My Final Words on Deborah, Blasphemy, and the Way Forward for Nigeria

The entire Muslim community, particularly in the North of Nigeria, will do everyone a great deal of good by calling for an ad hoc meeting with all its faithful to teach and enlighten them what is blasphemy and what is not blasphemy, else all these lynching from Kaduna, to Kano, to Sokoto, and even to Imo state in south of the country will never stop. Southern Christians lynch northern Muslims in the south, but the religious extremists here in the North lynch because they feel their actions are backed up by law and the Qur'an.

Just so you know, Mubarak Bala had to be tried in court for everyone to learn that his Facebook posts and comments weren’t exactly blasphemous. In other words, Mubarak was not charged with blasphemy! He was sentenced to 24 years imprisonment not because any of the counts charged against him were blasphemous. His lawyers were even mad at him for pleading guilty (for reasons best known to him).

This would have been the case of Deborah had she been given fair hearing; had she been charged to court. But, no, in Nigeria we believe in jungle justice; we don’t allow the law to take its precedence.

Even when we allow the law to take its place, only the Sharia law carries death penalty for blasphemy — and Sharia law is not universally applicable as such laws can only be applied to Muslims and then only if they opt for their case to be heard in a Sharia court.

In any case, Deborah deserves justice, her murderers made to face the wrath of the law to serve as deterrent to others, and lastly the Muslim community needs to be conscientize about blasphemy and handling blasphemy.