Flashback: “We Rejoice When Unbelievers Are Killed” — Old Sermons of Minister Pantami Resurface

By Palang Paul

Nigeria’s Former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Pantami, once openly expressed joy over the killing of people he described as “unbelievers,” according to resurfaced audio recordings from his past sermons.

“We are all happy whenever unbelievers are being killed,” Pantami said in one of the recordings. “But the Sharia does not allow us to kill them without reason.”

The comments, which date back to the early 2000s, were delivered during a series of lectures where Pantami reportedly praised the actions of extremist groups such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

While addressing an audience question on Osama bin Laden, the late Al Qaeda leader responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks that claimed over 3,000 lives, Pantami reportedly remarked:

“I still consider him as a better Muslim than myself.”

The controversial statements, translated by Professor Andrea Brigaglia of the University of Naples and Dr. Musa Ibrahim of the University of Florida, were featured in an academic paper published in 2019. The study explored how radical ideologies contributed to the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Before his appointment as a minister by President Muhammadu Buhari, Pantami’s fiery sermons in Hausa and Arabic — spanning the late 1990s through the 2000s — had remained largely unreported in mainstream Nigerian media.

Following the resurfacing of the recordings, Pantami took to Twitter to deny ever supporting terrorism, insisting that he had consistently preached against Boko Haram. He also amplified tweets from supporters who portrayed him as a peaceful Islamic scholar — an effort critics have described as an attempt at image cleansing.

“It is unbelievable that President Buhari will appoint a man like Isa Pantami to be a minister in a secular country like Nigeria,” political analyst Mohammed Tukura told The Gazette. “A president that believes in national cohesion will not appoint a fundamentalist who shares the same views as leaders of Boko Haram and the Taliban.”

Pantami’s past views continue to stir public debate over the appointment of religious hardliners into sensitive positions of government, particularly in a nation struggling to combat violent extremism and promote interfaith unity.