The Vice-Chancellor of Al-Istiqamah University, Sumaila, Kano, Professor Salisu Shehu, has raised the alarm that Atheism is spreading among youths in Nigeria and calls on Muslims to rise and fight against it.
Professor Shehu who made the declaration on the second day of a two-day National Conference organized by the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN) with the theme: Matters Arising from 2023 Election and Associated Socio-Economic Challenges, attributed the rise and spread of Atheism to the activities and promoters of unipolar power, New World Order and the rise of American imperialism and globalization.
Atheism has generated a huge controversy in Europe in recent times with the Washington DC-based Pew Research Center saying even in far back 2019 that Atheists make up a larger share of the population in many European countries than they do in the U.S.
In Canada, the government, through the instrumentality of the law is seeking to guarantee freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion, expression, and the right to equal protection and benefit of the law without discrimination based on religion.
One of the ways it does that is to permit religious groups not to register before members can practice their faith, but some registered groups may receive tax-exempt status. Provincial governments continued to impose societal-wide restrictions on assembly, including for all faith groups, to limit the transmission of COVID-19. Some religious communities said provincial orders and additional measures were discriminatory against religious groups because mass gatherings for sports events and other functions were permitted.
The Islamic scholar who spoke on the sub-theme of the conference entitled: LGBTQ+ and the Nigerian Community: Navigating Religious and Cultural Perspectives explained that Atheism was one of the channels through which LGBTQ+ was being propagated and spread in the world.
He said LGBTQ+ which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, asexual and many other terms (such as non-binary and pansexual) is a complete debasement of man, adding that “those who engage in it are complete animals in human skin.”
The Vice-Chancellor identified feminism as one means of spreading the LGBTQ+ trend, saying “there is a direct link between feminism and LGBTQ+,” adding that ‘most feminism activists are likely to be members of the LGBTQ+ orientation because they don’t want to be controlled by men.”
He said poverty was a tool in the hands of promoters of LGBTQ+, adding that it was being used to lure people who were being deceived with all sorts of skills empowerment programmes for vulnerable groups, especially the youths and women.
“Alleviate poverty as leaders to avoid the youths and women falling into the hands of the people with these dangerous activities,” the professor said.
Quoting a Pew Research Center Report on Atheism and LGBT, Professor Shehu said youths within the age category of 41 per cent of youths within 18-41 do support and accept homosexuality and 36 per cent of people within the age range of 30-49 do accept homosexuality in America.
“This shows that youth is the vulnerable group that can easily be recruited, ‘’ adding that “we must not allow our youths to fall into this trap.”
“If we think our youths are not already involved, we are making a mistake. The proof that youths are into LGBTQ+ lies in the proof of the arrests by the police in some states of youths who were caught celebrating gay and lesbian marriages,” Professor Shehu said.
According to him, some misguided pervasive Muslim scholars have joined the fray by misquoting some sections of the Holy Qur’an to deceive and mislead Muslim youths to recruit them into such horrific acts.
He congratulated the Supreme Council for Sharia’ah in Nigeria (SCSN) for organising this conference to create awareness among the Muslim, Ummah, saying there was a need for a complete and comprehensive awareness campaign against LGBTQ+.
According to the VC, educational materials such as textbooks were among the mediums the messages of LGBTQ+ were being sent to young men and women who are learning and called for more sensitization and awareness among teachers and scholars generally.
“Imams and scholars should be well empowered to be able to counter the onslaught from the people who are promoting LGBTQ+. More books should be written to counter those on LGBTQ+,” he said.
Professor Shehu said the House of Representatives one time had to ban certain books being used in so0me schools which contained materials on LGBTQ+, and urged that politicians especially the lawmakers should be well sensitized so that they would not be misled into making laws that would be LGBTQ+ compliant.
He said The Child Rights Act was one of such instruments being used to propagate immoral acts, and said it should be rejected.
