Lt. Col Umar Sanda Ahmad
A former Ghana’s Ambassador to Egypt Lt. Col Umar Sanda Ahmad (rtd) has taken a swipe at what he regards as the negative use of social media in the Islamic community to vilify the leadership of the faith.
Speaking to DAILY GUIDE on the worrying trend in Islamic communities across the country, he said “there has been an increase in the negative use of social media within the Islamic community to attack the norms of good behavior and acceptable conduct.’
This, he said, has taken the form of outright insults, vilification and denigration of the persona of all levels of Muslim leadership. Whereas the Quran and Hadith are replete with injunctions on respect for parents and all leaders, what is currently happening within the Muslim Ummah raises a lot questions about the future of leadership when responsibility is bestowed upon anyone.”
“The community can promote respect within it by moving away from insulting each other using modern media technology such as facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and radio to unleash untruths and outright lies against those in positions of authority.”
When society is confronted with issues and the youth remains one source of engagement it’s most disheartening to see them vying with each other over who has the vilest of insults based on lies, he said.
He added that “I don’t need to remind all of us that insults are symptomatic of bad upbringing. It is not a cherished value.”
Continuing, he said that the time has come for youth associations, women’s groups and Islamic NGOs to join the Imams, chiefs and professionals to embark upon a pro-discipline outreach to drum home the point that any society that doesn’t uphold discipline in terms of speech and decorum is bound to fail, adding that “as a religion of peace it is expected that activities at all levels which can ignite tensions should be avoided.’
He said that “the attempt to vilify him and hence drag the name of Muslim leadership into disrepute is most unfortunate.’
He said that he has in his possession some audios from a Ghanaian run FM station in the US, Qiblah FM that clearly show that the amateur and childish attempt has fallen flat and cannot stand any scrutiny.
The former military Imam cautioned the youth to be civil and decorous in their activities and eschew the insulting tendencies now becoming the attribute of some of them.