When religious leaders trade reverence and devotion to God for incitement, the only souls they save are their own political ambitions — and the nation pays with blood.
On a campaign stage in Kano State, before a governor and a rapturous crowd, Sheikh Yahaya Jingir — National Chairman of the Council of Ulama, JIBWIS — did something that should have shocked the conscience of every Nigerian. Instead, it barely made the news.
“Let’s show the infidels their limit,” he declared, urging Muslims to obtain their voter cards and prove their numerical superiority over Christians. “They are lying!” he thundered.
This was not a sermon. This was a census of contempt dressed in religious robes. And the silence from state agents was not just deafening — it was damning.
Who exactly are these “infidels” in Nigeria? Your fellow citizens? Your neighbors? The Christians whose taxes fund government? The Muslims who reject religious politics? The millions who simply want competent leadership regardless of whether the candidate prays in a mosque or a church?
Jingir’s answer is clear: the “infidels” are anyone who does not share his faith.
In a country where over 7,000 Christians were killed in 2025 alone — an average of 35 every day, according to Intersociety — this is not mere rhetoric. It is kindling thrown onto an already raging fire.
This is where political argument becomes absurd and dangerous. Jingir praised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as his “political hero” for advancing what he called a “purely Muslim-Muslim coalition.”
“I am among the staunch advocates of the Muslim-Muslim ticket, and I call on you to come together for Muslim-Muslim ticket. No going back on this,” he said.
But here is the reality Jingir refuses to confront: a Muslim-Muslim ticket does not put food on a Muslim family’s table. It does not secure a kidnapped farmer. It does not give a child a good school. It does not reduce the price of fuel, food, or medicine. It does not create jobs, advance technology, fix roads, or keep electricity on.
Former Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, tore into this religious arithmetic:
“If the argument has now become ‘we are more in number, therefore we should dominate,’ then we have moved from democracy into religious arithmetic.”
Dalung warned that Nigeria risks sliding into religious majoritarianism where ballots matter more than governance.
Jingir’s defense is revealing: “I am aware that the infidels are embittered by this word. However, are there no Christians alike? Are there no Jews? Are there no traditionalists? Have I done anything wrong by merely campaigning for a Muslim-Muslim ticket?”
The question answers itself. When a religious leader frames political competition as a religious war — when he reduces citizens to “infidels” who must be “shown their limit” — he has abandoned the pulpit for the battlefield. The blood that follows will be on his hands, whether he wields the machete or not.
This is not isolated. In neighboring Ghana, an Islamic cleric who called for Muslims to “kill or behead anyone who insults Prophet Muhammad” was forced into a public apology within days. “Please, Ghanaians, forgive me. I made that statement out of anger,” he pleaded. Police considered formal charges.
The contrast with Nigeria is stark. Here, such statements are met with shrugs, not outrage. With promotion, not prosecution. Jingir made his comments at a campaign event for Kano Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, who sat and listened.
The pattern is old. In December 2014, during campaigns ahead of the 2015 presidential election, then candidate Muhammadu Buhari warned in Hausa that if the election was rigged like in 2011, “the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood.”
He did not name who was dog or baboon. He did not need to. After the disputed 2011 election, post-election violence killed hundreds. His spokesman later called it “an idiomatic expression.” But words have consequences. Those who speak of violence should not be surprised when violence answers.
Why does the Nigerian state allow such statements without sanction? The answer is uncomfortable: because the state is complicit. Politicians court these clerics for votes. Religious identity has become the primary currency of politics. Leaders who should condemn incitement are busy counting which faith delivers more ballots.
There have been calls for an anti-hate speech bill. The Senate reintroduced legislation proposing severe penalties for hate speech with fatal consequences. Critics like former VP Atiku Abubakar and civil society groups protested, citing free speech concerns. Meanwhile, the speeches continue. The incitement continues. The violence continues. And the bodies pile up.
The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa released a six-year study in June 2026 that should chill every Nigerian. Between October 2019 and September 2025, 79,323 people were killed in Nigeria. Of these, an estimated 28,551 were Christians compared to 13,224 Muslims. Relative to population in affected states, Christians were killed at approximately 4.4 times the rate of Muslims. Three-quarters of civilian fatalities occurred during attacks on farming communities.
This is not abstract data. This is a nation tearing itself apart while leaders count religious heads.
What is Jingir’s response to this carnage? More arithmetic. “If it wasn’t for my stance on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, somebody would have claimed they are more populous than us. But by the grace of Allah, we defeated them so ignominiously that they did not even make it to second place. They came third.”
He then made his preference explicit: “Therefore my vote is for a Muslim-Muslim candidate! What about you, the Muslim ummah?”
This is not a religious leader offering guidance. This is a political operative in a cleric’s robe, counting ballots instead of souls.
Who was the “infidel” that came third? The Nigerian citizen the clerics forgot to mention. Was it Mr. Peter Obi, who came third in the 2023 presidential election? Are those who voted for him also “infidels”? This statement is condescending to Nigerians who have the constitutional right to vote for anyone regardless of faith or ethnicity.
Jingir also alleged that “people with a dark history, who are responsible for planting a bomb in our mosque in Kano, calling themselves Maitatsine, the so-called Christians in disguise.”
The Maitatsine movement was a radical Islamic sect that emerged in northern Nigeria in the 1980s and was linked to violent religious disturbances. To blame Christians for the violence of Islamic extremists is false. It is a deliberate attempt to inflame sectarian hatred. It is the rhetoric of genocide, broadcast from a platform that included a sitting governor.
Jingir argues he is exercising democratic rights: “Have I stopped Christians from their own slogans? Have I stopped traditionalists from a similar campaign?”
But this is false equivalence. Campaigning for a candidate of your faith is not the same as declaring followers of other faiths to be “infidels” who must be “shown their limit.” One is democracy. The other is a declaration of religious war.
Dalung put it best: “Nigeria belongs to Muslims, Christians and citizens who subscribe to neither faith. No Nigerian should be told to ‘know their limit’ because of their religion.”
He called for leaders to compete on security, jobs, food, education, healthcare and justice. “The real majority that matters in a democracy is not the number of worshippers in mosques or churches. It is the majority of Nigerians who want a country that works.”
The Nigerian state has a choice. It can keep looking away while pulpits become platforms for incitement. It can keep allowing politicians to court clerics for votes while the nation burns. Or it can act.
It can enforce existing laws against incitement. It can pass legislation that criminalizes hate speech without killing free expression. It can hold accountable not just the speakers, but the politicians who platform them. It can send a message that in Nigeria, no one — not even a sheikh with a following — is above the law.
But the state will not act unless the people demand it. Unless Nigerians of all faiths say: enough. Unless Christians who have voted for Muslims, Muslims who reject religious politics, and millions who simply want a country that works, make their voices heard.
The silence of the majority is the oxygen of the extremist. And every day that silence continues, sermons of division grow louder, bodies pile higher, and the nation slides closer to the abyss.
Because make no mistake: this is not about religion. It never was. It is about power. It is about control. It is about politicians using religious leaders as proxies to mobilize votes while delivering nothing but empty promises and a broken nation.
Jingir’s “Muslim-Muslim” ticket will not build one hospital. It will not educate one child. It will not stop one kidnapper. It will not put one meal on one table. All it will do is divide. All it will do is kill.
When the blood dries, the cleric and politicians will move to the next election, leaving the bodies of “infidels” and the faithful alike to rot in the sun.
The question is not whether Nigeria can survive this. The questions is whether Nigerians will allow it to continue. So much has happened and many innocent lives have been sacrificed on the alter of incitement , how much more will be spilled before someone says, “This stops here”?
AUTHOR: Allen Durueke
Articles published in our Graffiti section are strictly the opinion of the writers and do not represent the views of Ripples Nigeria or its editorial stand.
(Ripples)