The National Chairman of the Jama’atu Ahlus Sunnah Wal-Jama’ah (JIBWIS), Sheikh Muhammad Sani Yahya Jingir, has said that he stands by his position that Nigerians should vote massively for Muslim-Muslim tickets.
“I wonder how Nigerian Christians would call for voting for their own, but somebody will say I have no right to ask for whom we should vote for,” he said.
Sheikh Jingir, who was responding to the widespread national debate that followed his Saturday remarks on Nigeria’s political project and the historical background of leadership, stated that “voting Muslim-Muslim Tickets is what I stand on, because we have suffered enough in the hands of Christian in Plateau State”.
He said, “In my state, which we were there before its creation as a state, Christians said we don’t belong and that we should be expelled; and I can tell you in one area where we have dominance, we counted 100,000 votes for a councillor, but in another area, they counted 15,000 votes for a person that went to National Assembly. Where is justice in this?”
The cleric added, “My Muslim-Muslim ticket is not on Ahmed Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, but anybody who believes in what I believe in, on the fact that Nigeria Muslims have suffered enough with their leaders being killed”.
Sheikh Yahya Jingir denied saying anything beyond his call for Nigerian Muslims to exercise their voting rights and choose candidates they believe in, adding that “what I said on the day is what I stand on”.
On the killings of Nigerian Muslim leaders, he said “the person that killed Sardauna was Major Nzeogwu Kaduna,” and on Late President Musa Yar’Adua, he said “those who presented him said he will die in the next six months but he spent two years”.
He added that, “At that time many Nigerian Christians were saying that Yar’Adua was incapacitated and he would die; that gave me heart attack that these people, historically, they disliked us and their positions would never change”.
Jingir further stated, “My calls and position on Muslim-Muslim tickets is a long time things; it didn’t start with Tinubu, but because he was the one who accepted it, that is why I will continue to talk about him and voting for him, and this is my personal opinion”.
