ISLAMIC BANKING REJECTED BY ARAB COUNTRIES

SEVERAL ARAB COUNTRIES REJECT ISLAMIC BANKING

By NAIWU OSAHON

Many Arab countries including Kuwait, do not want anything to do with
Islamic banking. They consider it archaic, unworkable and counter
productive to the good health of free enterprise. Islamic banking
retards entrepreneurship flair because of interference in too wide a
range of businesses that the bank has no expertise or adequately
trained or qualified personnel to nurture to success, as joint
business partner of the businesses of its loans. Islamic banking is
anti-globalization, which is the current vogue of world commerce.

Two of the most conservative Islamic countries in the world, Iran and
Pakistan, dabbled in Islamic banking but soon began to experience the
inevitable problems associated with it. Iran has since withdrawn the
interest free content of the product by allowing her Islamic banks to
charge between 4 – 8% interests on loans. Iran calls the interest
charged, by an Arab name. If Iran is charging interest on its Islamic
banking loans, why would a non-Islamic or Arab country like Nigeria,
be desperate to adopt the system jettisoned by the most radical
Islamic country in the world, if not for mischievous purposes?

‘Usury’ as an idea, which Islamic banking is fighting against, did not
originate from Islam or the Arab world. It is as old as the earliest
Christian era and is mentioned in the Bible. It represents the
practice of lending money to be paid back at an unfairly high rate of
interest. Yes, the Jews and the Arabs were the earliest ancient
principal offenders of the practice, being notorious gold merchants’
money lenders. But as banking became the vogue, modern commerce
progressed along the route of finding ways of reducing interest
charges rather than the cumbersome, primordial, uneconomic pursuit of
profit-sharing.

It was found that reducing interest rates charged by banks was a
better practice long term, than wasting valuable time chasing after
profit sharing, which although in the short run, appears to translate
to high returns for the banks relatively, was not commensurate with
high demand on the labour and time they expend on the businesses, and
was seriously damaging to entrepreneurial spirit and profits of the
struggling victims of the loan.

Of course, Al-Qaeda, bent on Islamizing the world, promotes Islamic
banking as the ‘do good’ interest free bank, an irresistible bait in a
poverty stricken, alien mentally and religiously enslaved society like
Nigeria. But deceiving a people by calling a tiger a sheep does not
transform the tiger into a sheep. The truth of the matter is that
Islamic banking relies on and makes profits, which it gives Muslim
names. The businesses Islamic banks are interested in must be bankable
and profitable because Islamic banking places emphasis on
profit-sharing rather than interest charges.

What we must ask them is the difference between profit-sharing and
Interest charges other than that the bank decides how to run the
businesses it invests in; takes the lion share of the profits
eventually, and still collects its loan in due time. In other words,
Islamic banking charges interest by non-conventional formats and
names, to remain in the business of banking. The bank’s debtors end
up paying higher interests by whatever Arab names called, than
operates in conventional banks, because the Islamic bank becomes a
fortune sharing part-owner of the businesses of its loans, until the
loans are liquidated.

And remember, Islamic banks do not have the expertise and man-power to
help run all the businesses it gives loans to, so, in the end, the
businesses they get involved in, run aground as soon as the Islamic
banks are done with extracting their pound of flesh. In fact, Islamic
banking is worst than the “usury” of old that it is supposed to be
trying to terminate. That is why Iran changed the rule to charge
between 4 – 8% on loans. It is cheaper that way, and the businesses
involved are left to be run by people who own and know what their
businesses are about, and have the interest in keeping the businesses
going indefinitely.

Islamic banking means that Islamic banks, attempt to control the small
and medium scale industries of the country in which they operate.
Arabs, particularly the Lebanese, did just that in the Nigeria of the
early sixties. They monopolized our small and medium scale businesses
as wholesalers in all domestic items of commerce; salt, pepper, oils,
rice, textile, drugs, drinks, kerosene, petroleum products etc. They
operated from the best business addresses of the time, such as Balogun
Street in Lagos. The battle to dislodge them from our small scale
businesses was bitter and long, culminating in the military era
indigenization decree. A campaign (or war cry), in which I played a
pivotal role. Now the Arabs want to come back through the back door
facilitation of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Governor of the Central Bank
of Nigeria, and take back control of our small and medium scale
businesses.

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, claims that interest free banking is the answer
to Nigeria’s economic ills and appears to have been preparing the
grounds for its introduction in the last six months particularly, by
unusually increasing the Central Bank’s benchmark interest rate known
as MPR four times. His latest increase was last week from 8 to 8.75%.
He claims he is doing it to fight inflation but stakeholders say the
frequent increases do not augur well for the country because it
discourages manufacturers and businesses from borrowing from banks.

In any case, Islam or Sharia does not have the copyright or monopoly
on interest free banking. The function can be performed by any
conventional bank that so desires. It does not have to have religious
connotation or to come from a religious bank. So, if Sanusi is not a
Sharia agent and feels strongly enough about interest free banking,
all that he needs to do is give licenses or the go ahead to any number
of the currently registered Nigerian banks or foreign conventional
banks so willing, to add interest free products to their banking
portfolio without religious connotations, restrictions or limitations
on customers.

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi maintains that Islamic banking would help tackle
the problems of tobacco smoking, alcoholism, gambling and prostitution
etc in Nigeria. In the first place, I doubt if these problems are
peculiar to or worst in Nigeria. The power to make laws for and
against tobacco and alcohol indulgence and commerce or the prohibition
of gambling and prostitution in Nigeria is vested exclusively by the
Nigerian Constitution in the National Assembly. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi,
does not agree with this, however. He believes his power as the CBN
Governor supersedes that of the Nigerian National Assembly and allows
him to transfer the power to institutions of his choice, including
banks, local or foreign, to ban trading in tobacco, alcohol,
prostitution, gambling and such other ethical fixations, at least.

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi says Islamic banking focuses on financial
intermediation, as opposed to innovation. Is that a virtue? Without
innovations, where would the world be today? We would all be
answering one common name of Muhammad, wearing white robes and sandals
every where and at all time, with women veiling and in permanent
pudda. They cannot drive and must not travel or do business without
male guarantors. Muhammads cannot do business with non-Muhammads or
with people who are into innovative businesses. Muhammads can marry
four wives, including teenage brides and still be homosexual.

Islamic banking insists on our products and services being free from
speculation, which effectively ends the Naira Exchange Rates’
speculative activities, the Stock Exchange business, and our other
liberal commercial and global businesses with the non-Muslim world.
Our businesses must be free of interests and monopoly, thus cutting us
off from IMF and World Bank facilities what ever they are worth, and
restricting us to aids’ trifles from the Islamic Development Bank.
Does any one still need any more reason why no Arab country is heading
for the Moon? They abhor science and science is the core of
innovations.

Sanusi says, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) is financing some
Fadama II projects in two Northern and one Eastern states. The Eastern
state, Anambra, has since denied taking any such IDB facility. If the
other two Northern states took the facilities, Ya’Adua got us into the
trap. What the IDB provided as aid, is on the average N140 million
(less than a million dollars), per state. The nearly half a trillion
naira stolen by Mrs Ibru and the other Nigerian banks’ executives
could have taken care of that a million fold, instead of exposing us
as a country so cheaply to the ridicule of being aided with pittance,
all in the effort of deviously imposing Sharia banking on Nigeria?

Sanusi says Nigeria’s SEC and NDIC have had dealings with Islamic
banks too. Because a thief gets away with his loot does not mean he is
no longer a thief. If the two institutions secretly breached the
secular aspect of our constitution in any way, it does not mean they
are right or that our other institutions should be encouraged to do
the same secretly or brazenly.

In the few Arab countries were Islamic banking is being practiced, it
has not impacted positively on the lives of Arabs’ indigenous poor who
are the derelict Black original owners of all Arab countries,
including Sudan, which is why we have South Sudan now, with Darfur in
toe. Sanusi says there is Islamic banking in Britain. Britain is not
a secular country, Nigeria is. Britain has the resources, sufficiently
sophisticated intelligence gathering mechanism, intimidating security
efficiency and might, to quickly isolate their small Muslim population
and nip whatever threats they pose in the bud.

Imposition of ‘Sharia’ laws at our national level of banking to
promote separate functions, products, services and queues for Muslim
men and Muslim women on the one hand and them and non-Muslims on the
other, would lead systematically to separate public places and general
elections queues, separate facilities in schools, hospitals, work
places, armed forces, national football teams etc and the forbidding
of legitimate activities such as trading in alcohol, tobacco, casino
games and other such moral fixations. This is not only the surest and
fasted recipe to disintegration in a secular country like Nigeria, it
installs Arabian hegemony and laws over our sovereignty and national
laws as if we are an occupied country.

A country which is already a melting pot of bitter non-native
religious rivalries and acrimonies, and where the Islamic
fundamentalist sect, Boko Haram, with the active support of Maghreb’s
Al’-Qaida sects from neighbouring countries, is now throwing bombs
daily, killing dozens of innocent people in public places and sacking
churches and police stations to precipitate a jihad. Boko Haram,
meaning Western education is sin, a fundamentalist group, was founded
in Borno state in 2002 to establish Sharia law and Islamic government
in Nigeria. Governor Alli Modu Sherrif of Borno state 2003 - 2010, one
of the ‘Sharia’ states, used members of the Boko Haram sect as thugs
during his campaigns for governorship. The sect first gained national
attention in 2004 when its members set up a base in Kanamma, Yobe
state, named ‘Afghanistan,’ from where the sect members attacked
nearby police outposts, killing police officers.

There has been a series of attacks in Nigeria from that time, in the
guise of the desert Al-Qaedas from Algeria and Mali, the Boko Haram
sect, and imported jihadists from the neighbouring countries of Niger
and Chad, sacking whole Nigerian villages at night or burning down
police stations and killing law enforcement officers in broad day
light in Brono, Benue, Plateau and other neighbouring states. On June
16, 2011, Boko Haram bombed Louis Edet House, headquarters of the
Nigeria Police Force, in Abuja, destroying several cars and killing
the bomber and a security officer. Over 700 people have been killed
by mid 2011 in Boko Haram attacks in Northern Nigeria. In June 2011,
the sect sent a hit list of prominent Northerners, including the Vice
president, to Nigeria security agencies. The timing to introduce
Sharia banking in Nigeria is, therefore, not only extremely troubling;
it is an affront to the collective ambition and acumen of a people
struggling desperately to evolve a common destiny.

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Governor of the CBN, had been training
personnel secretly for some time, to set up a parallel Central Bank
(or what he calls a Commission or Committee within the Central Bank)
especially for Islamic banking in Nigeria, and has initialled damaging
‘Sharia’ agreements to the secular structure of our democracy. In
other words, he has sold Nigeria’s sovereignty to the OIC and the
Islamic world, and is now deceiving the nation that Islamic banking
has nothing to do with ‘Sharia’ laws, and that people opposing its
berthing in Nigeria were only being sentimental. To the shock of the
nation, the documents he had initialled with the Islamic bank’s agents
confirmed his deceit, and came to light at his meeting on July 20,
2011, with the House of Representative members.

Only a person with a carefully crafted and nurtured agenda to destroy
his country would so blatantly lie to conceal his efforts to
grievously inflict religious tension, division and intolerance on his
own country. Sanusi came prepared for the devious role he is playing
now as the Central Bank Governor of Nigeria. After obtaining his
first degree in Nigeria, he moved to the University of Sudan, where he
was radicalized in Sharia ideology, rubbing shoulders as class mate
and associate of current leaders worldwide of the Al-Quada sect.
Sudan was Al-Qaeda’s International headquarters and Osama bin Laden
was living and operating from there at the time.

As soon as Sanusi returned from his studies in Sudan, be began to
openly pursue his Sharia take over of Nigeria, particularly through
the financial sector of the economy. Reproduced here word for word is
the unmistaken evidence of his carefully laid out plan. At a
conference in 2000 in Kaduna, Sanusi delivered a lecture on Islamic
economics called International Framework of Institutional Framework of
Zakat: Dimensions and Implications. In the lecture Sanusi argued that
although collection of Zakat is the responsibility of the state, it
may be the responsibility of the Nigerian government rather than the
emirs in Northern Nigeria.

In October 2002 Sanusi published a paper on ‘The Hudhood Punishments
in Northern Nigeria: A Muslim Criticism.’ In July 2003, he presented
‘The Shari’a Debate and the Construction of a ‘Muslim’ identity in
Northern Nigeria: A Critical Perspective,’ at a seminar at the
university of Bayreuth in Germany. In August 2003 he presented
‘Democracy, Rights and Islam: Theory, Epistemology and the Quest for
Synthesis’ at an International Conference in Abuja on Shar’ah panel
and Family Law in Nigeria and in the Muslim World: A rights-Based
Approach.’ These documents confirm Sanusi’s preoccupation and ambition
for Nigeria, and to get the opportunity to put his theories into
practice in the financial sector of the Nigerian economy, President
Yar’Adua appointed him Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in
2008.

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi took advantage of the seeming weakness in Nigeria
presidency to launch his Sharia take over of Nigeria. Jonathan’s
attempt to contest for the presidency of Nigeria in the April 2011
general elections was marked by ugly scheming to scuttle his efforts
by a gang led by Babangida and Atiku, pushing for Northern and Islamic
agendas in the guise of the zoning of leadership. Jonathan trounced
them at the pools and was sworn in to serve his own term in office on
May 29, 2011, but the zoning scar seems to have compromised him, and
is promoting narrow-minded, sectoral distortions in our body polity as
exemplified by the greedy regional hijack of the presidency and
speakership positions in the National Assembly.

Northern jihadists did not feel that a Christian Northern president of
the Senate represents them so they forced a Northern Muslim Speaker on
the House of Representatives to the detriment of the legitimate
interests of the West in particular and Southern Nigeria in general.
Nigeria’s Constitution does not recognize religious balancing, only
geographical, by implication. When Chief Mushood Abiola, a Southern
Muslim, won the presidency, he had a Northern Muslim as his Vice, and
that did not rankle Christians in Nigeria. In any case, over 40% of
the North is either Christian or non-Muslim. Awolowo proved this over
and over again by winning significant followership during elections in
the North in his time.

President Jonathan is so weak that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a former
president of Nigeria, who himself acquiesced in the introduction of
Sharia into the governance of most of Northern Nigeria states, had to
speak for him recently by lashing out against the Northern takeover of
the leadership of the National Assembly and warning the Speaker of the
House of Representatives to resign his post within two years.
President Jonathan might very well go down in history as the leader
that introduced Sharia into our national politics and consciousness to
prepare Nigeria for eventual disintegration.

NAIWU OSAHON Hon. Khu Mkuu (Leader) World Pan-African Movement); Ameer
Spiritual (Spiritual Prince) of the African race; MSc. (Salford);
Dip.M.S; G.I.P.M; Dip.I.A (Liv.); D. Inst. M; G. Inst. M; G.I.W.M;
A.M.N.I.M. Poet, Author of the magnum opus: ‘The end of knowledge’.
One of the world’s leading authors of children’s books; Awarded; key
to the city of Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Honourary Councilmanship,
Memphis City Council; Honourary Citizenship, County of Shelby;
Honourary Commissionership, County of Shelby, Tennessee; and a silver
shield trophy by Morehouse College, USA, for activities to unite and
uplift the African race.

Naiwu Osahon, Sage: New World Order, renowned author, philosopher of
science, mystique, leader of the world Pan-African Movement. All
members of this group and of the African race are entitled to free
e-copies of the following documents among others and are invited to
apply for them.