06/07/2026
Dear Austin,
Thank you for your feedback. Are you sure about your statement? Nigeria is the largest Islamo-Christian nation on Earth, therefore, not only should we avoid such prejudice, as you have just displayed, but we should take time to understand each other better. Perhaps you may need more education on how brainy, intellectual, and progressive the global Muslim Ummah has been over the years and to this day.
In Southern Nigeria, my family and the family of the Oba of Benin were the first families to receive a Western education. My ancestor, Ogiame Atunwatse I, graduated from a Portuguese university in 1611.
But long before then, Nigerian Muslims already had formal Eastern education and had been travelling to Makkah from the 14th Century.
For your information, many intellectuals in Sudan are descendants of Hausa Muslim pilgrims who undertook the return journey from Makkah on foot or by camel centuries ago, and, owing to the hardships of the journey, decided to remain in the Sudan. There are three million Hausas in the Sudan, and they form much of the intelligentsia and academia of that country.
You and I have a lot to thank Muslims for. Even the very foundation of the Internet, which enables you to make these claims, originated from Islamic science.
The word 'algorithm' is named after Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, a Persian Muslim mathematician who helped develop the discipline of mathematics. Without him, there would be no Internet as we know it.
The word 'algebra' is taken from his book, Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabala, which means 'The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing'.
The father of modern surgery, Abū al-Qāsim al-Zahrāwī, was an Arab Muslim physician, surgeon and chemist. He invented the first forceps, which are still in use today, over a thousand years after he introduced them to the world. His other creations were medical bone saws, scalpels, and sutures.
Some of the scientific tools that we use today were the brainchild of Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham, a Muslim Arab mathematician and physicist who lived over a thousand years ago.
Ismail Al-Jazari, the polymath and inventor, who invented the crank-connecting rod system as far back as 1206 AD, was a Muslim.
The concept of hospitals was first introduced in Baghdad by Muslims in 805 AD, when they founded the Hospital of Baghdad.
The oldest university in the world is the University of Al-Karaouine, founded in 859 AD in Fez, Morocco, by Muslims.
And this brilliance continues in modern times. A Tunisian Muslim, Moungi Bawendi, recently won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The CDMA technology that led to 4G mobile technology is the invention of the Egyptian Arab Muslim Dr Hatim Zaghloul.
Even here in Nigeria, a Muslim man, Aliko Dangote, is the single largest employer of labour in Nigeria. Through his enterprises and business ventures, he employs more people than any state government. Only the Federal Government employs more people than he does. But when you count his employees in other African countries, he almost matches the Nigerian Federal Government.
What about Jelani Aliyu, who is from Sokoto and designed the bestselling Chevrolet Volt Electric Car?
Austin, are you saying that all these people do not have brains?
Austin, you need not see Muslims as your enemies. Try to understand them. They have existed as a religion in the geographical area known as Nigeria for far longer than Christianity or Judaism. Therefore, it is in your own economic, social and political best interests to understand them and learn how to coexist peacefully with them.
Finally, I will strongly urge you and others like you to read Nigerian history. Images, such as yours, were the triggers for the July 29, 1966, counter-coup and subsequent pogroms, which eventually resulted in the unfortunate Nigerian civil war.
As a nation, we would be wise not to repeat the reprobate and religiously outrageous actions that led to devastating, catastrophic consequences.
Thanks again, and may God bless you.
Reno Omokri
Ambassador Designate to Mexico. Gospeller. Deep Thinker. . #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years.
