The Coalition of Progressive Muslim Youth Organizations-Ghana has sent a petition to the Chief Imam Dr. Sheikh Osman Nuhu Sharubutu to, as a matter of urgency, dismiss Sheikh Armiyawu Shaibu from his position as a Spokesperson to the Chief Imam.
The group state unequivocally that their request is because Sheikh Shaibu has given in to becoming a political stooge.
“Instructively, the National Chief Imam has, over the years risen above partisan politics and we deem it important for all Muslim Ummah especially, the Spokesperson of the National Chief Imam to maintain the good image of our Leader and the sanctity of his Office. However, in a recent publication on behalf of CODEO, a Civil Society Organization Sheikh Armiyawu Shaibu was found to have blatantly towed a political line, bastardizing the political immunity of the Chief Imam to the anger of the Muslim ummah in Ghana,” the petition make available to Whatsup News read.
Sheikh Shaibu was the spokesperson of the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) which issued a report after the general elections saying the disputed election result checks out and that contrary to protests and allegations of figure manipulations for the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP), the elections were clean.
CODEO has gone ahead to release its own collated figures that tallies perfectly with the Electoral Commission (EC). However, since December 9, 2020, when the EC officially declared the election results, it had persistently adjusted the figures as they failed to add up.
First of all, the aggregate scores of the 12 presidential candidates have been varied almost five times by the EC, since the EC boss, Jean Mensa made her election declaration on Wednesday, December 9, 2020.
It is for this reason that the Muslim group petitioning the Chief Imam suspects that CODEO and its spokesperson Sheikh Shaibu may have gone into an unholy alliance with the EC and the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) that the elections were reportedly rigged for.
The petition list several instances that prove that Sheikh Shaibu was a stooge for the governing party: “Against the position of some Civil Society Organisations such as the National House of Chiefs, Sheikh Armiyawu openly endorsed the NPP position on the Registration exercise saying “the new register will help Ghana” which got the NPP to hypocritically suggest that the National Chief Imam was a pro-NPP Activist to the dissatisfaction of the Muslim Ummah across the world,” the petition read.
“Subsequently, Sheikh Armiyawu was found to have extended unwarranted privileges to the NPP at the 2019 Maulid, drawing extreme criticism against the Organizers of the program. He was recently cited for creating an atmosphere of hostility when he facilitated the infamous “Thanksgiving Prayer” for the NPP at the Office of the National Chief Imam, eliciting unsavoury commentary and derogatory remarks from the Social Media with the tendency to cause abject disaffection against the persona of the National Chief Imam.”
The group has warned that they will not allow Sheikh Shaibu to drag the Chief Imam’s name through the mud of Ghanaian political polarisation “On the basis of these aberrations on the part of the Spokesperson of the National Chief Imam, we wish to demand his immediate dismissal from the Office before he drags the image of our revered Leader and the sanctity of his office into disrepute,” the wrote in the petition.