President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been called upon to prioritise the security of lives and property in a bid to exhibit exemplary leadership.
Sheikh Imran Abdul Mojeed Eleha, Proprietor of Darul Na’im, made the call during an annual special lecture organised by the organisation of Tadhamunil Muslimeen (OTM) in Ibadan, Oyo State.
While identifying the need to provide adequate security to combat the disorder in the society, the scholar charged the new administration to practice exemplary leadership, especially in this regard.
He said, “I want to tell the Nigerian president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that one of the things we need him to do urgently is to ensure security. The rate at which people are being kidnapped, extorted and killed is very high. No one can overcome this except a leader.” At the lecture titled: “Exemplary Leadership”, Sheikh Eleha emphasised the importance of having a good leader, saying, “A leaderless society is a bad one because for every group, God has created a leader.”
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On followership, the cleric said that it behooved on the citizenry to ensure justice and practice equity in all their dealings to enjoy good leadership.
He said, “The revered scholar, Ibn Taymiyyah, had said that God will help a just government even if the leader is an unbeliever, while an unjust government will be deprived of dignity even if the leader is a Muslim. That is the result. People say we pray, we offer zakat and we fast, yet we are hungry. This will be so because worship has nothing to do with societal justice. There are people who neither fast nor offer zakat but because there is societal justice, they enjoy.
“Here, market women have different adulterated measuring cups, and even when you buy one litre of fuel, you are almost certain that it is not up to the value you paid for. How do you expect success from a leader when people cheat on one another in a country?
“Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said that any nation where measurements are manipulated experiences hunger, inflation and gets a bad leader. Now you complain of bad leaders but you also tamper with measuring cups of garri, manipulate fuel dispensers; don’t you know that you have requested for an unsuccessful leader by so doing?”
Dr Amoo Alaga, while speaking, applauded good leaders who were committed to societal growth and development, saying a good leader would be good irrespective of his religious beliefs.
He added that if Prof Dora Akunyili was alive and contesting, she would have the support of all and sundry just as Prof Ishaq Oloyede would enjoy the backing of Nigerians irrespective of their religion.
