I want to go on the record on what I think this Pantami issue is symptomatic of and as I don’t have a blog, I’m doing this thread. I’m partly responding to how I think it is deeply problematic to argue that Pantami’s statements are taken out of context

and because he was an opponent of Boko Haram, there is no more to see here. I’m understating things when I say, there is more than a lot to see here. I will focus on just two points, not because they are more important, but at this present time, I think they are most urgent.

First, it is incomplete to infer a contrast between Pantami and Muhammad Yusuf simply because they debated. Many have pointed out that Pantami also espoused Jihad implementation in Nigeria but through a gradualist approach (gyara) - he disagreed on the means not the end.

We know what gyara means. To dismiss questions about these views as positions he held when he was young and naïve or as an example of cancel culture is premium gaslighting. That he has moderated his view on establishing overall Jihad is one that has not been properly interrogated

and an honest and accountable government would show an appetite to do so transparently.

Second, Pantami is representative of a hyper-zealous cadre of clerics who proliferated the puritanical Salafi literalist creed of Islam which has reshaped northern Nigeria in deeply volatile ways.

He wasn’t a fringe voice in this restructuring, he was a forefront charismatic cleric and debater who indoctrinated and suffocated the critical thinking and development of a generation of Muslim youths.

Northern Nigeria is in the grips of a crisis of moral vigilantist chauvinism because of a steady diet of extreme, puritanical doctrines from the likes of Pantami. Where is the personal accountability for his moral chauvinism and extremist views about non-Muslims?

These views where not just prescriptive but punitive and have molded northern Nigeria into its present culturally closed, volatile and intolerant state.

As a woman, researcher and northern Nigerian, who has travelled through the region for many, many years, I have witnessed its increasing hostility and judgmental conservatism and nothing good or prosperous can come of this.

The evidence is overwhelming, from Sokoto to Borno, that nothing good or prosperous has come of this trend in northern Nigeria. I am going on the record to say these dots are connected.