By Hashim Suleiman
When a society has demonstrated docility for so long, every opportune educationist and hypocrite will think they can hoodwink the people at the slightest opportunity. That’s what people like Farooq Kperogi do with their articles sometimes, perhaps to score a cheap point, advance their self acclaimed educational and grammatical supremacy or satisfy their paymasters. One of these must be the reason why Kperogi will write an article on his weekly ‘Notes from Atlanta’ claiming to be Pantami’s friend but could still lie against his friend, misconstrue his messages and malign him. Why go this low Prof!?
Is is disheartening to understand that regardless of how advanced Kperogi claims he is, he does not understand what it means to be friends with someone. I do understand that in our African clime, it is difficult to find friends because the word friendship has been dropped and acquaintanceship been utilized and mistook as friendship. This means that Kperogi should stop flaunting his America status and a way of advancement and act like an African where mischief is still very ripe because he acted like a grade one African this morning by joining the gang of Islamophobes and paid merchants. He has greatly disappointed some of us who still have a glimpse of expectations of objectivity and credibility around him.
He went ahead to ignorantly misconstrue Pantami’s preaching on the matter of extrajudicial killings and the issue of 9/11 era and what have you. Is Kperogi too deep in mischief to know that even Amnesty International usually questions and worries the security agencies over certain kinds of operations against the terrorist themselves by branding it extrajudicial killings? If Kperogi is as intelligent as he claims he is then he should know the place of Rule of Law. In the war front, yes the enemies must be crushed but in a situation where you get to arrest, the only appropriate thing is prosecution.
Is it also a lie that the economic terrorist of the Niger Delta were given amnesty? What in that speech did Pantami said that was a lie, why claim to be a friend and still go ahead to malign him? Is that Kperogi’s understanding of friendship? No that’s fake friendship classical of being used as tutorship material for upcoming ones on how to identify one.
If you listen to major motivational speakers, preachers and conscience musicians nowadays, one of their major topics of discussion is how to identify and avoid fake friends because of how vile and dangerous they can be, perhaps this is part of Pantami’s answered prayers on exposure of enemies within and if the Sheik had in the words of Kperogi been extending hand of his kindness or any form of information to Kperogi, he must desist henceforth, including mutual acquaintances which he met through him.
What is Koerogi’s level of Islamic education that he thinks he qualifies to x-ray sermons and preachings and actually advance the true meanings of them? Like Sheikh Pantami said, Islamic teachings are not personal opinions. The Quran has never changed since its inception and never will. The messages therein are permanent which must be accepted and taught they way they are. Kperogi claims he likes reading so he may want to take another degree in Islamic studies but for now he has not demonstrated enough knowledge to dissect Islamic teachings and doctrines.
Kperogi shouldn’t have claimed been a friend and just go ahead to publish his vile because at the moment his article did nothing other than expose him as a snitch, a hypocrite and perhaps a terrorist apologist since they are claiming the Sheikh is one when he is not because he should remember that ‘birds of same feather flock together’.