Rodemi Femi

We Cannot Allow Peter Obi To Fund The Election Alone.

Over the last few days, ADC campaign have abandoned every shred of political decency to launch a full-blown mockery campaign against Islam. First, they sent out Phrank Shaibu @phrankangel to sit on national television and arrogantly declare that the sacred Kaaba—the Qibla for over a billion Muslims—“does not behold any special spiritual purpose.” Instead of apologising for that gross blasphemy, they had their media allies delete the evidence and pretend it never happened. Now, before the dust has even settled, their “youth leader,” Dino Melaye @_dinomelaye , comes out dressed in Arabian cosplay to challenge President Tinubu to a “Quranic citation competition.” The sheer comedy of a clown who cannot even spell “Quranic” or tell the difference between “recitation” and a court “citation” trying to use the Holy Book as a cheap prop for political clout! The Glorious Quran is the sacred word of Allah, not a circus game for desperate politicians chasing Facebook likes. What makes this even more disgusting is the deafening silence from Atiku Abubakar @atiku and the Muslims inside that camp. You sit back and watch your attack dogs reduce the holiest site in Islam and the Holy Quran to punchlines just to spite Bola Tinubu. Dino ended his post by saying, “No one can mock God”—ironic, considering mocking Islam is now the official campaign strategy of Atiku and the ADC. Shame on the entire campaign.

Only that, in these same elections, there were multiple reports of ballot scanner programming glitches, as witnessed in Westchester County, New York, where machines reportedly rejected ballots at numerous polling locations, forcing election officials to resort to alternative procedures. There were also reports of voting equipment malfunctions in Broward County, Florida, where a new ballot verification feature reportedly delayed the voting process, raising concerns about prolonged disruptions. Then came the ballot shortage in Kansas, where one polling station reportedly received just 100 paper ballots instead of the 100,000 ordered. There were also allegations of vote switching and electoral interference, including complaints in Tennessee that touchscreen voting machines allegedly selected Republican candidates when voters attempted to select Democratic candidates. So, elections are elections everywhere. No system administered by human beings is entirely immune to errors, technical glitches, administrative shortcomings or even allegations of irregularities. The difference, however, is that in the United States, they have a professional and considerably more responsible crop of journalists populating the Fourth Estate, who understand that the business of journalism is not to weaponise every administrative shortcoming, sensationalise every technical failure or undermine public confidence in the electoral process, but to provide context, interrogate the facts and give due recognition to the positives without necessarily concealing the shortcomings. There is a difference between holding a system accountable and deliberately discrediting it. After all, it rains everywhere. The difference is in how we choose to report the rain.

British Politician Fires Back at Mehdi Hasan: “If Islam Is So Peaceful, Why Does Saudi Arabia Execute People for Apostasy?” Speaker: My side of the argument is regularly told that we are demonising Islam and whipping up fear of Islam. But let me tell you what actually whips up fears of Islam. 9/11. The London bombings. Madrid. Mumbai. Bali. Death for apostasy. Death for blasphemy. Death for adultery. Death for homosexuality. Gender discrimination. Child marriage. Beheadings. Imprisonment for being raped. The murder of Theo van Gogh. Death threats. Sharia patrols. Polygamous marriages. This is what causes fear of Islam. It is not me. We'll be told this is just the extreme fringe of Islam. Well, look at Saudi Arabia the birthplace of Islam and custodian of its holy sites. People are executed for blasphemy and apostasy. But apparently, that's the extreme fringe? Calling Saudi Arabia the extreme fringe of Islam is like calling the Vatican the extreme fringe of Catholicism. Sorry, it just doesn't work. Then we're told violent Muslims have misunderstood Islam. Saudi Arabia has misunderstood. Iran has misunderstood. Yemen has misunderstood. Has there ever been a more spectacularly misunderstood religion than Islam? I'm constantly told that I need to respect Islam. But I'm under no greater obligation to respect Islam than any other belief. I am under no obligation to make compromises with an ideology I simply don't see as peaceful. Why don't I see it as peaceful? Because of the evidence. If I look around the world and see the countries where Islam calls the shots, all I see is brutality and violence imposed by the state.