Lessons from the Pantami Scandal by Moses Ochonu and Friends on Facebook [ pantami is a nigerian minister of terrorist commitment in adult life who now claims he has reformed

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Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Apr 24, 2021, 10:45:11 AM4/24/21
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                                                                          Lessons from the Pantami Scandal




I know that the dust is yet to settle on the Isa Ali Pantami scandal, but for me this is beyond Pantami and goes to the issue of what ails Nigeria. Accordingly, let me identify a few provisional lessons that can be learned from PantamiGate, whether or not he resigns or is fired (as he should).
1. Every one has a past, and people evolve, but all pasts are not created equal. Some pasts are disqualifying when it comes to holding public office. Others are not. A person who dabbled in narcotics or engaged in bullying can legitimately be questioned about their past if they're being screened for public office. However, if they are now sober and are otherwise qualified, that past should not prevent them from being appointed. Not so for someone who openly endorsed terrorism, religious and sectarian hate, volunteered to lead violent jihad in Nigeria, declared that the killing of non-Muslims make him happy, criticized the extra-judicial execution of bloodthirsty Boko Haram operatives, and eulogized leaders of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. A past which includes being suspended from university for issuing inciting fatwas that led to riots and may have spilled the blood of fellow students and being thrown out of a mosque for incendiary preaching is not a redeemable one. Such a past is a clear and present danger to the republic. Such a person should not even be nominated and if nominated they should never be approved for any ministerial position, let alone one that puts them in charge of sensitive national telecom and biometric databases that can be exploited by terrorists.
2. Before you think of going into public office, if you have a disqualifying history like Pantami's, you have to publicly renounce that past and create a countervailing history and a personal archival record of tolerance, ecumenism, and moderation.
3. Buhari is a lost cause, but future presidents should not nominate toxic and dangerous people with a history of intolerance, incitement, support for terrorism, and hateful preaching. This should be a watershed moment in the history of cabinet formation in Nigeria. People with disqualifying infractions in their past do not have any business in public service. They can remain private citizens and continue to hold or practice beliefs that are injurious to Nigeria's already shattered social fabric. We would criticize them but we would reluctantly concede to them the rights to their beliefs and opinions as long as they don’t directly hurt anyone. Public officials do not have such privacy privileges.
4. Our senate ministerial screening process is fatally broken and needs to be totally overhauled, so that public petitions are entertained and the nominee's personal and professional histories are thoroughly scrutinized.
5. Our DSS screening of nominated federal public officials is a disgraceful joke and must be totally revamped with tools to scour both paper and online archives and databases for disqualifying information on nominees.
6. If you have Pantami-like baggage with egregious ramifications for national security and existential harmony you need to steer clear of public service and sort out your shit. No one can do it for you. If you have evolved from your violent and dangerously bigoted positions, the burden is on you to demonstrate it by first doing a public mea culpa, recanting, apologizing, and then contritely taking concrete steps to win back the trust and forgiveness of Nigerians who are justifiably outraged that a person with such baggage was appointed to a high profile public office in the first place.
7. We need to cultivate the practice of drawing a line in the sand and demanding that public officials who turn out to be dangerous, violent, divisive, and hateful characters resign, even if, as we know, their principal may not fire them and they may not resign on their own. It may not force anyone out but it would be a powerful symbolic marker of who we are and who we want to be.
379Atanda Yemi, Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu and 377 others
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  • You nailed on the right place Prof
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  • Thank you, Prof. Pantami is a huge danger to all non muslim. His views was not from a position of ignorance. He is too informed and educated and such deep convictions will never vamoose soon. He is by far more dangerous that Boko Haram sects. Leopard n… 
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  • I agree with you Prof. But it looks like the Buhari is govt deliberately recruiting people with such backgrounds for a reason, that is why Buhari may never fire him
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  • Right on the money Mo! More grace👌👍
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  • If someone used narcotics and is subsequently rehabilitated he could hold public office, but to "dabble" in narcotics as a dealer or entrepreneur, and later come to hold public office? I don't think that's right. The former is more often than not a victim while the latter is a dangerous criminal that should be put in the same (or close to) category as a terrorist.
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    • To dabble is to use. I didn't say "dealt" or "dealt in," meaning to sell and distribute or smuggle it.
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    • Moses Ochonu, you're not wrong but it's an ambiguous word in the context.
      Regards.
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  • Someone should bring in my brother Fredrick here for a proper lecture. This is how sound minds writes not trying to spin and muddle things up by trying to remind us of how oyedekpo slapped Someone in his church and how apostle Sulaiman has been talking carelessly, thinking that his audience are all low mental that couldn't use their common senses. Patami is not just a sympathizer to those murderers, infact he is one of them.
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    • Ike M Ndichie
       Forget that pecuniary columnist call Fredrick, when you write for money you can't be objective, his types are the one that put journalists in a bad light
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  • In a serious country heads should toll from DSS to the senate who allowed such a one to ascend to the position, one so sensitive as his present post.
    But ofcourse not. We are not a country. We are a COWntry....no one listens to you. Anyone who thinks his Principal is not unaware of his credentials and is not nodding covertly to these interplay of whatever is afoot is a fool.
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  • No additional points needed.. I hope one of the print media houses get to see and reproduce these guidelines (with your permission) for aspiring public office holders.
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  • The man's nomination by Buhari in the first place, tells you the kind of person this president is essentially. Buhari has consistently demonstrated a tendency for a bias for the likes of this Pantami fellow. And that's very unfortunate for this terribly beleaguered country. Buhari was a horrible mistake!
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  • Gwanine kam a fannin bangaranci.
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  • Can't the institutions of State take it's course against Isa Pantami, having proven he had "openly endorsed terrorism, religious and sectarian hate, volunteered to lead violent jihad in Nigeria, declared that the killing of non-Muslims make him happy, criticized the extra-judicial execution of bloodthirsty Boko Haram operatives, and eulogized leaders of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban?"
    All these are ideologies people seldom change from. Isa Pantami can't possibly change these ideologies.
    Do we then wait until he finishes his period of appointment in such a sensitive public office, with the possibilities of his compromising confidential national security data?
    Shouldn't the relevant government agencies sack the said pro terrorists Isa Pantami immediately?
    When Nnamdi Kanu calls Nigeria a zoo, it might not be far from issues like this!
    Nigeria, we hail thee!
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  • I've always said that, no matter how the government kill Boko Haram members, it won't end until we all stand up against clerics who are sympathisers and enablers of such extremisms like Pantami. The highest that may happen is, their names will keep changing but the ideologies will continue. Ppl like him have no business holding public offices cos even other sects of Islam are not safe...
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  • Quite unfortunate many of us are just getting to know after US security Agents flagged him. We kept wondering why BH have not been defeated. How can it, wt their enablers in high places
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  • We need an independent integrity Commission which will investigate and approve or reject people for public appointments. The current vetting system is , like you say broken. How is it that we have a federal character commission to ensure sham representation but not an integrity commission to look at competence and integrity?
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  • God bless you abundantly
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  • MY TAKE ON THE PANTAMI FURORE
    Those using the red herring fallacy in defence of Pantami are missing the point. To claim that scrutinizing his past utterances that were sympathetic to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban is an attack on Islam is not only misleading, but it's also patently unhelpful to his own cause. Are we admitting that Al-Qaeda, the Talibans and other gangs of psychopathic mass murderers are fighting for Islam? Then why introduce this diversionary argument in the first place?
    I have watched Pantami's intellectual encounter with the Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf. If he had ever held sympathies for terror groups in the past, his intellectual challenge to Yusuf was a clear sign to me that Pantama had mellowed down on his past beliefs or opinions on the issue.
    The man admitted that he held those opinions as a naive and overzealous young man who was incapable of good judgement at that point in time. When a man publicly admits making a mistake or poor judgement, we should forgive him and move on.
    Even professors and prominent scholars can change the opinions they once held in the light of changing realities. The great Egyptian Islamic authority Yusuf al-Qaradawi had once supported suicide bombing against Israeli civilians by Palestinians as "a legitimate weapon of self-defence." He later reversed himself, and even forcefully condemned the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
    Therefore, at a point a man finally acknowledges holding certain opinions in the past and criticizing himself for youthful exuberance on account of those opinions, we should also soften our hearts and forgive him. Don't attribute infallibility to any man however learned. Didn't you hear of hardened Al-Qaeda followers who later repented and abandoned the violent ideology in the light of coming to terms with reality, especially the mistaken belief that God is on their side for the atrocities they are committing? Admission of mistakes is a sign of humility. Pantami demonstratres humility and God exalts the humble and humbles the arrogant.~ Na Allah Mohammed Zagga.
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