Category: Femi Abbas

As traditionally done quarterly, the topmost echelon of Nigeria Interreligious Council (NIREC) held a two day meeting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, last week Monday and Tuesday (February 11 and 12, 2013). Yours sincerely was invited to the meeting as a guest speaker but the presentation of my paper entitled ‘TERRORISM: GENESIS, CAUSES, EFFECT and SOLUTION’ did not take place due to what was called ‘time constraint’. Thus, for the benefit of all and sundry I hereby present the speech which I termed ‘Pep Talk’. Please, read on:

“In Yoruba ancient mythology, a dragon fly dancing on the surface of a stream was believed to symbolise a puzzling omen. But convinced that killing the fly would not remove the omen, the elders consulted an oracle which disclosed that the dancing dragon fly had its drummer beneath the water. Unless that drummer could be identified and stopped from drumming, the dragon fly might continue to frighten the stream water drawers with its puzzling dance.

The similitude of terrorism anywhere in the world is like that of a suffocating smoke spirally oozing out of the chimney of a kitchen and dangerously polluting the environment for everybody. To stop the ensuing pollution and save people from its suffocating effect, dispelling the smoke can never be a solution. For as long as the fire keeps burning inside the kitchen and gives vent to the oozing smoke, the environment will continue to be polluted unabatedly. In that situation, it can only be wiser to quench the fire than to chase the smoke around. Dispelling the smoke can never have any effect on the burning fire. On the other hand, quenching the fire will automatically stop the polluting smoke.

In the same token, dialoguing with the terrorist as a way of solving Nigeria’s problem of insecurity will serve as a better option than engaging any group of terrorists in a very costly war of attrition. People who have no value for their own lives cannot respect any value in other people’s lives. And in any ensuing melee, it is the innocent people that will invariably pay the price. Perhaps that was what the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua considered when he granted the Southsouth militants an unconditional amnesty before asking them to lay down their weapons. The same solution ought to have been applied using the same principle in the case of Boko Haram if only to enable peace return Nigeria for the purpose of progress.

It may be quite parochial and self-deceptive to think that the current trend of terrorism around the world is all about religion. The historical factors that gave rise to terrorism clearly transcended religion. When the first act of terrorism was perpetrated by a Jewish Zealot group, about 2,000 years ago, neither Christianity nor Islam had taken any firm root. Though Prophet Isa (Jesus) had come and gone by then, his divine mission had not reached the Gentile. And Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had not been born. If violence alone is what constitutes terrorism as many people wrongly tend to believe, then, it never emanated from religion though religion has sometimes been used as a cover up and blamed for it. No genuine message from God ordains or supports violence of any form among human beings.

Therefore, the engendered terrorism by the Jewish Zealots in 06 CE was rather a violent expression of resentment for the domination of the Jews by the Roman Gentile than a fight between two religions (see Luke 6:15, Acts 1: 13 and Mathew 10: 4 for confirmation). By connotation, that resentment was a resistance to the domination of a culture by another culture. Thus, as it was in the beginning, so it is today. From the above brief historical account, it is clear that terrorism is neither a phenomenon peculiar to the modern time nor a new innovation rooted in religion. And its causes and effects remain the same today as they were some centuries back.

What should be understood about terrorists’ method of operation is that any evil doer will look for a justifying reason, whether tenable or untenable, to indulge in evil deed. And the reason often given is one which appeals to people of like minds at least in the neighbourhood. This is to elicit their sympathy and support. The common denominator among all terrorists is the theory of “using what you have to get what you want”. This theory has a fundamental meaning to all agitators in their quest for redress against what they perceive as injustice.

Terrorists are like cultists whose nefarious atrocities are carried out secretly. And no secret activity is ever carried out by any group without involvement of an oath and sometimes, consumption of intoxicants in the case of terrorists. Terrorism is not about violence alone. Its causes and effects are as various and as multi-dimensional as the circumstances that brought them to bear.

Bothered by these causes and effects of terrorism in modern time, a German dramatist and social critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) who was a son of a Protestant Minister and one of the leaders of thought and enlightenment in his time came up with the following stanza:

“There are good men in every land; the tree of life has many branches and roots; let not the topmost twig presume to think that it alone has sprung from the mother earth; we did not choose our races by ourselves; Jews, Muslims, Christians, all alike are men; let me hope I have found in you a man”.

In the quoted poem above, Lessing did not restrict his view to religion alone. He was actually talking about human rights and the justice that ought to serve as its vehicle. As a German and a Protestant, he believed that differences in race and faith ought not to be the main determinant of human coexistence. This is a fact that eluded Adolf Hitler in his blind pursuit of racial supremacy that precipitated the World War II.

When he was innocently coining that famous poem, Lessing was hardly aware of the contents of the Qur’an regarding the harmonious coexistence of mankind irrespective of the differences in races, colours and faiths as divinely ordained in that divine Book of Islam. The Almighty Allah who created the entire universe tells us in Qur’an 49:13 thus: “Oh mankind! We have created you males and females and classified you into races and tribes that you may interact (and benefit from your diversity); surely the best of you are the ones who fear God most”. It is unimaginable that any sane human being will ever want to engage in terrorism using religion as a cloak.

It is not only in Nigeria that some vandals like Boko Haram and Akhwat Akwop are using religion (Islam and Christianity respectively) as alibi for terrorism. At least the case of Joseph Kony of Uganda who has been waging a rebellious war on his country and on Central Africa Republic in the name of Jesus is still very current. For the past two decades or thereabout, that former Catholic altar boy from northern Uganda has been using Biblical 10 Commandments to execute his terrorist activities in the region by recruiting thousands of kids into his army and by killing and maiming innocent women and children indiscriminately.

Joseph Kony and his over 3,000 heavily armed men constituting a terror army are still a minority among Ugandan Christians just as Boko Haram members in Nigeria are a minority group among Nigerian Muslims. Yet, this does not make Kony a crusader for God neither are his satanic activities related to Christianity in the media. Anybody can give any religious reason, according to his or her interpretation of the religion in question for engaging in terrorism, in order to get what he/she wants. And that does not make him a true follower or representative of that religion.

It will be a grave mistake to continue to proclaim Boko Haram a faceless body when some scores of its members are held in government’s detention. At least those members were arrested and detained for being members of the terrorist group. That is however based on the assumption that the group is still operating as a single body that it was a couple of years ago. As a matter of fact, Akhwat Akwop (Nigeria’s Christian group that operates in the name of Christianity) is more fitting into allegation of facelessness than Boko Haram. If dialoguing with a single group of Boko Haram was difficult in the past because of the amphibious nature of its terrorist activities, the presence of those arrested detained among them has surely changed any claim of the group’s facelessness. People who are firmly held in government detention cannot be said to be faceless. The concern here is much more about national security, through safety of lives and property than apportioning blames through religious sentiments.

Terrorism often begins with ordinary militancy. But when the threat of state power is intensified against rebels, an all out violence becomes the necessary weapon with which to counter what the rebels consider to be state terrorism. Thus, to those called terrorists, violent activities are only a counter terrorism. The South/South of Nigeria is a good example of this.

Seemingly, the most effective means of curbing terrorism is reasonable dialogue which the UN must seriously facilitate with sincerity and self-dignity. This can only become possible if the notion of super and veto powers are obliterated or de-emphasized at least to enable concerned parties dialogue on equal level. The lopsidedness created by the super power syndrome has turned the whole world into one massive animal farm in which all animals are supposed to be equal but some are claiming to be more equal than others. This was the kind of situation which forced the former colonies to rebel against their colonizers in various ways in order to become independent. And today, none of the allied forces fighting terrorism in the name of NATO can claim to have won any.

Tragic and condemnable as it is, international terrorism only accentuates the bitter resistance of certain cultures to the domination of others especially as exhibited by the relationship between the West and the East. In modern time, the origin of the use of bomb as a means of resisting injustice can be traced back to 1939.

In August that year, a German American physicist Albert Einstein sent a letter to the then U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to hint him of the possibility of discovering a powerful explosive device through the fission of uranium and warned Roosevelt of the danger in allowing other nations to develop it before the US. In response, the U.S. government established the top secret Manhattan Project in 1942 to develop an atomic device. The leader of that Project was a U.S. Army Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves whose team worked in several locations but largely at Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the direction of American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. The team designed and built the first atomic bomb which was test exploded at Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. And that was the weapon used by the US to destroy Japan’s two cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki an episode that brought the World War II to an end.

Following that episode, the fear of proliferation of nuclear arsenal compelled the so-called super powers to initiate the idea of Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty which was signed in 1968. By this initiative, virtually all countries of the world besides the known nine nuclear nations formally pledged not to manufacture those weapons. The pledge was made under the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which came into force in 1970. The treaty has since been ratified by 187 non-nuclear weapon states. Yet, secret proliferation of those weapons remains a major cause of terrorism.

The problem concerning terrorism here is not about the signing or breaching of treaty per se. Neither is it about armament reduction. It is rather about some nations’ determination to balance power with rivals. This was the factor that led to the invention of atomic bomb by the US in the first instance. And this factor has now advanced into balance of terror not only among nations but more between those perceived as oppressors and the private groups who feel oppressed as the knowledge of developing weapons of mass destruction keeps spreading.

Policing proliferation of nuclear weapons as is now the case can never ventilate a peaceful atmosphere for the world. It will rather aggravate the existing conflict situation. Proliferation is only possible with the existence of a substance that can be proliferated. And one means of stemming terrorism around the world is for those who manufacture and are in possession of destructive weapons to stop their activities along that line. The alternative is to liberalise development of nuclear weapons and let any capable nation possess them. After all, there is no guarantee that the so-called five super powers campaigning against nuclear proliferation today cannot use it tomorrow if compelled by necessity.

Terrorism often begins with ordinary militancy. But when the threat of state power is intensified against rebels, an all out violence becomes the necessary weapon with which to counter what the rebels consider to be state terrorism. Thus, to those called terrorists, violent activities are only a counter terrorism. The South/South of Nigeria is a good example of this.

Seemingly, the most effective means of curbing terrorism is reasonable dialogue which the UN must seriously facilitate with sincerity and self-dignity. This can only become possible if the notion of super and veto powers are obliterated or de-emphasized at least to enable concerned parties dialogue on equal level. The lopsidedness created by the super power syndrome has turned the whole world into one massive animal farm in which all animals are supposed to be equal but some are claiming to be more equal than others. This was the kind of situation which forced the former colonies to rebel against their colonizers in various ways in order to become independent. One can imagine what could have happened if other super powers like Russia and China were to be as aggressively bellicose as the US, Britain and France. Arrogance of power is a major toga propelling terrorism in the various parts of the world which ought to be shed if terrorism must be sincerely repelled. Terrorism has become such an implacable monster that no single country or click of power mongers can confront without the cooperation of all other countries. And such cooperation must be on the terms of majority of those other countries and not on master/servant terms. As for internal terrorism which is far more dangerous than the external one, only good governance can curb it and ventilate the atmosphere for peace.

The opportunity of the recently announced voluntary withdrawal of terror by a group of Boko Haram must not be wasted. No government has ever been able to defeat terrorism by the use of force. Nigeria cannot be an exception. Wherever terrorism is seen to have simmered, diplomacy and dialogue rather than force must have played a vital role. This fact must be considered very seriously. And in finding solution, three major hitherto unfocused areas must now be handled without levity. One is checkmating sources of weapons used by the terrorists. Another is a device for mass employments for the youth. And the third is official regulation of religious propagation in the country to check possible excesses that often breed fanaticism. Managing these three areas with sincerity will definitely make tremendous difference in curbing the spate of violence in the land.

Despite our diversity in tribes and faiths we have managed to come this far to live together in harmony as a people. What remains is the maintenance of that togetherness based on tolerance and compromise. We must not allow religious or tribal sentiments to destroy the house which the Almighty God has guided us to jointly build. God bless Nigeria!

It may not be strange to say that the similitude of Islam and Muslims is like that of a snail and its shell. They share a common destiny and remain as inseparable as the sun and its beaming light. None can afford to part with the other without dire consequences. Today, as the world’s fastest growing religion, Islam has a population of about 1.7 billion adherents. This means that one in every five human beings on earth is a Muslim. But in concrete terms, where are those Muslims?

Islam totally personifies the divine legal theory that sustains the magnificent grandeur of the universe. That theory is fully embodied in the Qur’an. Muslims, on the other hand, stand as the agents supposedly showcasing the norms of Islam. Without Islam, there would have been no Muslims. And without Muslims, Islam would have remained a permanent abstraction randomly tapping the imagination of mankind. This brings a vital question to one’s mind: where is their meeting point?

Long before the Almighty Allah informed the Angels of His intention to create man, Islam had been in existence. And contrary to the misconception of many uninformed elements, Islam (meaning peace) had been in place before the creation of man. It was the harmony that held all the pre-Adam elements together in a perfect co-existence. Without that harmony, the primogenitor of mankind would not have found a peaceful abode in the Garden of Eden. Thus, the unification of peace and man came to promise the continuity of the universe.

Ironically, however, the world of Islam, especially in contemporary times, has turned a new phase at the instance of its adherents called ‘Muslims’. And with that new phase, the falconer seems to have been estranged by the falcons. Muslims, like the shell of a snail are found everywhere but without Islam. And the latter, as long prophesied by the Messenger of Allah (SAW), is rapidly becoming an orphan.

Now, Islam is like a snail without its shell. If that great religion is vividly and effectively present in any part of the world today, it is in the West. And that confirms the fact that effective quality rather than idle quantity is what Islam needs to thrive as a divine religion. Muslims in the West are not merely facing a day to day war, they are permanently living on the battle ground. All the raging wars against Islam today, as in the past few centuries, are from the West. And the arsenal used by the West to execute those wars is funded directly or indirectly by Muslim countries.

There are about 23 Muslim Arab countries mostly in the Middle East and North Africa. These countries together control one fifth of the entire wealth in the world because of the enormous natural resources with which they are endowed. But in their quest for security other than that of Allah, they entrust virtually all their endowed assets to those who are waging war against Allah. More than 90% of the Muslim Arab wealth is invested in the West or kept in Western bank accounts in the name of foreign reserves. A major chunk of those assets is not only used to fight Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, it is also dished out as loan to poor African countries at throat-cutting interest rate in the name of London and Paris Clubs.

And when those Western oppressors want to manipulate African mentality to their own advantage, they bring to Africa some pittance as grants, foundations and scholarship out of the profit they made from Muslim Arab money kept in their custody. This is to create the impression that they are friends of Africans. Yet, when the beneficiaries of such largess try to show gratitude, they (the oppressors) come out in their true colours by dictating certain terms and conditions which may fetter those beneficiaries to the stake of indebtedness. It should be noticed that Western largess flows to Africa only when military attacks on Muslims in some other parts of the world are raging or about to rage. The largess is a sort of Greek gift with which to gag the innocent Africans and thereby prevent them from joining their brothers and sisters in condemning such attacks. Thus, the Westerners strangely serve as proxy for Muslim Arab philanthropy.

Today Muslim Arabs are so disunited, disorganised and Islamically disorientated that they cannot even cooperate among themselves to confront a common problem. Rather than jointly solving a common problem, some of them prefer to team up with antagonists to fight their fellow Muslim brothers.

That is what happened during the Iranian revolution in 1979 when that country was seeking to liberate self from the Western imperialism imposed on her by Shah Pahlavi on behalf of the United States. Rather than cooperating with Iran to rid the region of imperialism, what the neighbouring Iraq did with the support of other Arab countries was to take advantage of the then prevailing situation to attack Iran on behalf of America using the weapons freely supplied her by the latter. The devastating war which ensued from that attack lasted for eight sorrowful years before the aggressor called for peace having realised the impossibility of winning the precipitated war.

Not long after that, the same Iraq was instigated by America to invade Kuwait as a compensation for her military losses in the war with Iran an incident that caused the 1991 Gulf war which was waged by some American led Western allied forces against Iraq. And, ironically, in that war, Egypt, a fellow Muslim Arab country was found on the side of the European allies that bombarded Iraq and killed Muslim women and children in their thousands. Egypt’s gain in the war was a debt relief from America to the tune of $20 billion.

For a long time, there was no love lost between Egypt and Libya while Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi held sway as Heads of both countries. The neighbourhood of Algeria and Morocco has for decades been hotter than a battle ground between two sworn enemies. There is also a permanent cold war which began in the 1930s between Saudi Arabia and Yemen which is still ongoing till date. Syria and Iraq continue a diplomatic cat and mouse game as they do not realistically see eye to eye though they are both Arab countries. Iran, the only non-Arab (Persian) country in the Gulf sub-region, is constantly suspicious of her neighbouring Arab countries because the latter have tacitly ostracised her on the basis of racial discrimination and denominational ideology. Yet, they all subscribe to Islam and claim to be Muslim countries.

In her own bid to imbibe the so-called Western civilisation, Turkey, an Islamic but non-Arab country, has voluntarily enslaved herself to secularism, a notion imposed on her in the 1920s by Mustapha Kamal Ataturk and which became entrenched in the country’s constitution. It must be recalled that Turkey, with her 89% Muslim population was the last seat of Islamic Caliphate which ended in 1924 at the instance of Ataturk. In all these, where are the Muslims?

Here in Nigeria, the situation is by far worse. Mosques, which Prophet Muhammad (SAW) established as the permanent axis around which all Muslim activities must rotate, have been totally reduced to the level of meeting for Salat alone. Only very few Mosques have the necessary facilities useful for the Ummah. Even bank accounts are not considered necessary as the Imams and members of the Mission Boards of most Mosques act as unofficial treasurers in which capacity they pocket the money collected daily or weekly. Against the Prophet’s prescription, most of our Mosques are without libraries or study rooms where the young ones can take advantage of computer and internet to be thoroughly educated. It does not bother those Imams that only few Muslim youths come to worship in the Mosques. What bothers them is the absence of rich Muslims who can donate remarkable sums of money to the Mosques for them to pocket. Against Islamic prescription, those Imams are the collectors, the distributors and the recipients of Zakah to the detriment of the Ummah. Where are the Muslims?

In Nigeria today, only a few Muslim schools are good enough to compete with schools established by non-Muslims. Even those few especially in the Southwest, are mostly without Mosques since the motive of establishing them transcends religion. For instance, the very first secondary school in West Africa (Ahmadiyyah College, Agege, Lagos), established in 1948 by Ahmadiyyah Movement in Islam (now Anwarul-Islam Movement of Nigeria) had no Mosque for many decades after its establishment. Yours sincerely was a teacher of Arabic and Islamic Studies in that school for about six years between 1971 and 1976. And all efforts to encourage its founders to provide a Mosque for the students yielded no result. It is doubtful that the school had any Mosque until it celebrated its 60th year anniversary recently. The same is the case with Ansar-ud-Deen College, Isolo, Lagos, which was established in 1954 purportedly for the purpose of giving Muslim pupils Western education with Islamic orientation which those pupils could not get in Christian schools.

Whereas, the first building to be erected on the site of any Christian school is a chapel where pupils can worship in Christian way, this is not the case with Muslim schools. As a result, most of those pupils have often had cause to regret attending Muslim schools even years after their graduation. If the situation was that bad in the past and there is no plan for the future where are the Muslims?

Three Universities are known to be the oldest in the world today. The three are situated in the Arab world confirming that the idea of University education got to the West from the Muslims. They are Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, Qarawiyyin University in Fez, Morocco and Zaytuniyyah University in Tunis, Tunisia. All of them, established well over one thousand years ago, started in the Mosques. Yet, they were all preceded by the University of Cordoba which was the very first University established in the world. The objective of starting each of them from the Mosque was to enable students know that whatever knowledge they acquired ought to be used in the service of Allah.

The Christian West which borrowed from the Muslims the noble idea of using a religious sanctuary as the foundation of a school or a University saw the sense in it and made it the cornerstone of their educational orientation. Thus in Nigeria and elsewhere, no Christian Missionary schools are established without the Church serving as their first buildings.

What is the objective of the Muslim schools established in Nigeria without Mosques? In Islam, Mosque is not for Salat alone neither is it to be headed by half-educated elements in the name of Imams. It is rather an all-encompassing centre for all aspects of Muslim lives. For Muslims, Mosque is a school, a library, a hospital, a trade centre, a bank, a Parliament and a court of law. To limit the Mosque to prayer alone therefore, as done in Nigeria is a terrible disservice to Islam.

Muslims who worship regularly in the Mosque must have something to gain economically, socially, politically and perhaps medically besides the rewards accruing to them from observance of Salat. Coming for congregational prayers five times every day without any temporal gain does not help the course of Islam. Islam is about temporal and spiritual lives and not about the latter alone. The Mosque ought to have endowments for widows. It ought to have scholarship programmes for orphans and indigent pupils. It also ought to have empowerment programmes for the jobless. And those employed as Imams and other officials in the Mosque ought to be well treated in terms of remunerations and social welfare if only to avoid corruption and redundancy. But how can all these be provided when the Mosques themselves are erected without any plan for the future?

On my way back from Hajj in 2007, I was asked to pray for a Christian who spent a lot of money to renovate the Mosque at the Hajj camp of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja, who felt irritated by the nonchalant attitude of Muslim moneybags to the ramshackle state of that Mosque. And shortly thereafter, I also observed Jum’at prayers at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan Mosque where the Imam told the congregation that the renovation of that Mosque had just been completed by a concerned Christian. Yes, it is true that some Muslims also build or renovate Churches but the fact remains that there is no much negligence on the part of Christians towards their Churches as there is on the part of Muslims towards their Mosques. Where then are the Muslims?

Islam preceded Christianity in reaching the shores of Nigeria by about 500 years. The one came in the 11th century. The other came in the 16th century. Yet the gap, in terms of education and development between both today, is as wide as that between the rise and the set of the sun. If this is blamed on colonial rule, on what should failure of Islamic education be blamed? The Qur’an which embodies the language of Islamic worship is known to have been translated into only two Nigerian languages (Hausa and Yoruba). And this is the best that has been done so far, in about 1000 years, to make that sacred book understandable to millions of Nigerian Muslims. Arabic is not a Nigerian language. Most Muslims do memorise some contents of the Qur’an and recite them when observing Salat without comprehending what they are reciting. If majority of the adherents of a religion are tied to illiteracy and ignorance, how can such a religion be understood? The Bible which came to Nigeria 500 years after the arrival of the Qur’an has been translated into at least about six Nigerian languages and further efforts are being made to do more. Where are the Muslims?

In the 1960s and 1970s, most of the praise-singing records especially in the Southwest were waxed for Muslim money bags who hardly saw any need to train their children. And that was the time when non-Muslims would rather starve than see their children out of school. Today, the result speaks clearly for itself. Currently, it is said that over 10 million Nigerian children of school age are out of school. There are no readily available figures to delineate their percentages on the basis of religion. But one can be sure that over 80% of them will be Muslims. If this is the case in the age of internet, why won’t Muslims form majority of the touts in motor parks as well as hooligans working for politicians? And there is a glaring evidence for this especially in Ibadan, the political Centre of Yoruba nation where hooliganism is taken for a calling. Where are the Muslims?

After many years of struggling to get their economic and political rights failed, the people of the Southsouth of Nigeria discovered the enormous power of the media to win wars where weapons are helpless. They quickly invested heavily in it. And today, they are not only getting their rights on demand, they are also compelling the entire world to listen to them as they now control the Nigerian media which they use to command the attention of all and sundry. Where are the Muslim media after the demise of Bashorun MKO Abiola and the dysfunction of his Concord newspaper? Rather than investing in the future, an average Nigerian Muslim moneybag prefers to eat his cake now with the hope of having it again later. Rather than fighting a just course, an average Nigerian Muslim elite pitches his tent with the wrong camp just to gain a momentary benefit. Or how does one place a situation like that of Abiola who, as a matter of right, contested Presidential election and won only for fellow Muslims to gang up and annul the election unjustifiably and thereafter clamped the winner into prison as a transit towards his final demise? That ugly episode is the seed of cord of the bitter political fruit that Nigerians are now being forced to eat and swallow.

If there is any hope for the future of Islam, the focus must be towards the West. And that is in confirmation of Prophet Muhammad’s prophecy of over 1,400 years ago when he said that one of the signs of recognising the nearness of the ‘Last Day’ was for the sun to start rising from the West. The sun which the Prophet meant was not the physical one. That sun is ISLAM. And we have started to see its rays coming from the West where the divine religion is growing geometrically and recognised as the fastest growing religion in the world today. It could not have been otherwise. Islam is a religion of knowledge. It takes only the knowledgeable to recognise it as such. The West today is the home of knowledge and not a mere region of literacy. That is why it takes a religion of knowledge to be fast spreading among knowledgeable people.

However, for those of us who are so much concerned about the situation of Islam vis a vis the Muslims especially in Nigeria today, there is consolation. That consolation is from Allah who says in Qur’an 15 Verse 9 thus: “It was ‘We’ who revealed the Qur’an and it is ‘We’ who will certainly preserve it”. We pray Allah to wake up the Muslims from their slumber so that in the future, our grand children will have no cause to repeat the question: “Where are the Muslims?

“Who shares his life’s pure pleasure and works the honest road; who trades with heaping measure and lifts his brother’s load; who turns the wrong down bluntly and lends the right a hand; he dwells in God’s own country and tills the holy land.” Louis F. Benson

No man in history has ever been as fitting to the above poetic description as Prophet Muhammad (SAW) the undisputable greatest man who ever lived. His legacy is the solid foundation upon which the contemporary civilisation is built. But despite the vivid visibility of that legacy it remains invisible to many eyes that are alien to Islam. Thus, the Prophet’s legacy is like the beaming sun which no blind can see and no seeing eyes can perceive in its natural nakedness. Yet, both the blind and the seeing feel the burning effect of the sun ‘Willy nilly’ even as it photosynthesises the plants around them.

This article is not meant to celebrate the birth of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) for which yesterday was declared a public holiday in Nigeria.

As far as ‘The Message’ is concerned, what is to be celebrated about this great Prophet is by far much more than his birthday. His achievements clearly transcend his birth. Thus, there is no need wasting time on his birthday here.

From the creation of Adam, the first human being, till date, no man’s biography has been so much written and read as that of Muhammad (SAW) the son of Abdullah and Aminah. This man’s biography has been written from all perspectives, positive and negative, by various men and women of diverse races, tribes, ideologies and religions in the past 1444 years or there about. And the biography is still being written and re-written authoritatively and un-authoritatively, today, in uncountable languages.

Through the writings of the Prophet’s biography, some people have zoomed into un-dream-able fame. Others have sunk into the abyss of a permanent oblivion. But virtually all the writers have benefitted from their writings directly or indirectly in coins and in kind. No other Prophet’s biography has attracted as many writers from believers and non-believers, from friends and foes alike as that of Prophet Muhammad (SAW).

Every aspect of this Prophet’s life including the dresses he wore, the food he ate, the way he spoke, the wives he married, the children he bore, and the wars he fought, has formed the basis of his biography. In short, next to the Qur’an, no book is as much read daily in the world today as the biography of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in one form or another. But there is a vital question: why is global focus so much on this unlettered Prophet from Arabia?

The answer to this question is not far-fetched. The world has not produced any other personality like him. And it will not. He is the seal of all Prophets and the epitome of human exemplariness. In him alone are found all the traits of what a perfect gentleman should be in all ramifications.

If Prophet Muhammad had not been an orphan, he would not have been able to guide humanity on how orphans should be treated especially with regards to inheritance. If he had not been a husband, his marital life would not have been an excellent example for others to emulate and women’s rights would have been permanently ignored. If he had not been a widower the world would not have realised the plight of widows and learnt how to provide for them. If he had not been a father, the proper care for children by parents would have been relegated to the background in Islamic doctrine. If he had not been trustworthy, the value of trust would have been totally lost on mankind.

His migration from Makkah to Madinah paved way for the culture of hospitality universally imbibed today and the wars he was forced to fight engendered the law of war, armistice and peace. Without the conquests he achieved, the word magnanimity would not have found a place in the dictionary of man and if he had not suffered defeat in war, the vanquished would not have learnt the act of gallantry. If the Prophet had not been a judge, the virtue of justice would have been globally thrown to the winds and survival in all societies would have been for the fittest.

If he had not being a democratic ruler, the relationship between the ruled and their rulers, all over the world, today, would not have been dissimilar from that of slaves and their masters and dictatorship in governance would have known no bounds. If Prophet had not been poor despite being a Head of State, the policy of social welfare adopted in civilised societies today in favour of the poor, would not have been possible. If he had not been an illiterate, the world would not have known the difference between literacy and education. And, if, despite all these qualities in him, he had not been humble and affable, arrogance would have been the main character of all privileged people in the world today.

Who else can be compared to this man in history? And, in which any other single person have all the aforementioned qualities ever been found in history? There can be little wonder then why so much attention was and is still being focused on the personality of this extra-ordinary human being. That is Prophet Muhammad (SAW) for you, the like of whom the world has never seen and will never see again. If this man is celebrated anywhere in the world, anytime, therefore, it is definitely not because he was born. His achievements transcend his birth.

But for him, the world would have remained in the dungeon of ignorance and primitivism and humanity would have remained at the level of crude beasts. It was he who brought back the manual of life to mankind after it had been lost in the search for sheer vanity. Manual of life is the divine instruction which came gradually from Allah to mankind according to the growth rate of human intellect. But such manual is not peculiar to man alone. All other organisms have their own instructions from Allah which in a way constitute their own manuals of life.

However, due to the intellectual superiority of man, the various divine instructions to other organisms were incorporated into man’s own manual of life. This is to enable man understand the complexity of his environment vis a vis the essence of his own existence and thereby act effectively as Allah’s vicegerent on earth. Although because of the differences in times and methods, Allah’s message is perceived differently, the fact remains that the message is only one coming from only one and same God. This message is the ‘RIGHT PATH’ to salvation which came to mankind after several millennia of wondering in the wilderness of ignorance and vainglory. And the man, Muhammad (SAW), through whom that message reached us is the ‘PATH FINDER’. There are many attestations to this. For instance, after many years of scientific experimentations, a German-born American physicist and Nobel Laureate, Albert Einstein, the inventor of atomic bomb who is generally known as the 20th century creator of special and general theory of relativity, compared his works with the contents of the Qur’an and concluded as follows: “Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind”.

He then called on fellow scientists to endeavour to read the Qur’an without bias in order to know the true origin of science in human life.

And as if responding to Einstein’s call, Professor Tagatat Tajasen, Chairman of the Department of Anatomy at Chiang Mai University in Thailand accepted Islam on the strength of just one scientific sign accurately mentioned in the Qur’an. He had spent a great amount of his time, as a Professor, in search of pain receptor. When his attention was drawn to the Qur’an, he did not believe initially that such a highly sophisticated aspect of science could have been mentioned over 1,400 years ago. But when he confirmed it by himself in the translation of the Qur’an, he became so much impressed that he purposely attended the 8th Saudi Medical Conference held in Riyadh where he publicly embraced Islam.

Another leading scientist, Professor Marshall Johnson, the Head of the Department of Anatomy a Director of Daniel Institute at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, USA, was asked to comment on the verses of the Qur’an dealing with embryology. In response, he said it was probable that for Prophet Muhammad (SAW) to have given such vivid description of foetus, he must have had a powerful microscope. But when he was reminded that the Qur’an was revealed over 1400 years ago and that the invention of microscope took place only a couple of centuries ago Professor Johnson laughed and made the following remark: “I see nothing here in conflict with the concept that Divine intervention was involved when Muhammad recited the Qur’an….”.

Yet another Embryologist, Professor Keith Moore of the Department of Anatomy, University of Toronto, Canada, after carefully examining the translation of the Qur’anic verses presented to him admitted thus: “most of the information concerning embryology mentioned in the Qur’an is in perfect conformity with modern discoveries in the field of embryology and does not conflict with them in any way”.

Professor Moore had no prior knowledge of anything leechlike about embryo until he read chapter 96 of the Qur’an where Allah says “Read! In the name of your Lord Who created. He created man out of a leechlike clot…” He then went to verify this fact in an embryo under a powerful microscope and compared his observation with a diagram of a leech. He was astonished at the resemblance of the two. That prompted him to go fully into studying the Qur’an and Hadith to acquire more knowledge until he was able to answer about 80 hitherto unanswered questions in that field.

That prompted him to correct the contents of his book ‘The Developing Human’ which he published earlier and he re-published it in 1982. It was with that revised edition that he became the recipient of an award for the best medical book written by a single author in the 20th century. That book has been translated into many major languages of the world and is mostly used as textbook of embryology today in the first year of medical studies in various Universities in the world.

Yet, despite talking about all sciences, the Qur’an is not a book of Sciences but that of ‘Signs’. Those ‘Signs’ invite man to realise the purpose of his existence on earth and live in harmony with nature.

Judging the above verses of the Qur’an revealed over 1400 years ago with the wonderful reality of scientific civilisation of today what further proof does anybody need of the genuineness of the Qur’an? And who else can give better guidance than the Supreme Creator Himself? And who else can be better called the ‘PATH FINDER’ than Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who showed humanity the way to that all time guidance?

Perhaps, this was why Michael Hart, a Jewish American Astrophysicist, named Prophet Muhammad the greatest man that ever lived in his famous book entitled ‘The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History’.

If all the descriptions given above about Prophet Muhammad (SAW) sound exaggerated because they are given by Femi Abbas, a Muslim and an ardent follower of that Prophet, and if Michael Hart is seen as crazy in his judgment let us read the views and impressions of some other non-Muslims about this great Prophet. One of them (Alphonse de Lamartine of France) had the following to say in his book ‘Histoire de la Torque’:

“Never has a man set for himself, voluntarily or involuntarily, a more sublime aim since this aim was superhuman; to subvert superstitions which had been interposed between man and his Creator; to render God unto man and man unto God; to restore rational and sacred idea of divinity amidst the chaos of the material and disfigured gods of idolatry, then existing.

Never has a man undertaken a work so far beyond human power with so feeble means, for he (Muhammad) had in the conception as well as in the execution of such a great design no other instrument than himself, and no other, except a handful of men living in a corner of a desert…. If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad? The most famous men created arms, laws and empires only. They founded, if anything at all, no more than material powers which often crumbled before their very eyes. This man moved not only armies, legislations, empires, peoples and dynasties, but millions of men in one-third of the then inhabited world; and more than that, he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and the souls. On the basis of a book, every letter of which has become law, he created a spiritual nationality which blended together peoples of every tongue and of every race…..As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured we may well ask, is there any man in human history greater than Muhammad?”

On his own, Napoleon Bonaparte, the great 18th century French conqueror of Europe was so much amazed by the traits of Islam which he saw in Egypt during his military expeditions that he made the following historic statement about that divine religion and its great Prophet:

“Muhammad, in reality, was a great leader of mankind. He preached UNITY among Arabs who were, till then, torn asunder due to internecine quarrels, sometimes resulting in bloody war fares. He brought them out of the obscure world in a short time and the discipline which they maintained under his leadership was simply marvellous, and so was their bravery, courage and devotion to the cause which they loved and cherished. This, coupled with the contempt for death, as taught by their leader, made them great soldiers and fighters like of whom history rarely produces. I simply marvel at the achievements of this great ‘Son of the Desert’ within a mere period of less than 15 years; a thing which Moses and Christ could not do in 15 centuries. I salute this great man; I salute his qualities of Head and Heart….”

And, in corroboration of the above statements, variously made by renowned men of letters and intellect, another foremost Orientalist, playwright and dramatist, George Bernard Shaw, had the following to say about Islam and Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in his book ‘The genuine Islam’ (vol. 1 No 8 of 1936):

“The Christians and their missionaries have presented a horrible

picture of Islam. Not only that, they also carried out an organised and planned propaganda against the personality of Prophet Mohammad and the religion he preached. I have carefully studied Islam and the life of its Prophet. I have done so both as a student of history and as a critic. And I have come to the conclusion that Mohammad was indeed a great man and a deliverer and benefactor of mankind which was till then writhing under a most agonizing pain. I have always held Islam in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing face of existence which can make it appealing to every age. I have studied him-the wonderful man and in my opinion, far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the saviour of humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness.

I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today”.

For confirmation of Bernard Shaw’s remark quoted above, see ‘The Genuine Islam, vol. 1, No. 8, 1936.

These are just some of the facts that make an orphan and unlettered Prophet, Muhammad (SAW), the greatest human being that ever lived on earth. None of the attestations above made any reference to his birth or birthday because they knew that his birth had nothing to do with his achievements. If non-Muslims could go as far as shown above to benefit from the greatness of Prophet Muhammad’s mission on earth what is expected of Muslims for whom that mission is primarily meant?

Whoever deviates from my instruction will live a hanging life and be resurrected a blind person in the hereafter” Q. 20:124

Every aspect of human life is a question. Some are answered positively, some, negatively and some, not answered at all. But there is no unanswerable question in Islam. It is a different matter altogether if one is not pleased with the provided answer. That all-time phenomenal FAITH is known for providing answers even before questions are raised. And that is what distinguishes it from all other religions.

If Islam had just been a dogmatic religion and not a complete way of life, it would have become like other creeds in the world today. Panel beaters would have worked on it. Painters would have re-sprayed it to their tastes. Fine artists would have added drawings of beauty to it for marketability. And, then, it would have become an all-comers’ trade fetching money day and night for merchants of fortune.

But this divine religion is like a mighty ocean flowing ceaselessly towards all directions and watering all plants into life through the deltas of adjoining rivers. It will be a suicide bid, therefore, for anybody, government or nation, no matter how technologically advanced, to want to change its course.

Looking at the emergence, the spread and the triumph of Islam in the midst of vicious empires and at a time when might and nothing but might alone mattered, any right-thinking person will surely be amazed by the surviving strategy of this divine religion. How did an unlettered desert man of little means come up with an ideology that captured the world slaves and kings? How did Prophet Muhammad (SAW) become a law giver without any training in a law school? How did he become a General without enrolling in any army? How did he become a scientist without attending any school? How did he become a doctor without undergoing any medical training? How did he become a ruler without receiving any tutelage in politics? And what can be more amazing, historically or contemporarily, than to have all these roles and more combined in a single human being who rose from such a crude background? These are not questions to be answered with crude abuses or parochial denigration.

The great revolution which the great Prophet of Islam brought into the world cannot but beat the imagination of any sensible mortal being. There were hundreds of Prophets before him. Adam, Nuh, Ibrahim, Shuayb, Lut, Musa, Isa and a host of others had all come as prophets preaching peace and harmony to mankind. But none was either a General or a scientist or a ruler. Prophets Daud and Sulayman who were kings could though be called Generals in their own right, nevertheless, they were neither scientists nor doctors. Yet, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who combined all these rare qualities never claimed any miracle by magic wand.

What makes Islam a unique way of life is the uniqueness of Prophet Muhammad’s personality which derived from the uniqueness of the Qur’an as a revealed ‘BOOK’ of Allah. If the Orientalists who were accusing Prophet Muhammad (SAW) of being a war monger were not ignorant or hypocritical, they would have known that no empire or civilisation has ever emerged or survived in history without fighting wars.

How did such old empires as Mesopotamian, Greek, Assyrian, Macedonian, Persian and Roman emerge? How did the French and the Russian revolutions succeed in the early 19th and 20th centuries respectively? How did European countries become colonialist? And, even in contemporary time, how did America emerge as the world’s strongest power? Was it just by preaching human rights and democracy? The reality of today as presented by the history of the past has exposed the hypocrisy of yesteryears. Islam has transcended a stage in life when it could be intimidated or blackmailed into surrendering its legitimacy and identity to any spiritual or political charlatan.

When the West talks of democracy today, the impression it gives is that democracy is a Western invention. This is very far from the truth. Despite the lengthy and speculative Platonic theories on democracy and despite the surreptitious claim that Aristotle wrote a constitution for the City State of Athens, the West did not come in contact with democracy practically until it had a political encounter with the Muslims in Spain in the 8th century C. E. And even with that encounter, Europe remained a mere spectator in the field of democracy until expediency brought about what was called ‘Magna Carter’ (Great Charter) in England in 1215 C. E.

What the West calls democracy today was what Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had called ‘interactive government’ which he practiced as far back as the 7th century. At the time when he established an Islamic State based on Madinah Constitution, the first of its kind in the world, there was no single empire or nation in the entire world without a monarch. If he had not been sincerely focused on the genuineness of his mission, he would have joined the pack by crowning himself a king. But he became the first Head of State and government in the world not called a king because he did not govern like a monarch.

The idea of democracy, which the West came to adopt as its heritage, therefore, is purely Islamic in origin.

As Head of State, the Prophet never imposed any policy on the people without impute from the same people directly or indirectly except such a policy came in form of divine revelation. In other words, he was neither a monarch nor a despot. And, as a Head of State, he never saw himself as more important than any other citizen or resident in the State. That was why he was so indigent even as Head of State that his household could carry on for months without cooking any food under their roof.

In Islam, democracy is not about voting and governance alone. Rather, it is fundamentally about justice in all its ramifications according to the rule of law. It is about tending the lives of the citizens for the overall good of the nation. It is about providing the needs of the people according to the available resources in the nation. It is about protecting the interest of the weak against the oppression of the strong. It is about managing the wealth of the nation with diligent sense of accountability and utilising such wealth according to conscience. It is about securing the lives of the citizenry in terms of jobs, feeding, shelter, health and education. It is about boosting the horizon of the youths and sharpening their hope against the future. It is about guaranteeing individuals’ adequate income per capital and ensuring a standard life expectancy. Any government that claims democracy without caring about the aforementioned can only at best be oppressive and hypocritical. That was Nigeria’s lot between 1999 and 2012, the continuity of which we had fervently prayed Allah to forbid. But how far has that prayer been accepted is a matter of self examination.

And, today, more than 12 years into the so-called unbroken democracy in Nigeria, are we celebrating or mourning? It seems only the megaphones of the government can answer that question. They are the ones who put Nigeria on a rigmarole pushing it left and right, as it suited them, without a definite destination. They had once told us that what this country needed was ‘REBRANDING’ which they claimed was the panacea to Nigeria’s chronic disease. And by ‘REBRANDING’ they meant talking well of Nigeria abroad and covering at home the criminal corruption committed by those in government. The campaign for this new found orientation went wild thereby paving way for a junketing jamboree in the name of ‘REBRANDING’. But after funnelling billions of naira to God knows where they changed the tide. Today, the cliché called ‘REBRANDING’ has become history just as the monster called corruption grows bigger and waxes stronger. It is not enough to tell school pupils to do correction in his homework. At least a good teacher must be able to point out the error in his pupils’ work before calling for correction. Governance, like culture, has variety of colours, flavours and tastes. What is called democracy in a state may amount to despotism in another State.

In Europe today, some of the countries championing democracy around the world are basically monarchical. For instance, countries like Greece, Netherlands (Holland), Belgium, Spain, Sweden and even Britain are all monarchical. Yet these are the same countries that descended with armed forces on Iraq and Afghanistan pretending to want to ensure the entrenchment of democracy in those poor countries. If absence of democracy was the problem in Iraq and Afghanistan, what problem in the defunct Soviet Union and Yugoslavia led to their breakup? Or were they not said to be democratic? Unlike France, Germany and Italy (which are monolingual), the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia collapsed because of the heterogeneity of their tongues and cultures. This confirms the fact that Western type of democracy can only thrive on common cultural identity.

From experience, it has become evident that governance, whether democratic or monarchical, is fundamentally a function of culture. And that is why the British constitution is said to be partly written and partly conventional.

Borrowing a foreign culture to practice democracy, as done in Nigeria, is like borrowing another man’s mouth to eat. Into whose stomach will the food go? By the way, has anybody ever tried to find out why the Arab countries are far ahead of the black African countries in growth and development despite the recent political crises in those (Arab) countries?

The answer to this question is simple: Those Arab countries are monolingual and mono-cultural irrespective of individuals’ religious or ideological differences. Their constitutions are based on the language understandable to the majority of their citizenry and those constitutions are weaved around their common culture. Above all, those constitutions are readily available even to school children who study them in the classrooms as part of the school curriculum.

For instance, based on the law by which those countries are governed, an average Arab policeman will politely warn a citizen not to commit an offence. It is only if the person goes ahead to commit the offence, despite the warning, that he will be arrested and still be warned, but not punished, if he is a first offender. The exception to that however, is when the committed offence is criminal.

In Nigeria, an average policeman of Taraba origin posted to Ogun State will rather hide somewhere and watch you commit an offence that you never knew of its existence only to pounce on you thereafter, arrest you and get you punished severely unless you have the means of greasing his palms. So will a policeman of Osun State origin do if he is posted to Kano or Cross River State. The slogan in our own country is that “the claim of ignorance is no excuse before the law”.

Now, the questions are: which law are we talking about? The laws contained in the constitution proclaimed by an unauthorised cabal in the name of the populace but not made available to the same populace? Who does not know that Nigerian constitution is a mere public luxury which constitutes an instrument of oppression in the hands of the ruling cabal? To an ordinary Nigerian, that constitution is the real political manacle with which the citizens are fettered to the stake of indefinite servitude.

It might be true that while alive and in power, the late President Yar’Adua proclaimed the rule of law as one of his ‘seven point agenda’ but where was the law which rule was being proclaimed? And who are the people to uphold such law in Nigeria today? Can our legislators and police be trusted with the law which is not available to the public when it took the same legislators several years to pass the ’Freedom of bill into law which sought to entrench democracy?

There are 53 countries in Africa today. Only seven of them are Arab countries. The rest are what the Europeans call ‘black countries’. Of these, only about 10 have not experienced military intervention or civil war within the last half of a century. The colonial devils and their agents have succeeded in creating what the linguists call ‘isogloss’ in various geo-political zones in Africa. (An isogloss is an area in which people of diverse, and not mutually understandable languages, settle down for co-existence). Semantically, such areas only connote cultural confusion. And that is what Europeans thrive on by using their African agents to enslave the black populace perpetually.

There is no single Arab country in Africa not colonised by the Europeans. Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania were French colonies. Libya was an Italian colony. Sudan was a British colony. And Egypt, which was once an empire and a cradle of civilisation was colonized by both France and Britain at different times. But despite their colonisation and the recent political agitations in those countries, how do they maintain political sanity? Even among black African countries, how do Senegal, Kenya and Tanzania maintain their democracy for about half a century without military intervention where Nigeria became a haven for military coups?

Today, Arab countries in Africa are nations (not mere countries) and they enjoy the benefits of being nations. What is more interesting is that not all these Arab countries are Republics. Morocco, for instance, is a monarchy but she thrives effectively in her own version of monarchical democracy. Citizens of Arab countries are highly patriotic and can die fighting for the good name of their nations. They are not as agitated for self-aggrandisement as citizens of the black African countries because most of their social needs are met by their governments. And when there is any disagreement on policy or ideology they resort to their culture for solution.

If such a disagreement should occur in Nigeria, to which culture will our government resort; the British colonial culture or the American constitutional culture? This shows why the black Africans always resort to the use of guns in settling their internal differences to the delight of their colonial masters? With a situation like this, how can Nigeria ever dream of becoming a nation when even ordinary National Identity Cards took years of massive embezzlement to produce for citizens? Yet our rulers are calling for patriotism through ‘RE-BRANDING’ by chanting slogans and by distributing T-shirts and logos as if those are what the citizens need for survival. The Amnesty International keeps crying over an average of 350 Nigerians dying of hunger daily. And our government keeps asking us to chant ‘RE-BRANDING’ slogan and wear its logo to create the impression abroad that things are normal with us at home. Who is deceiving who? What a country? What a government? By citing the example of the Arabs here, I am not advocating for Arab democracy. It is not compatible with our own culture. But having surrendered to a common destiny, we can sit down together as a people and forge a common language as a first step towards a common culture. That was how Urdu and Swahili languages emerged.

When people of different tribes and tongues are forcefully fused together without thinking of a common identity, the tendency is for multi-dimensional crises to remain with them perpetually. The only panacea however is genuine federalism which ought to have been fully adopted to enable every tribe or region conduct its own affairs according to its cultural pace. Prophet Muhammad had long warned against misplacement of trust by saying: “When trust is misplaced fundamentally, expect the end of time”. Is this not manifest in the current unprecedented corruption wrapped in deceptive campaign in Nigeria? How else can a government pursue shadow while leaving substance behind? To continue to pretend that nothing is fundamentally wrong with Nigeria democratically is like hiding behind one finger after stripping oneself naked. Hundreds of thousands of able bodied young men and women are jobless. Thousands of retired aged citizens who are qualified to pray effectively for the country are being corruptly deprived of their legitimate entitlements and our government is spending trillions of naira to sustain the ruling class in power. For how long can this continue?

“Allah does not change a people’s lot unless they refrain from their iniquities. If He (Allah) decides to afflict them with tribulation, no one can ward it off. Besides Him, there is no protector them”. Q. 13:11. If 12 years cannot stabilize democracy, what magic can push Nigeria into the group of 20 best economies in eight years time as now being projected? Food for thought you may call this. Yes! Food for thought it is indeed.

Note:

More about ‘Madinah Constitution’ vis a vis Magna Carter, Habeas Corpus and American constitution may be published in this column next Friday, God willing.

Human history is invariably built on the biographies of certain outstanding personalities. Perhaps without such personalities, what we call history would not have come into existence. That is why history and man are seen as Siamese twins. The synergy between them is such that history makes man just as man makes history. It may be difficult or even impossible for instance to write the history of Macedonia without Alexander the Great or that of India without Gautama Buddha or even that of France without Napoleon Bonaparte. Those were men who formed the axis around which the history of their countries is built. Writing the history of Islam without any mention of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is unimaginable. There couldn’t have been anything called Islam without that greatest man that ever lived.

Man becomes history after vacating the stage upon which he had been a performer. Any actor who wants to leave a footprint on the sands of time must transform into a pleasant reading for those who may wish to learn from his chronicled experiences. A confirmation of this assertion came to bear in Lagos last Sunday when a galaxy of Nigerian Muslim crème de la crème swarmed the Lagos Airport Hotel to say kudos to certain rare exemplary duo. The unique gathering was at the instance of the Federation of Muslim Graduates’ Association in Nigeria (FEMGAN).

Two outstanding members of that association were deemed fit for honour and the city was painted red for them. The duo of Prof Ishaq Olanrewaju Oloyede who was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin until a few weeks ago and Barrister Bashir Olayinka Balogun, the Edo State Commissioner of Police until a couple of months ago remain vertical in the midst of horizontal men having completed their tenures of office without blemish. Both men had traversed the length and breadth of their respective professions walking tall with their heads raised high where others trembled like Lilliputians.

Here are men of rare postures who had allowed their consciences to serve as the vehicle conveying them through their peregrinations on earth from adolescence to manhood. They bear the light with which to illuminate the dark tunnel of life for others to pass through without encountering any huddle. These men are as much a pride to Islam as they are to themselves and their families. Judging by today’s murky water of greed and unprecedented corruption in Nigeria both of which have become an obnoxious vogue and knowing how Oloyede and Balogun maintained dignity in their respective offices despite the overwhelming perversion in the land, no right-thinking person will doubt the fact that these exemplary men truly deserve honour. Both men are being appreciated and celebrated here not for rising to the respective posts they attained in public service but retaining their heads where other were losing theirs.

This is not a biography in which the story of birth and upbringing is often told. Neither is it one in which the schools attended and the teachers encountered is chronicled. The concern here is the slippery pyramid of life which these icons had to mount from bottom to apex before the observing world could think of them as men of honour. How was that pyramid mounted? At what stage did recognition begin to beckon to each of the revered duo?

Professor Ishaq Olanrewaju Oloyede had become a household name in the academia before now, not only in Nigeria or Africa but in the entire world just like the University he was privileged to head as Vice-Chancellor. What qualified him for such a vertical position is an interesting question for which most inquisitive minds may earnestly seek an answer. And the answer is not far-fetched.

Unlike most Nigerian men of letters in the Ivory Tower, Professor Oloyede wears a binocular with which he sees life from two opposing world the West and the East. And this became evident not just in his management of the University of Ilorin in a tenure of five years but also in the humility, selflessness and patriotism with which he demonstrated civility and exhibition of knowledge in that office. The difference between a man of letters and that of knowledge is quite clear. While the one sees life through the common eye, the other sees it with an uncommon vision.

In the days of Socrates, Aristotle and Herodotus, when education was an adorned virtue used as a yardstick for measuring civility and value, no one cared about the material gains accruing from it. Bastardisation of education only set in when certificate became a means of valuing its material worth. Thus, with certificate, mere literacy began to be misconceived as education. And today, Nigerian Universities have been reduced to centres of advanced literacy rather than those of education. Whereas literacy is just an added value to education the modern day man has ignorantly but arrogantly interpolated the one for the other. This is what Professor Oloyede resented in his academic odyssey when he chose to combine eastern education with that of the West with a determination to take advantage of both in fertilising the academic soil of Nigeria’s future. For those who didn’t know, that was why he specialised in Islamic Studies even at the professorial level.

Professor Oloyede’s philosophy of life seems to tally ascetically with that of Daniel Webster who in a memorable poem stated as follows: ‘’If we work marble it will perish; if we work upon brass time will efface it; if we rear temples they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and instill in them just principles; we are then engraving that upon tablets which no time can efface but will brighten to all eternity’’.

This is the philosophy that propelled him to adopt contentment as a principle right from the early age. Why relating his reason for contesting for the office of the Vice-Chancellor, he once told some medical students of his University who went to congratulate him on assumption of office as Vice-Chancellor that he never intended to contest for that office. But when an academic charlatan with an ulterior motive in the same University threatened to expose him if he dared contest for the post, he (Oloyede) saw it as a challenge to put his privacy on a public table. His intention was actually not to contest but to see what would be exposed in his privacy. And, contrary to the expectations of skeptics, he emerged as the Vice-Chancellor without an iota of blemish.

Before contesting for that post he had served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor twice. First, he was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic and later Deputy Vice Chancellor Administration in the same University of Ilorin where he had spent his entire academic life as a student, as an alumnus lecturer, as a Director in several areas and as a Professor. Thus, he had seen that University inside-out and that was enough to propel an ambition in him to target the highest office in the Citadel for which he was eminently qualified but it did not. Professor Oloyede relayed to his students the story of his unintended contest for the highest office not as mere bravado but as an encouragement towards service to humanity with humility and patriotism.

When he noticed that the position of the Executive Secretary of the Association of African Universities was more meaningful and more beneficial to Nigeria than that of the President which he then held, Professor Oloyede encouraged some of his Nigerian colleagues to apply for that post promising that he would resign his Presidential position in that Association to enable a fellow Nigerian occupy the office. Incidentally, most of his colleagues did not believe him. But when the time came and one of them indicated interest, Oloyede surprisingly resigned as President of African Vice-Chancellors just after two years in an office where he had opportunity to spend two terms of renewable four years each.

However, the Professor who benefited from Oloyede’s large-heartedness by assuming the office of the Executive Secretary of African Universities eventually ventured into Nigerian local politics and relinquished the covetous post in favour of that of the Secretary to a State Government (SSG) thereby depriving Nigeria the benefit for which Oloyede had resigned as President.

Only a few Nigerians in the academic arena can surpass Oloyede’s record when it comes to the ‘nitty gritty’ of academic administration. Yet, you can hardly notice it in his demeanour. He is not only the first alumnus of the Faculty of Arts in the University of Ilorin to graduate with a ‘First Class’ he is also the first alumnus of that University to obtain a PhD from the same University. Not only that, Professor Oloyede scored many other ‘FIRSTS’ in that University to the admiration of the upcoming students and encouragement for those with same aspiration among them. He was the ‘FIRST’ Director of Academic Planning and first alumni President to be a member of the Governing Council of the University. Professor Oloyede is also the first Unilorin alumnus to become a Deputy Vice-Chancellor and subsequently the first alumnus to become the Vice-Chancellor of the University.

And at the national level, he was the first Vice-Chancellor in Nigeria to introduce Computer-Based Testing (CBT) method of screening applicants in the country just as he was the first Vice-Chancellor to lead a second generation University to the number one position in Nigeria based on external ranking. He also became the first Nigerian Vice-Chancellor to emerge as President of the Association of African Universities (AAU) and at the same time the Chairman of Association of Nigerian Universities (AVCNU). Still not done, he is the first Nigerian Vice-Chancellor to combine the Board membership of International Association of Universities (IAU) with those of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and Association of African Universities (AAU).

With the above listed ‘FIRSTS’ he was (as Vice-Chancellor) able to make Unilorin the first Federal University in Nigeria to run a decade of uninterrupted academic calendar and prompted that University to be internationally ranked as one of the very best 20 Universities in Africa. Also, through his astute academic administration, the University of Ilorin was able to maintain the first position in national ranking for three consecutive years (2009, 2010 and 2011). Another major plus in this man’s life but which most people hardly focus is arbitrating factor. He does not just resent conflicts in whatever form he also regards arbitration as a duty. Thus, he immediately initiates arbitration and reconciliation wherever he notices any conflict be it interpersonal, intertribal or interreligious and ensures resolution without minding the cost. And his impartiality in doing this is generally acknowledged and revered across all borders.

In Professor Oloyede is a great example for those who aspire to be great in a world where greatness is a slippery land. His life has become a guide for the younger professionals and artisans, especially among Muslims who need guidance either as a warning on the vanity of human wishes or as encouragement or both.

Unfortunately however, this same Professor Oloyede who is also the Executive Secretary/Coordinator of Nigeria Interreligious Council (NIREC) was the one somebody in Ilorin recently wanted to paint black by linking him to a crime of arson in a Church. Can that be of any surprise? Nigerians are notorious for three things: avarice, corruption and mudslinging. But can the sun be affected in any way if a group of blind men claim not to be aware of its existence? Or how does it bother a brook which water the herds decide to boycott?

From what we know of Professor Oloyede, it is only left for the present days to raise up their voices in chorusing ‘GOD BLESS YOU’ to him so that the future days can chorus back ‘AMEN’ in response.

Barrister Bashir Olayinka Babatunde Balogun is a devout, practical Muslim in conduct and mannerism with phenomenal abhorrence for corruption and indecency. His forage into the Nigeria Police Force in 1980 might not be unconnected with that natural tendency in him. Yinka Balogun, as he is popularly known among Muslim brothers, is a quiet, cool-headed and forthright gentleman who pitches his tent with destiny. He sees hustling as a form of corruption and refrains completely from it. He believes that man can only attain that which Allah has ordained for him and that no man can give what Allah does not give. Yet, he is quite pragmatic in his approach to life while taking his conscience for the scale with which he weighs his deeds from time to time.

Throughout his sojourn in the Nigeria Police Force, Yinka Balogun always found himself as an odd man out at any post because he refused to concur with any abnormal norm of the moment. And he was regularly treated by most of his colleagues as a lone ranger. Here is a man who, having studied and understood the social terrain of Nigeria, resolved never to initiate or engage in any struggle he could not handle all alone. As a political scientist, he understands the theory of collective responsibility and the possible implications of its entailed betrayal. Thus, his permanent companion in all his actions is his conscience with which he has never parted for a moment. While most of his colleagues and even his juniors in the Police Force jostled for promotion by other means and sometimes got it, Yinka held on tenaciously to the will of Allah through destiny believing that with Allah there is a scheduled time for everything.

Not only that, Yinka also believes that knowledge is the basis of every success in human life. To him an orphan is not a person who is bereaved of his or her parents but one who is bereaved of knowledge and discipline, hence his continuous pursuit of further knowledge despite heavy personal and official responsibilities. While still in the Police Force, he knew that a thorough police officer ought to be well familiar with the law of the land and thus enrolled for a degree in law after obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. He also knew that obtaining degrees in Political Science and Law could form a solid background for any modern man in cotemporary time but the combination of both degrees was not enough to make one a crack professional police officer that he eventually became. He therefore embarked on a series of professional courses in addition to the original police training he received initially. Some professional courses he attended include: Criminal Justice Administration Course at the University of West Virginia, USA, Command Course/ASCON, Seminar Management Course on Police Administration and Strategy in Cape Town, South Africa and Master Degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Ibadan. He also attended the Senior Executive Intelligence Management Course at the Institute of Security Studies, Abuja as well as African/Middle East Chapter Retrainers Course for FBI National Academy Association (FBINNA) organised by the United States Department of Justice at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Botswana.

Equipped with this chain of trainings, which he combined with a formidable educational background, Yinka was able to walk the ladder of Nigeria Police Force to the top except where politics became a barrier. He served as Divisional Crime Officer, Divisional Police Officer, Assistant Force Public Relations Officer II, Acting Zonal Police Public Relations Officer, Officer-in-Charge of Motoring Unit, Officer-in-Charge of Special Enquiry Bureau (SEB), Prosecution/Legal Officer (CID), Divisional Police Officer (DPO) AND Officer-in-Charge of Anti-Fraud Division in various places and at various times.

He also served as Team Leader (General Investigation) FCID, Assistant Commissioner of Police (General Investigation), Principal Staff Officer to Inspector General of Police, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Patrol and Guard, Operations as well as SCID, Officer-in-Charge, Special Fraud Unit(Ikoyi and Abuja) and finally, he became a Commissioner of Police in Ekiti and Edo States respectively before his retirement on October 30.

In all these, what really matters is the indelible mark of dignity Barrister Yinka Balogun has left behind as a legacy. If transparency with dignity is not celebrated in these exemplary duo what else should be celebrated? God bless the duo! God bless the Muslim Ummah!