Isa Ali Pantami

Pantami was a lecturer at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi in Information Technology before joining the Islamic University of Madinah at the new faculty of Computing and Information Systems as Head of Technical Writing in 2014.[3][10][11]

In April 2021, an article by The Daily Independent, an online media company, linked Pantami to former leader of Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, and stated that Pantami had been listed by the American government under its terrorist watch list. The article was later retracted by both The Daily Independent and NewswireNGR, another online news portal that copied the article,[16][17] after the claims could not be proved. A fact check by Premium Times stated that "it is FALSE to claim that the debate between Mr Pantami and the late Yusuf was a friendly chat. It was a heated debate which has now formed the basis for scholarly research on the ideology of Boko Haram" but could not confirm if Pantami was placed on the terrorist watchlist of the United States of America government as the latter does not disclose those on the list.[18] Pantami threatened to sue the publications that published the original article, stating that while he accepts the retraction from NewsWireNgr, "investigative journalism requires the investigation before publishing, not after" and that "major publishers will meet my lawyers in the court on this defamation of character."[19] The Daily Independent apologized to Pantami, saying in a statement, "We regret and sincerely apologize for the embarrassment our story has caused the Honourable Minister."

However, audio published by Peoples Gazette shows that Pantami was sympathetic to Boko Haram members when delivering sermons in the mid to late 2000s.[20] This revelation led to further resurfacing of Pantami's old speeches, including a 2004 speech where he expressed support for the Taliban and al-Qaeda (“Oh God, give victory to the Taliban and to al-Qaeda") and claimed that “jihad is an obligation for every single believer, especially in Nigeria." These speeches along with other speeches like one from 2006 where Pantami mourned the death of the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (“May God have mercy on Ahmad Fadeel al-Khalayleh [al-Zarqawi's birth name]) were included in a 2019 academic monograph Debating Boko Haram published by the Centre for Contemporary Islam at the University of Cape Town, South Africa,[21] that went mainly unreported in Nigeria.[22][23] The statements ignited controversy and calls for Pantami's resignation as Communications Minister under the hashtag, #PantamiResign.[24][25]

Pantami denied condoning terrorism or holding bigoted beliefs, claiming that the majority of his staff are Christians and saying in a Peoples Gazette interview that "if I did not like Christians or I did not see them as my brothers and sisters, I would not have been working with them for so long." He also said that he had "long preached peaceful coexistence amongst people of every faith and ethnicity" along with claiming that the authors of Debating Boko Haram erred in failing to reach out to him and may have used a poor or biased translation of Hausa.[26] A pro-Pantami campaign to counter the online calls for resignation was exposed when the official Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy Twitter account accidentally tweeted #PantamiWillStay and #PantamiwillnotResign on 17 April after two days of #PantamiResign trending; the tweet was quickly deleted.[27] Supporters of Pantami with no clear connection to his Ministry did eventually get the #PantamiWillStay hashtag trending on Twitter; however, due to the Ministry's accidental tweet, it is unclear if the trend was organic.[28]

After the backlash and calls for resignation continued, Pantami disavowed the statements on 17 April, saying "some of the comments I made some years ago that are generating controversies now were based on my understanding of religious issues at the time, and I have changed several positions taken in the past based on new evidence and maturity."[29] Despite the recantation, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party joined calls for Pantami's resignation and also asked the Department of State Services to investigate him.[30] The minister drew further condemnation when he responded to a Facebook post attacking political activist Deji Adeyanju with “Allah ya tsine masa albarka” in Hausa which roughly translates to “May Allah reject his blessings.” This reply was followed by scores of Pantami supporters posting pictures of Adeyanju in crosshairs leading many to accuse Pantami of inciting violence; for his part, Pantami claimed his account was hacked and deleted the reply.[31][32]

On April 22, President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesperson, Garba Shehu released a statement backing Pantami, saying while "the views were absolutely unacceptable then, and would be equally unacceptable today...Time has passed, and people and their opinions – often rightly – change." The statement ended with "The Administration stands behind Minister Pantami and all Nigerian citizens to ensure they receive fair treatment, fair prices, and fair protection in ICT services."[33] Despite this defense, calls for Pantami's resignation continued.[34][35][36] Senator Ajibola Basiru, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, later stated that for Pantami's confirmation as Minister, "no security agency approached us to give us any information that could indict him, both at the time of his appointment and even now...we did our job based on facts available to us" and disagreed with calls for the sacking of Pantami saying there is a "difference between legality and political consideration which is not in the purview of the National Assembly...the Constitution stipulates requirements to be a Minister and he hasn’t run foul of any as far as we are concerned."[37]

• Articles by Isa Ali Pantami
• Islamic Markets: Isa Pantami's Career