A group under the aegis of the Concerned Zaar Patriots (CZP) has strongly condemned a recent statement credited to Professor Salisu Shehu accusing him of distorting history, inciting division, and using religion to manipulate a purely administrative issue in Bauchi State.
According to a press statement signed and made available to THR News on Tuesday, Ishaya Dangana, the group dismissed as “reckless and unfounded” the Professor’s allegation that Governor Bala Mohammed had “removed Tafawa-Balewa from the Usmaniyya Empire” and “handed it to non-Muslims.”
Dangana described the comments as “a deliberate distortion of history and a dangerous attempt to weaponize religion.”
“Ordinarily, such reckless assertions would have been ignored. However, coming from a man who claims academic distinction, this level of misinformation cannot go unanswered. It is a betrayal of intellectual honesty and a threat to peace in Bauchi State.”
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The group said the Professor’s pronouncements expose “either a shocking ignorance of history or a mischievous attempt to incite religious and ethnic crisis.”
“His narrative is historically false, religiously inflammatory, and socially dangerous.”
“We will henceforth challenge every falsehood he utters — word by word — in defense of truth, justice, and peace.”
The group reaffirmed that Tafawa-Balewa is an integral part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, governed by constitutional law, not by any “empire or caliphate.”
“Nigeria is one indivisible and sovereign nation. Section 2(1) of the 1999 Constitution says “No empire, caliphate, or ancestral kingdom has dominion over any Nigerian territory outside constitutional authority.”
They insisted that the Zaar (Sayawa) people have never been conquered and would never be subjugated under any ideological or religious influence.
“Freedom, dignity, and equality before the law are divine rights guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution. No man is superior to another by reason of tribe or religion,” they maintained.
Punch gathered that Professor Salisu Shehu, who is the Deputy Secretary-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and held from Tafawa Balewa, on Friday posted on his official Facebook handle his stance regarding the proposed Zaar Chiefdom.
Shehu, in a statement written in Hausa and translated by our correspondent, noted that “from the report submitted by the Bauchi State New Kingdom Creation Committee, there are now signs that the Kaura of the Usmaniyya Empire (Governor Bala Mohammed) has indeed removed the town of Tafawa-Balewa from the Usmaniyya Empire.”
“It was a town founded by the Fulani, and the Muslim rulers of the Sultanate Caliphate ruled and governed the town for about two hundred years. But the report shows that this Muslim town will return to the rule of the empire on the condition that no one will rule it except a non-Muslim.”
Professor Shehu added that Governor Mohammed has decided to give alms to those who massacred Muslims and shed Muslim blood in Tafawa-Balewa by handing over the town to them on a platter of cold water.
