first to remove their hijab. That is robbing them of their identity. Somebody somewhere doesn't want to see Muslims. At the end of the day, many of them live in anger. They live in frustration and bona fide citizens of this country, they can, they have no access to driving licenses, traveling passport, and then what is most important, the voter registration card is denied them. Then it means Muslims are being disenfranchised. When Muslims are disenfranchised in their hundreds, in their thousands, how do they participate? Then democracy demands that all must be involved in governance. The Muslims in Yoruba land are not involved in governance. The commissioners in most states in Yoruba land are Christians. Faiyoshi, ex-Globner Faiyoshi of Ikichi state, all of them were Christians. He had eight chairmen of boards and all except one were Christians. That one was the chairman of the Muslim pilgrimage board and we told him at the time, why didn't you appoint a pastor as the chairman of the Muslim pilgrimage board? So these issues are there for us to seek, to seek outside the box if we have a Muslim president and they have been a Muslim president, Yoruba Muslim president in Nigeria since independence. From what you're saying, the fact that the females find a little struggle when they go to apply for passports at the passport office, that means that they are disenfranchised across the country. And you're saying that Murik is seeking a Yoruba Muslim president in order to stop this disenfranchisement of Muslims across the country. Is this what you're saying? It's part of it. We are saying no Yoruba Muslim has been president since independence. But how about 1993? Since independence in 1960. Okay. Ambassador was there, ex-president was there, as military head of state, he came again as civilian president and spent eight years as chief minister, a Christian also came as an interim president from August 1993 to November 1993. Then we now have in Aksorak today, our vast president is Professor Yemmi Osibaju, also a Christian. No Yoruba Muslim has ever been there. Yeah, but Professor Kintola, I'm sorry, Mercy, there have been Muslims in that position. Your argument is that no Yoruba Muslim has been there. But that is our argument. Okay. So if the Muslims that have held that position since 1960 have not been able to fix this picture that you've painted of being disenfranchised, why is a Yoruba Muslim the one that would fix it? We are saying it's a zonal problem, it's a regional problem. It is those who are at the grass roots that can understand it. We need, why are the people from the south side, why did they agitate for leadership? Why did they agitate to be in Asorak and Jonathan came in? Because they needed it. They knew the problem of their region. Why are the people of the southeastern Nigeria agitating for leadership? They want to taste power. It is because they know what is their problem. So this should be rotated. The people of south west should also be ready to rotate it, to reject power between the Muslims and the Christians. They are monopolizing it and monopoly is alien to democracy. Democracy must be participated. If you don't involve people, then you are exclusive. You are marginalizing them. So this is what we are saying, involve us. We need, and there are competent Muslims all over the place in Yoruba, who have been in politics, who have the experience. We mentioned it in our press statement. Asiwajubonah met Tinobu, he has the experience, he is the leader of one of the parties, and Dr. Mui's Banira ilegosia, it's an attitude competition, it's been commissioned in the state for more than 12 years, and we have Dr. Amzat, who is the current deputy governor of the state. Don't forget, Jonathan was deputy governor in Bayaza, before he became the vice president of Nigeria and moved from there to president of this great country. So we are, you know, fossilized here, the current minister of works, who is a minister now, and who has been governor before, but Abdi Amila is the speaker today, and he is a Muslim, Abdi Latif Abdi Amila, and we have Dr. Abdi Akim, commissioner in Lagos state, member of the House of Assembly, and they have spent more than 20 years in politics in Lagos state. So we have to... Okay, Professor Akintola, should we be having this conversation at this point? I mean, if you look at Nigeria right now, our unity as a country is threatened, and we have been constantly divided along ethnic and religious line. Don't you think that the quest for a Euro-Rama Muslim president would further divide this country? Why should it divide us? If we want to accommodate, if we want to tolerate ourselves, some eight years ago, or seven years ago, the Christian Association of Nigeria Lagos Chapter demanded for a Christian governor. That was when Fashallah was a governor, he said, Christian, and they are performing, the performance is good, but then participation is good, so that no group would feel marginalized. In order to douse tension and to reduce the persecution that is targeted at Euro-Rama Muslims, we are also appetite in Euro-Balan, become endangered species, when they are who doesn't love their own daughter. Our Muslim daughters are being thrown out of schools, not because they didn't pay school fees, not because they didn't see four exams, but because they are wearing a scarf. We need to call for a little guess. Yes. I remember that there is a situation like that that happened, that of course the state government eventually got involved with, and I believe it has been sorted. I don't think it is the way that you are describing it. You are describing it. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. That says that across Nigeria today, Euro-Balan Muslim girls can't go to school, which is absolutely not true. Please, please, point of correction, point of correction, I did say across Nigeria, I said across Euro-Balan. The Muslims in the north don't face this kind of persecution. Sorry, can you clarify with our viewers, when you say across Euro-Balan, where exactly are these issues present? Where exactly can you say that young Euro-Balan Muslim girls are not allowed to go to school? Well, let me, I think all the gradients of what happened at the law school about two years ago, when Amasa Freedows was disallowed from call to bat because she wore a jam. Okay, and I'm sure you are also aware how that case eventually turned out. Can you kindly let me finish my analysis? You ask the question, my brother. Go ahead. I am, I just started out as an example because it was a national thing. Thank God the law school saw reason based on maturity and they allowed the lady to use her idea and she will come to bat, but she wasted one whole year. Now, when I talk of across Euro-Balan, it is happening in your state, it is happening in Nando. What exactly is happening? I said, a job is not allowed in those schools. Our daughters are sent out at the international school in Badon. There is a case in court, there has been a case in court for the past four years because about six Muslim girls who were sent out and logged out of the school gate for more than a ten school, that is denial of girls charges in the south west, in some cities in the south west, in some schools in the south west, they will remove the job firstfully from the head of our daughters, Muslim girls wearing a Euro-Balan Muslims because we will never be violated in legal state. We are going to court in New York, we want to court in about three court cases in the south west now, in the face of Muslim girls, the girl child who want to go to school. She should go to school, but you don't want the Muslim girl child to get education. You stand around because they wear ordinary scarf. In those countries, see the last countries also, they tolerate the Muslim job. But in the south west, it is not allowed. The constitution, they violate. I think your point has been made in that regard. I remember the Quara state incident that eventually led to the shutting down of some of those schools and eventually that case has been sorted. The Lagos state government also has made it a law here in Lagos that girls wearing hijab will be allowed and there is zero issues with girls wearing hijab in schools here in Lagos. I'm pretty sure it's the same thing everywhere else. If you go online and search for stories concerning the banning of hijab, I don't think it is the way that, I personally don't think it is the way that you've described it. There have been those issues in one situation or the other. But I'm sure that across the south west, there is still the freedom to wear hijab to schools across the south west. But I want you to speak also now. Myriq is Muslim rights concern. Would Myriq also be willing to allow a eastern Muslim or south-south Muslim, you know, maybe from a those states, from the Muslim, you know, a part of a those states. Would Myriq also be willing to support some of those persons, or maybe from the southeast? That would be diversion. That would be creating, you know, trying to reduce, diminish in the importance of what we are saying. And try to tell us that Muslims in Yoruba land are not suffering. If a Muslim in those places is, you know, I did say I want a Muslim, we want a Muslim from the north to be president. A Muslim from the north is president today at the grassroots level, from the Yoruba, you know, region, from the south west. And what is on ground, what Muslims in the south west are facing, what Muslims in Yoruba land are facing, it knows it. But Muslims will also have access to him, give him information, and there might be, through that, we could be able to douse tension in Yoruba land through that. It could call who are well known to him. From his own Christians, the Muslims still say in Yoruba land, there is religious tolerance, there's no problem. It is a lie from the pitch of the office. Our office is inundated with complaints every day. We receive phone calls, we receive text messages, we receive letters. And it is from our daughter persecuted in different places all over Yoruba land. Picking somebody from the south south anywhere may not actually address the issue. It is the Yoruba Muslims who are ejecting now. Okay, Professor Kintola, let's also get to this now. One of the things that this present administration has been accused of is nepotism, nepotistic kind of government. Are we not going to have a replica of that, as per eventual you have a Yoruba Muslim president? Also, I'd like you also to tell us how a Yoruba Muslim president would address the issue of disintegration, the marginalization that you have talked about, because you also have several groups across the country, several parts of the country agitating and asking that they want to pull out of the entity called Nigeria. The major challenge that we have now is the issue of unity and everyone wants to go apart. How will the movement ensure that there is unity in the entire country? You are talking about unidentism, separatism. This issue doesn't go to that area at all. We are talking of our rise as Muslims in Yoruba land. We are not asking for, we are not asking for secession. Separatists are secessionists. Because they feel marginalized. Because they feel they are not carried along. Excuse me, there is a difference between asking for a position. But everyone has a right to contest. Should we make it about the specific people? Because the Constitution says everyone has a right to vote and be voted for. So why should we make it about a particular group of peasants? That question, you didn't go on sabbatical. When the Christians of Lagos state, Christian, a citizen of Nigeria, came for Lagos. Why you on sabbatical? Why didn't you ask them? Why they were trying to cause division in Lagos state? What affects Lagos state after the rule of Yoruba land? Because we are not abiding citizens. But we will not. Muslim rights is Muslim rights. And nobody can stop our agitation. Because we are prepared to use every language, teaching methods in the south west. Who's people are persecuting us? The civil servants in their offices. I have cited the examples. Can you please, if we would bother you a little bit, can you please cite some cases where this is a major problem in the south west of students being punished for wearing the hijab? And I also would point out that cases where young girls might have had issues wearing the hijab to school doesn't necessarily mean or paint a picture of Yoruba Muslims being disenfranchised across the south west. I don't think you are the local standard to belie facts that we are laying down here. We have, I just told you we have messages coming in from all the states concerning marginalization, persecution of Muslim girls. Concerning of Muslim girls, Lagos state here, six years ago. Because this girl was in school uniform. The teacher claimed that she shouldn't have used a hijab on his own school uniform. But the girl was not in school. Muslim girls, instant commercial vehicles, night religious rounds. In the university of, in OAU, Obafen Mawalua University, just recently, about six months ago, was manhandled at the school. Why? The teacher claimed that the girl, the gate of the school's gate, that she did not remove it from the gate of U.I. This second school, International Secondary School of OAU. These are things that are happening in this country. Why should that? Yes, yes. My point is, my point is, if you describe or if you use the word being disenfranchised, you know, and from what you're saying and the picture that you're painting, it feels like Yoruba Muslims are endangered across the Southwest. You've spoken of one case here, another case here. One of them you mentioned happened even six years ago. Does that paint a picture of being disenfranchised and being, you know, similarly endangered in the Southwest, Yoruba Muslims? And, you know, move away from the girls now. Talk about the Yoruba Muslim generally. And that includes men and women and, you know, adults. What, you know, what are they dealing with in the Southwest that makes me, you know, feel like they have been disenfranchised or they have been endangered? I think Muslims listening to you will be happy. Seeing you trivializing this case, seeing you extenuating the offenses, the crimes, the infringement of Allah given for the mental human rights of Muslim girls, Muslim girls. I mean, it's not trivializing it, Professor Kintola. I'm asking you. Is there any other instances you can share with us that show that Muslims, not just the girls now, Muslims generally across the Southwest are endangered? That's what I'm asking. Yes, we are politically marginalized. If your daughter is not safe, we are in the chapter school. If your wife is not safe going for driving license, you don't know what will happen in the driving license office. They might remove a job without approval. Is that not what civil liberties is about? Is that not threats to civil liberties about? So what are we talking about? Disenfranchised Muslims. I said it was persecution. Of course, why we don't allow the Muslim girls, why we don't allow Muslim women and the men in the band. It's about persecution, marginalization. Don't forget what one time British Prime Minister said exactly what is happening to Muslims in the Southwest. We have petitions that we have sent to the authorities. We have of the commissioners who have, who give us listening ears and they talk to the teachers, they approach the teachers and stop and tell them, they want them to stop it. But the schools are out of the course of education. Because as if we are seeking favor in all the six states, it's a good policy there. Why are they focused on controlling education? You can ask Kainita. Dialogue is always better. Professor Kainita. Hopefully we set up that conversation with someone from Cannes and also expand some of the things that you have spoken about this morning We'll have to wrap up here. Thank you very much for your time and for joining us once again this morning on the breakfast. And I wish you a very beautiful week ahead. Alright, thank you so much Professor Kainita. Thank you very much. Alright, we're going to be discussing four subsidies next. The federal government has stated that there's only a budget for four subsidies until half of 2022 and that it's going to be suspended right after that. Nika Goulet joins us after the short break.