3,000 Clerics Gathered, But Were Funds Raised?
By Suleman Ayuba and Onibiyo Segun
(Zamfara State) – Six Tijaniyya Juma’at Imams were abducted in Zamfara after nearly 3,000 Islamic scholars were called to gather, pray and reportedly to endorse President Bola Tinubu’s 2027 bid.
Candidates convene Imams for prayers framed as peace, but often read as endorsement. Invitations may carry cash or donations, turning clerics’ presence into campaign messaging.
That is the system these six men were moving through when gunmen took them on the Dakko–Damri feeder road. The scale of the method was on public display weeks earlier, when a reported 600 million Naira, about $452,239.72 US Dollars (USD) was pledged toward Sheikh Sani Yahaya Jingir — a donation announced by President Tinubu’s political adviser, Ibrahim Masari, and Yobe Governor Mai Mala Buni, at a symposium also attended by Kano’s governor, which some observers say shows how religious platforms and campaign money now occupy the same room.
TruthNigeria found all six abducted men belong to the Tijaniyya Sufi tradition, from halqas in Bakura, Talata Mafara and Maradun. They were abducted en route to Senator Abdul’aziz Yari’s gathering.
“We know all six. They are our Imams from Bakura, Talata Mafara and Maradun, all Tijaniyya, but from different halqas,” said Imam Bashir Abdullahi Gusau, Secretary of the Tijaniyya Council of Ulama, Zamfara Central Zone.
“They were invited as Imams because of their religious standing, not politics. Some had never attended a political prayer. They were invited to pray for peace, not endorse Tinubu; attendance should not imply political alignment,” Gusau told TruthNigeria.
That warning collides with how northern campaigning now works.
“In Zamfara, every gathering of Ulama now is read as endorsement,” said Alhaji Sani Musa Talata-Mafara, a Zamfara political analyst and former aide to Yari. “But Tijaniyya is not APC. So in Zamfara, you must ask each cleric: Did these six agree to endorse? Or were they coming to pray, and their presence was to be counted?”
The Zamfara State Police Command said the six were intercepted at about 11:30 a.m. Saturday along the Dakko–Damri feeder road while travelling toward Talata Mafara.
The destination was a special prayer gathering associated with Yari, former Zamfara governor and a central figure in Tinubu’s 2027 mobilisation, where scholars were expected to pray for peace, security and the president’s re-election.
Pulpits, Pledges
Northern elections routinely draw Imams into political prayers. Organisers call it peace; operatives count heads. The ₦600 million pledge linked to Sheikh Jingir illustrates faith-platform and campaign-cash collection.
“They belong to different Sufi orders, reform movements and local religious networks. A Tijaniyya cleric can support a politician, oppose that politician or remain neutral. Religious affiliation does not determine political allegiance”, Dr. Yusuf Ibrahim Birnin-Kebbi, professor of Islamic history and northern Nigerian politics at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, has said.
Tijaniyya is one of Nigeria’s major Sufi traditions, alongside Qadiriyya. Pew Research Center found that 37 percent of Nigerian Muslims identified with a Sufi order, including 19 percent with Tijaniyya and 9 percent with Qadiriyya, but figures from the 2010 survey are not a current census.
Tijaniyya, which focuses on inner spiritual purification, deep love for the Prophet Muhammad, and a structured daily routine of remembrance, spread from North Africa in the late eighteenth century. Qadiriyya is a mystical movement oriented toward finding spiritual perfection that originated in 12th Century Persia.
Izala, which is a new Sunni movement established in Nigeria in the 1970s, is a form of Salafism, a conservative, puritanical branch within Sunni Islam that aims to practice the religion exactly as it was understood and lived by the earliest generations. Salafism is closely linked to Wahabbism, the fundamentalist Islamist reform movement originating in Saudi Arabia in the 18th Century. Groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS belong to a 20th Century political offshoot called Jihadi-Salafism, according to U.S. government researchers.
Dr. Darlington Akaiso, an academic researcher on global security, warned against a further smear: treating Sufi clerics as a continuation of jihadist violence.
“The 1804 Sokoto jihad and Boko Haram were separate historical phenomena. Boko Haram did not emerge from Qadiriyya or Tijaniyya. Its roots are in radical Salafi dissent, distinct from both”, Akaiso told TruthNigeria in an interview.
Salafists are Muslims seeking to emulate the practices and teachings of Islam’s earliest generations.
In Zamfara’s religious politics today there is open confrontation over possible corruption. Sheikh Murtala Bello Asada has accused former governor Bello Matawalle of supporting armed groups. Matawalle has rejected the allegations; the dispute has included legal action. That history is why a cleric’s religious denomination cannot be treated as proof of loyalty or of a payoff.
It also leaves a harder question: did any of the six have political disagreements with Yari, Matawalle or other powerful figures? The interviews have not established such a link.
What remains unanswered is why those six were together that morning and whether the Sufi network, the 2027 prayer machine, individual politics, or something else made them targets.
That is the question investigators must answer.
Suleman Ayuba and Onibiyo Segun report on terrorism and conflict for TruthNigeria. Douglas Burton contributed to this article.
