The Nation Newspaper

Category: Friday

  • ABOUT TAFSIR

    ABOUT TAFSIR

    From the beginning of Ramadan, every year, Muslims congregate in various Mosques or Learning Centres where the exposition of the Qur’an (Tafsir) is rendered by learned Muslim scholars. This is in accordance with the Prophetic tradition which encourages better understanding of the Qur’an.

    Linguistically, Tafsir means exposition. But technically, it means the comprehensive analysis of the Qur’an, spiritually, linguistically, logically and semantically. In other words, Tafsir is the comprehensive exposition of the contents of the Qur’an, as usually done by learned Muslim scholars especially during the month of Ramadan throughout the Muslim world.

    Because of the coded language of the Qur’anic revelation, it became necessary for the verses of that sacred Book to be decoded for the purpose of thorough understanding by the Muslim Ummah when the Prophet was alive. And, the example of this was laid by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) himself to the great delight of his companions.

    From the explanation above, it therefore becomes clear that the revelations of the Qur’anic chapters and verses were the immediate causes of intellectual research in Islam. For instance, Arabic, the original language of the Qur’an, had no grammar prior to the revelations of the divine message. The grammar of that language evolved only from the contents of the Qur’an.

    With time, the challenge which the Qur’an threw to humanity in all spheres of life led to serious competition among scholars. Thus, each time a revelation came, the Companions of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) were always eager to know why and how of every what. And this led to their very close association with the Prophet who paved the way for them towards that intellectual research.

    Although the formal study of Tafsir as an independent intellectual discipline did not begin until many years after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), he (the Prophet) nevertheless, started its process. He did not only educate his companions about the exoteric and esoteric meanings of the revealed verses of the Qur’an, he also explained their applications to the daily life of man as well as the implications of same.

    It was the prophet who decoded most of the coded areas of the Qur’an for proper understanding of the ordinary Muslims. Through his utterances and actions which were later to be known as Hadith and Sunnah, the contents of the Qur’an became more and more understandable to the Muslims even as further researches continue today.

    Thus, after the prophet’s demise, Hadith and Sunnah together became an independent subject of research paving man’s way to higher firmaments in civilization. And, this has helped, in no small measure, to expand the scope of Tafsir. It is from Qur’anic researches that, all new discoveries and new frontiers in knowledge became adapted to the study of Tafsir until Tafsir itself became an estuary through which every stream of knowledge was passed to mankind. But what problems does Tafsir face in the contemporary time? Read the answer to this question in this column tomorrow in sha’Allah.

    • RAMADAN KARIM!.
  • THE THREE SEGMENTS OF RAMADAN

    THE THREE SEGMENTS OF RAMADAN

    At the beginning of this sacred month, 11 days ago, an analysis was done in this column classifying the 30 days of Ramadan into three segments. The first segment was said to contain the first ten days during which the blessings of Allah come to the faithful Muslims freely and in abundance. Except for meeting that segment with faith and good intention, there is no working for the blessings therein. That segment ended yesterday paving way for the second segment that begins today.

    As from today, Sunday, May 25, 2021, fasting Muslims, all over the world, will start working for the master key to their final abode (Al-Jannah) through forgiveness. That is the essence of this second segment of the month of Ramadan. During this period, Muslims are expected to intensify worship (Ibadah) by spending their days and nights repenting on their misdeeds and iniquities while seeking Allah’s forgiveness through the chanting of Istighfar. But such forgiveness is neither automatic nor free.

    Usually, there are conditions attached to it. One of such conditions is that one must admit his misdeeds and repent on them. The second is that he should voluntarily and genuinely seek forgiveness. And the third condition is for him to resolve never to return to such misdeeds again. To seek Allah’s forgiveness during that time, a Muslim should follow the guidance of Allah as exemplified by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who reportedly said that “if you want to speak with Allah, make your request on prostration. And, if you want Allah to speak to you recite the Qur’an”. No one who abides by the above conditions and follows the Prophet’s counsel will ever be disappointed. Allah is both promising and fulfilling. He never reneges on His promise. In Qur’an 2:186 He promises thus: “…when my servants ask you (Prophet Muhammad) about me, tell them that I am very close to them. I answer the prayers of all who seek my favour if they pray to me (without any intermediary). So, let them expect my favourable response and trust in me so that they may be rightly guided”

    The second ten days segment of Ramadan is not just to consolidate on the blessings of the first ten days. It is also to prepare the fasting Muslims for the last ten days when they are expected to be fully liberated from the evil manacles of satanic forces. For genuinely dedicated Muslims, in this sacred month, the prayer for that liberation in any language and in a condition of purity is a sine qua non.

     

    RAMADAN KARIM

  • When tomorrow comes

    When tomorrow comes

    Monologue

    Let there become of you a nation that shall call for righteousness, enjoin justice and forbid evil. Such are people that shall surely triumph (in the end)”. Q. 3: 104.

     

    Preamble

    This is not just an article. It is rather a letter of admonition coming from ‘The Message’ column to Nigerian politicians. Similar letters had been written through this column to this same generation of politicians in the recent past. But letters of this type seldom come to an arena of politics where conscience is banished and virtually everything in Nigeria’s political life is based on whim engendered by self aggrandizement with impunity, which you consider as your ultimate goal. Coming up at this precarious time of political labyrinth in Nigeria, this letter is necessitated by the current frightening political tension wrapped in unprecedented insecurity that is fast becoming a bubble that may burst anytime from now unless the Almighty Allah comes to the rescue of our country with His divine mercy.

    If you, Nigerian politicians, think that you can escape any calamitous consequence of your ceaseless political machinations which you are tendentiously weaving around Nigerian vestige without an iota of remorse, you may be day-dreaming. The evil plans of those who engaged in similar machinations before you, in this same country, had ended up in an irreversible forlorn. And, you are supposed to know that through history unless you have discarded the role of history in your lives. It is assumed that some of you might be wise enough to learn a lesson from the ugly political experience that gave the military boys the opportunity to highjack the governance of Nigeria for decades while abandoning their own statutory duty of securing the country.

     

    Functions of Conscience

    “Conscience”, according to Sheikh Uthman Dan Fodio, “is an open wound which only the truth can heal”. But one can talk of healing a wounded conscience only where and when that wound has not become cancerous.

     

    Signs of Hypocrisy

    Prophet Muhammad (SAW) once gave a vivid description of the signs by which hypocrites can be identified.

    He said “hypocrites are known by three signs: When they talk they lie; when they promise they renege and when they are trusted they betray”. In other words, conscience is an unbefitting garment for any hypocrite. If you reflect deeper on the above quoted Prophetic assertion, you will surely agree that most of you,

    Nigerian politicians so much typify that description of hypocrites. And, that may force you to wonder if the Prophet had Nigerians in mind when he was expressing that axiomatic Hadith.

     

    Deceptive Motive

    It will be recalled that when most of you politicians started agitating for a return to democracy in Nigeria, for the fourth time, in the late 1990s, your seeming focus was on liberation of the Nigerian citizenry from the crushing claw of military despotism. But hardly had you succeeded in leading the Nigerian masses to drive away the military boys than you began to create a negative political enclave for yourselves, to feather your selfish interest. You did that under the protection of your political godfathers or godmothers who warmly embraced you, not minding your hidden agenda, especially when such agenda were beneficial to them. In doing that, you did not realizewas th that by claiming deceptively that you wanted to serve the people, you had deceptive lured ordinary Nigerians into a covenant, not just between you and the people you claimed to want to serve but also between you and the Almighty Allah who knows every manifest and hidden agenda. And, surely, Allah will hold you accountable for whatever agenda you adopt to exploit the innocent masses of this country, unless you repent and stop your current evil machinations.

     

    Lawlessness as Law

    To you, it does not matter whether you were genuinely elected or surreptitiously smuggled into office through the back door by your godfathers, thereby depriving others (who are more qualified than you), of their legitimate rights. Such could not have mattered to you since the constitution under which you operate politically today is, itself, shrouded in a cloak of uncertainties. What else is called despotism?

    Perhaps, you need to know that whether you knew it or not, you will eventually be judged, not just by history but by the AlmightyAllah whose divine judgment cannot be appealed.

    And, the prayer of a cheated person, according to Prophet Muhammad (SAW), never suffers a denial.

     

    Reminder

    As some of you once shamelessly graded figure 16 higher than figure 19, sometime ago, and audaciously classified unbridled theft as a lesser crime than corruption, all in the name of politics, you must remember that Allah’s justice can neither be manipulated nor subverted. And no matter how long it may take, Allah’s justice will take its course perhaps when you least expect in life.

    In words and in actions, you have evidently demonstrated that you are not in anyway, qualified to bequeath any sensible legacy to the future generations, of this country, an indication that once you can satisfy your satanic greed, the future is no more of any concern to you.

    If anything, your thoughtless public utterances, your shameless public actions and counter actions as well as your devilish body languages are more destructive to Nigeria’s future than ever imagined. In fact, you can be called any name other than patriotic gentlemen and women of honour that you deceptively ascribe to yourselves. As a result, you are unprecedentedly a disgrace, not only to Nigeria as a country, but also to the entire civilized mankind. However, since you have permanently enlisted immorality as a vital political instrument without thinking of its consequences, you are free to behave like typical intoxicated horses gallivanting aimlessly around without reins.

     

    Life without Justice

    In Islam, three issues are fundamentally sacrosanct, noneof which Allah takes lightly. These are non association of anything with the oneness of Allah, sacredness of life and dispensation of justice. It is almost an unforgivable iniquity for any human being, especially Muslims, to associate anything with Allah or engage in murder and injustice under any guise. Thus, anybody who kills fellow human beings extra-judicially, in the name of religion, ethnicity, politics or even economy is nothing but an agent of Satan. In Islam, killing a fellow human being deliberately under whatever guise, without passing through a due process of law, is such a grievous sacrilege that cannot and should not be perpetrated without commensurate penalty. If such a penalty is not applied here on earth, it will definitely be applied in the hereafter. Yet, killing fellow human beings directly or clandestinely is the major political means of gaining power and access to illegal wealth by you Nigerian politicians.

     

    Allah’s Wrath

    Besides paganism, nothing draws the wrath of Allah faster than the two crimes mentioned above which Satan may continue to ask you to ignore at your own peril. Murder is physical termination of the life of a fellow human being. Injustice is killing a person mentally, psychologically, politically, economically or even spiritually by denying him his legitimate right. Now, which of these have you not employed officially and privately in the course of your political journey? How will you explain these to Allah?

     

    Legislative Duty 

    In Islam, rule of law is the foundation of justice but legislation is the material with which that foundation is built. Those of you who voluntarily chose to legislate for the rest of us hardly see yourselves as the foundation layers of justice who should not betray the course of justice. As legislators, you are looked upon by most Nigerians as honourable leaders neither because you are more qualified intellectually than those for whom you legislate nor because you are wiser and more experienced than them. What makes most of you, Nigerian legislators at the Federal and State levels is sheer expediency arising from queer inadequacies sadly fostered by our so-called political system which gives room for open gerrymandering and audacious manipulation. If such opportunity comes your way illegally, let it not be mistaken for good luck. It may rather be a calamity waiting to strike your lives in the near or far future.

    And when it strikes, no one except Allah can tell the extent of its effect. At least you can see how the consequences of the heartless annulment of June 12, 1993 Presidential election have become a draconian spectre chasing the ghost of every Nigerian today even almost three decades of licking the political wound inflicted on our country by that satanic annulment.

     

    Subversion

    Due to lack of conscience, most of you may have forgotten, but you need to be reminded that shortly after you took oath of office either in 1999 or 2003 or 2007 or 2011 or 2015, you started subverting the covenant into which you voluntarily entered with the people who sincerely elected you into office, in trust. That covenant was, according to you, to serve them (the people) diligently. And, in a civilized society, people who so choose to serve are seen as nothing other than servants. But, in your own case, no sooner had you been sworn into office than you started calling yourselves leaders and not servants again. By implication, you have so dangerously promoted desperation and impunity to the front burner of Nigerian politics that whoever thinks of serving the country today, through any public office, is seen as a devil that must be kept at an arm’s length. That is where most of you belong. From your public conduct, any right-thinking person can vividly see the types of families you are raising for the nation.

     

    Executive Duty  

    As members of the Executive arm, when some of you travel abroad officially, at people’s expense, you are never alarmed by the way the systems work in those countries. You never bother to ask questions about the effective functions of electricity, the smoothness of roads, the flow of portable water and the excellent educational system that promotes probity and decorum in those countries. Rather, your primary concerns are the personal ephemeral gains that may be accruable to you at the expense of Nigeria’s present and future. For the past 22 years of Nigeria’s fourth republic most of you have been at the saddle of government directly or indirectly without being able to show, in concrete terms, what value has that length of time added to the lives of ordinary Nigerians. Your emphasis is on display of power with impunity rather than good governance, and, you often go about it in such a manner that gives the impression that government is much more about destruction than construction. Your brutish law breaking rather than clement law making is an attestation to this fact.

     

    Nigeria as an OPEC Country

    As political leaders that you call yourselves, you do not even feel ashamed that Nigeria has remained the only OPEC country that imports refined petroleum products for domestic consumption simply because you are beneficiaries of the corrupt device which you deliberately put in place to ensure the workability of that device.

    Even if Nigeria never had electricity before 1999 and you decided to start one at the commencement of the fourth republic to boost economy, is a period of 22 years not enough to provide a functional electricity especially given the enormous amount of wealth with which this country is endowed? In modern time, no technological device provides as much opportunity for jobs and economic growth as electricity. Yet, it is that major device that you deliberately hold down to deprive the populace of the wherewithal to rise mentally and intellectually. And, that is to enable you to turn the citizens of your country into perpetual slaves to be ruled forever. In such a situation, why wouldn’t corruption be unconscientiously legislated into legitimacy? And now, Nigeria is held to a standstill because every one of you must personally have a chip of juicy future now without caring about what may even become of your own children in that future.

    As fathers and mothers, most of you will say amen when people are praying for responsible men and women, yet, you have nothing in you that can serve as good examples for your children, to accentuate your shout of amen.

    You tell lies with relish. Yet you want your children to be truthful. From where do you expect them to inherit truthfulness? You steal public funds with unbridled audacity. Yet you do not want your children to be called thieves. What other names should the children of thieves bear other than thieves?

     

    Sermon

    From the pulpit of genuine conscience, ‘The Message’ column hereby implores you Nigerian politicians to search your consciences if you have any at all and fear the Almighty Allah in your own interest. Remember that some people had governed this country in the past. Among them were those who tried to combine the roles of the executive, the legislative and the judiciary arms together, in the name of military rule, made possible by coup d’état and the barrels of gun. Where are they today?

    Governance has its tenure. At the commencement of a tenure, in a Presidential system, four years may look endless, but for the wise, it is not more than a flash of lightening which only a fool will rely upon to walk his way through the darkness of the night. You are in government today, but remember that you will soon become former this or former that just like those before you.

     

    Duties of public Servants

    Ordinarily, the duty of Civil Servants as government officials, whether in the executive, legislative or judicial arm, is to serve your country in such a way that you can create a historical window for yourselves and your children through which the future generations can retrospectively peep into your service lives with reverence. But since everything in Nigeria has been peculiarly monetized (courtesy of Obasanjo regime), it has become a rule that those who hold sway in government, in whatever capacity, are the Lords who must take the lion’s share of our national cake through our lean annual budgets. That is why you randomly but embarrassingly throw some damaging pebbles into our political brook to cause unnecessary ripples in the serenity of that brook to the total disadvantage of today and tomorrow.

     

    Observation

    Some of you, legislators, think or talk of impeachment only when your salaries, allowances or extra budgetary largess suffers a reduction or delay. And some other times, your thoughts along that line are devilishly influenced by blind ambition for power grabbing. It does not matter to you whether or not the entire workforce in Nigeria remains unpaid for years. Once you are able to amass whatever comes your way legally or illegally the rest of the populace can go on hunger strike forever. It is rather shameful and disappointing that even some of you who claim to be Muslims are participating in such an evil charade despite your proclamation of Islam.

    Conscience, though invisible, has a mirror which only a few people know of. That mirror is shame. A person without shame is a person without conscience. And that is the main distinction between a genuine Muslim and a nominal one.

    Prophet Muhammad (SAW) once admonished the Muslims as follows, in respect of shame: “once you are bereft of shame, you can go ahead to do whatever you like”. This means that without shame you are a nonentity who can even strip naked in a market place in readiness for a brawl. We can all see the example of this in a former President of this country who is now menstruating through both sides of his mouth at any public place, and any time, even as an octogenarian.

     

    Admonition

    Dear Nigerian politicians, let it be kept permanently in your brain that the only thing which keeps people alive in history even long after their demise is service to humanity. Prophets Isa (Jesus), and Muhammad (SAW), had neither bank accounts nor estates to bequeath to anybody. Their legacy is more than any material wealth inherited by the entire world today. That heritage is service to humanity. What is your own planned legacy if only for posterity? That is a big question which only people with conscience can answer. And, as Muslims or Christians, you should be able to answer it if you truly follow the right guidance of those noble men of impeccable character.

    Remember that you are in a ship already cruising actively on the high sea, towards the shore of disembarkation. And, at that shore are fierce customs officers waiting to check the contents of your luggage and your cargo. Remember that if you cultivate friendship with Satan he will favour your wish. But if he grants you one favour, he will surely collect ten from you in return. Be Muslims by name, conduct and mannerism. Whatever you do as Muslims will affect the image of Islam in one way or the other. One of you, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum has stood out of your pack, as model to be emulated by any standard. Like him, I hope some of you you will have the courage to return home, from your political odyssey, as Muslims and not as renegades. Remember all these and adjust now that you may be able to raise your head aloft when tomorrow comes.

     

     

     

     

  • THE GLORIOUS QUR’AN

    THE GLORIOUS QUR’AN

    Reading any book has a purpose and a method. No good reader will ever read a book without taking note of its author, its publisher and its date of publication. And to read any new book, the very first point of call is its contents page which tells you the topics and the subjects you will read about in it. One of the major purposes of Tarawih is to serve as a reminder of the contents of the Quran.

    The word Qur’an means continuous recitation. It is so called because of its inimitable origin which makes it a compelling daily reading throughout the world, across nations and ages. It contains the unsurpassable words of Allah not only in the grandeur of its diction and splendour of its rendition but also in the depth of its meaning, substance and profundity.

    The revelation of the Glorious Book called the Qur’an to mankind through an unlettered desert Arab, Muhammad (SAW), the son of Abdullah and Aminah, began in 610 CE. It lasted 22 years and three months (10 years in Makkah and12 years plus three months in Madinah). The book contains 114 chapters and 6236 verses (not 6666 verses often quoted by most Imams and Alfas in Nigeria. Of these 114 chapters, 86 were revealed in Makkah and 28 in Madinah. But the 28 chapters revealed in Madinah constitute two thirds of the entire Book. This is because the Makkah chapters are short, rhythmic and poetic while those of Madinah are long and prose-like.

    Although the Qur’an was revealed orally, its writing began almost immediately the revelations started. The writing was however done on primitive materials like planks of wood, animal hides, back of trees and other materials of the like which were then readily available. It was shortly after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), that those writings were collated and rendered into a book form after corroboration with the memorised ones. However, one of the wonders of rendering the Qur’an into a written form is the classification of those revelations into chapters and verses by the Prophet himself despite his illiteracy.

    The Qur’an’s main appeal is to man’s intellect, feelings and imagination. But it also gives insight into some natural phenomena like spherical and revolution of the earth (Q. 39:5), the formation of the rain (Q. 30:48); the fertilization of the wind (Q. 15:22); the revolution of the sun, the moon and the planets in their fixed orbits (Q. 36:29-38); the aquatic origin of all creatures (Q. 21:30); the duality of the sex of plants and other creatures (Q. 36:35); the collective life of animals (Q.6:38); the mode of life of the bees (Q. 16:69) and the successive phases of the child in the mother’s womb (Q. 22:5 & 23:14). Yet, the purpose of this Glorious Book is not to teach history, astronomy, philosophy or sciences but to broaden the horizon of man for thorough understanding of the world vis a vis its supreme Creator. That is the Qur’an for you, a book that is incomparably divine through all ages and times. Whoever needs to read the Qur’an must know its features as stated above. Otherwise, just reading the Qur’an may be like swimming in a pool without any knowledge of its depth.

     

    • RAMADAN KARIM!
  • Welcoming the Guest of all Seasons

    Welcoming the Guest of all Seasons

    Monologue

    Nights are pregnant. They give birth to wonders in the days. The paradoxical issues between days and nights are like those of the cloudy sky which is earnestly expected to pour down rain water, in torrents, for crops to grow. If the rain falls, it is not because of human expectation. Rather, it is because the Almighty Allah has a message to pass to a section of the world through the rain water. After all, the cloudy sky could have throbbed through the environment either with a wild storm or a devastating tempest, if not for Allah’s mercy.

     

    Preamble

    As human beings, we do many things without noticing the role of a third eye around us called destiny. It is only when the effect or outcome of such a role becomes manifest that we try to adjust, either by increasing the tempo of our efforts, for posterity sake, or by inadvertently relenting, out of sheer complacency.

    Remarkable Events

    Two remarkable events came up two years ago (2020). Each of those events warranted profound appreciation to people who played distinguished roles in them, directly or indirectly.

    One was a special prayer which the Muslim Ummah of South West Nigeria (MUSWEN) organised for the success of a trusted brother, Barrister Zikrullah Kunle Hassan, the current Chairman of National Hajj Commission (NAHCON), in piloting the affairs of Hajj operations, despite the threat of a deadly artificial ailment code-named COVID-19 pandemic. The motive of the prayer was to invoke the mercy of Allah in bailing out Nigeria from the multi-faceted calamity that was then ravaging the corporate existence of Nigeria, as a united, indivisible country.

     

    Second Event

    The second event was the recognition of yours sincerely as the ‘Nigerian Muslim Media Person of the Year, last year (2021). The selection of yours sincerely for that spectacular recognition was done by a foremost Nigerian Muslim Online Media Outfit called ‘Muslim News’ in collaboration with the Muslim Media Practitioners of Nigeria (MMPN). The latter is the highest professional ‘Muslim Media’ body in Nigeria. Although both events came up within the days of Sunday, February 7, 2021 and Monday, February 8, 2021, respectively, the ratification of their conceptions had been done in the serenity of the preceding nights. And, that was a confirmation of the assertion that nights are pregnant.

     

    The Third Eye

    Who could have thought that the paltry messages dished out to the world from this column, every Friday, since 1982, has been attracting the attention of some observers with a mark of notice?

    Last Monday, February 8, 2021 was a rare day of a common message from various countries around the world. And, the message had only one tone: CONGRATULATION!

    That message was in reaction to the fortuitous announcement of the name ‘Femi Abbas’ as the ‘Nigerian Muslim Media Person of the Year 2020’. The announcement was made through the blog of the ‘Muslim News of Nigeria’.

    The magnitude of the barrage of congratulatory messages that bombarded me through the throbs of android phones, the Email and the Social Media generally, from all parts of the world, cannot be vividly described here. Although I am personally averse to conferment of awards, as a matter of principle, the fact that a fast growing Muslim Media outfit like ‘Muslim News’ came up, fortuitously, with such recognition, could not be ignored, if only to encourage the continuity of excellent media work by Muslim professionals who are aspiring to become worthy successors.

    It had always been my fervent wish and prayer to see a well groomed, vociferous media outfit like ‘Muslim News’ to take the mantle of competence with which to surpass the old generation and become a successor to ‘The Message’ column. Thus, when ‘The Lagos-based ‘Muslim News’ emerged with an incredible ability to keep the flag flying. I considered it as an act of ingratitude to Allah for enabling the emergence of the laudable activities of that outfit with a befitting appreciation. After all, it takes only a sound mind to recognise good performance in other people. And, in journalism, it is your work, rather than your boastful words of mouth that shows who you are in meaningful terms.

     

    Growth of Ability

    Ability to speak or write is a special gift from the Almighty Allah. With time, such ability may grow to become a hobby which may be developed into a specialised skill. And, with further training and advanced experience, the skill may become an appreciable profession that will be emulated by thousands of others.

    Speaking, no matter how eloquently it may be, cannot be as important as getting audience for it. A speaker can be classified as an orator only by his audience. Radio and television broadcasters as well as public motivational speakers can testify to this assertion.

     

    Writing Skill

    The similitude of an orator, on a radio or television station, is like that of an author of books or a weekly columnist in reputable newspapers or magazines. Thus, as a writer, he/she can be celebrated or denigrated only by his readers. That is why, any writer who takes his readers for granted can only do so at his/her own peril. Such a writer may not be qualified for an author or a columnist.

     

    Reminiscence

    Ever since yours sincerely was privileged to continue the writing of this column (The Message) in ‘The Nation’ newspaper, in September, 2006, no week has passed by without receiving a barrage of reactions from many countries. Even on some occasions, when the column was not published, for one reason or another, reactions never ceased to come in torrents.

    The reason for this was not just because I called the column a participatory one in its maiden edition but mostly because some ardent readers who had long been familiar with it, since its inception, in the now defunct Concord newspaper, 40 years ago (1982), appreciate its quality and acknowledge the methodology and style with which it is presented to showcase Islam, to the world, every Friday. For instance, on a particular article entitled: ‘NO! MR. PRESIDENT, NO!’, which was published in this column, on February 2, 2007, when a onetime Army General, (Chief) Olusegun Okikiolakan Aremu Obasanjo was at the twilight of his second tenure of four years in office, as a Nigerian President, and, he was alleged to be clandestinely planning for an unconstitutional third term in office, I received 189 phone calls, 107 text messages and 143 written comments through the e-mail, all in one day. That was about five months after the resumption of this column in The Nation newspaper, in 2006.

     

    Comment

    After I left Concord newspaper, in 1989, most readers of this column followed it to other newspapers such as, ‘The Vanguard’, the Monitor and ‘The Nation’. Some even followed it to some foreign magazines such as ‘The Inquiry’, ‘Al-Afkar’, Africa Now, ‘At-Tawheed’ and a host of others including academic journals. Thus, questions, observations and comments were consistently coming into the column from various parts of the world in form of reactions.

    This is a confirmation that it is only a bad writer that will close his ears or eyes to readers’ comments, even if such comments are reprobate.

     

    Appreciation

    While thanking all the readers of this 40 year old column, particularly those who have been reacting to it from home and from abroad, since its inception, for their encouragement and well wish. I pray the Almighty Allah to appreciate their good intentions and encouraging spirit, as He (Allah) alone, can reward them abundantly.

     

    First Meeting with the Sultan

    It came as an undreamt surprise when my telephone rang at exactly 11.50am on the first Sunday in February, 2007. My first reaction after picking the call was: “who is on the line, please?” especially when the call came without a recognisable identity. In answering my question the caller only identified himself as SA’AD ABUBAKAR. I immediately searched my brain for a possible familiarisation with that name. But while doing that, I did not know that I was repeating the name ‘Sa’ad Abubakar’ in a seeming soliloquy until His Eminence said: “Ah! Don’t you know anybody bearing that name?” And, in my reaction, I said “well! the only person I can think of, that bears that name is the new Sultan”. It was then that His Eminence said: “alright, this is the Sultan”. At that moment, I became so dumfounded that I did not know what to say again. The only clear words that I could utter were “Your Eminence!” before I went stammering. I was simply overwhelmed.

    In that telephone conversation, His Eminence expressed deep appreciation of my writings with a tone of royal commendation saying he had been reading my column since its days in the now defunct Concord Newspaper. He counselled me never to relent, especially in calling a spade a spade as I had been doing. And, as the Commander of the Muslim faithful, (Amirul Muminin), he showered me with royal prayers and promised to be calling again in future.

    That was one telephone call that made, not just my day, but probably my year. It was one reaction that confirmed my observation expressed in this column about His Eminence, shortly after his installation in November 2006.

    By that surprise call alone, the Sultan added to the chain of “FIRSTS’ which I had listed in the mentioned article. In my 25 years of experience in journalism, (as at that time), I could not remember an occasion when any public figure of Sultan’s status ever made a similar call to any ‘common journalist’ except when seeking a media favour.

     

    A Lunch with His Eminence

    About two weeks after the above narrated encounter with him, His Eminence called again to invite me to Kaduna for a lunch with him, in Kaduna, This great Sultan sat down with me on bare carpet where we took a special lunch together. That was my first experience of royal conduct in Nigeria’s Sultanate.

     

    Conduct and Actions

    By his conduct and actions since he came to the exalted throne, Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, mni, has shown, by all means, an exemplary leadership for other Nigerian leaders or aspiring leaders to emulate. With him, we are being reminded of the Caliphate time of Umar Bn Khattab and Umar Bn Abdul Aziz as a confirmation that leadership is neither by vicious display of force nor by crude bully and animalistic brutality. May the Almighty Allah be merciful to Nigerian Muslim Ummah by preserving the life of this Sultan for the good of this world and that of the Hereafter. I also pray that the flame of His Eminence’s crescent glows brazenly for a long, long time to come without experiencing an eclipse. Amin.

     

     

     

  • Colours of Democracy 2

    Monologue

    It  is not strange that whenever politicians, in any country, talk of a system of government called democracy, nowadays, they tend to believe that they are talking of perfection in governance. And, they often want the citizens of such a country to uphold that belief as an impeccable political norm. On the one hand, democracy is like a rainbow which temporarily displays a variety of colours on the sky and provides its onlookers with an opportunity of making different choices within the limited time of its appearance. In that case, the choices made by certain individuals may look like those of some others, in theory, but realistically, the outward colour of democracy, from that perception, is like the hood which merely indicates the presence of a monk but does not, in itself, make the monk.

    On the other hand, democracy can be described as a hypothetical eclipse threatening to swallow the light of the moon or even that of the sun to the detriment of the contemporary humanity. And, that is why the so-called democracy, as a form of government, has not really justified the colour of perfection with which politicians often try to paint it politically.

     

    Continuity in Governance

    Just as a rainbow disappears from the sky after some time, so does democracy pike out of reality in the face of power shift or tenure. Thus, the notion of continuity in governance, in a so-called democratic dispensation, especially in Africa, is a hidden political balderdash that realistically holds no tranquil water. In most contemporary countries, democracy is rather a euphemism for minority rule over the majority of people in the name of popular election than the popular posture given to it. In other words, democracy is a game of number that is bereaved of fairness and equity.

     

    Style of Governance

    Meanwhile, democracy or no democracy, the style of governance differs from country to country and from people to people. Yet, in contemporary time, the domineering style of governance has no name other than democracy.

     

    Definition

    Some people hypothetically define democracy as “a government of the people by the people and for the people”.

    But in reality, that definition is the master piece of deception, in politics, which invariably forms the basis of some nations’ exploitative constitution often backed up by media propaganda. From whichever angle it is viewed today, democracy is grossly at variance with Islam’s methodology of governance. As far as Islam is concerned, nothing ventilates peaceful atmosphere in governance as much as the rule of law. And, there can be no rule of law in the absence of faith in the immortality of Allah.

     

    The Parable of Islam 

    Unlike other religions, Islam is and odyssey which commences here on earth and continues ad infinitum in the Hereafter.

    If Islam had just been a mere religion like others, and not a total way of life for its adherents, inconsistency would have beclouded it like most creeds calling themselves religions 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 ostentatious 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 called Islam is like a mighty ocean flowing ceaselessly towards all directions and watering all plants around it into active life through the deltas of adjoining rivers. It will be a suicide bid for any government or group of people, therefore, no matter how technologically advanced, to want to change the course of that river. Those who attempted it in the past ended up drowning in it only to become meals for ‘whales’ and ‘sharks’.

     

    Genesis of Islam

    Looking at the emergence, the spread and the triumph of Islam in the midst of crushing empires at a time when might and nothing but might alone mattered most, any right-thinking person must surely be amazed that such a religion could outlive the crushing claw of the then prevailing might.

    Only such right-thinking people could have been inquisitive enough to ask probing questions as follows: how did a desert illiterate man of little means, like Prophet Muhammad, as an orphan at early age, come up with a spiritual ideology that captured the world slaves and kings? How did he become a law giver without any training in a law school? How did he become a military General without enrolling in any military institution? 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? What can be more amazing, primordially or contemporarily, than to have all these roles and even more, combined in a single human being who rose from such an obscure background? Only an answer to all or most of these questions could explain, without any ambiguity, why he is universally acknowledged as the greatest man that ever lived.

     

    Revolution

    Judging by the questions above and their attendant answers, the great revolution which this great Prophet of Islam brought into the world as the instrument of civilization cannot but beat the imagination of any sensible mortal being. There were hundreds of Prophets before him. Adam, Nuh, Ibrahim, Musa, Isa and a host of others had all come as prophets preaching peace and harmony to mankind. But none of them had a combination of expertise as much as Prophet Muhammad (SAW).

    It is true that Prophets Daud (David) and his son, Sulayman (Soloman) were kings by expediency and they were military Generals in their own right, nevertheless, they were neither scientists nor doctors. Yet, Prophet Muhammad (SAW), in his missionary odyssey, never claimed any miracle by a magic wand. Thus, what makes Islam a unique way of life is the uniqueness of Prophet Muhammad’s personality which was derived from the uniqueness of the Qur’an as the divinely revealed anchor ‘BOOK’ of Allah.

     

    Allegation of War Mongering

    If the Oriental intellectuals of the past, who were accusing Prophet Muhammad (SAW) of being a war monger, were not ignorant or hypocritical, they would have known that no empire or civilization has ever emerged or survived without fighting wars. For instance, how did such old empires as the Mesopotamian, the Greek, the Assyrian, the Persian and the Roman emerge? And, in recent time, how did the French and the Russian revolutions succeed in the 19th and 20th centuries respectively? And, peeping a little backwards, through the window of the contemporary time, how did America emerge as the world’s strongest power today? Was it just by preaching human rights and democracy?

    The reality of today, as presented by the experience of the past has exposed the hypocrisy of yesteryears and that of today, on the part of Western unbelievers.

     

    Identity of Islam

    Today, Islam has transcended a stage, in life, when it could be intimidated or blackmailed into surrendering its divine identity to any spiritual charlatan.

    When the Western elite talk of democracy today, the impression they give is that democracy is a Western invention. This is quite far from the truth. Despite the lengthy and speculative Platonic theories of yore on democracy, the West did not come in contact with it, practically, until it had a political encounter with the Muslim Arabs who ruled over Spain from the 8th to the 13th centuries CE. And, even with that encounter, Europe remained a mere spectator in the field of the so-called democracy until expediency brought about what was called ‘Magna Carter’ in England in 1215 CE.

    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 CE. At the time when the Prophet established the Islamic State in Madinah, there was no single empire or nation in the entire world without despotic system of governance. The idea of democracy, which the West came to adopt as its heritage, is purely Islamic in genesis.

     

    Policy Formulation

    As Head of State, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) never imposed any policy on the people without input from those people directly or indirectly except such policies came in form of divine revelations from Allah. In other words, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was neither a monarch nor a despotic ruler. 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 the Prophet’s roof.

    In Islam, democracy is not about voting and power alone. It is fundamentally about justice in all its ramifications according to the rule of law. It is about tending the lives of others for the overall good of the nation. It is about facilitating necessary provisions for the people according to the available resources in the nation. It is about protecting the lives and interest of the weak against the oppression of the strong. It is about managing the wealth of the nation with diligent sense of accountability. 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 adequate income per capital and ensuring a standard life expectancy. Any government that claims to be in practice of democracy without all the aforementioned factors can only be and hypocritically oppressive.

     

    The Norm of Governance

    Governance, like culture, has a variety of colours, flavours and tastes. What is called democracy in a State may amount to despotism in another State. In Europe today, for instance, some of the countries pretending to be championing democracy around the world are basically monarchical. For instance, countries like Greece, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Sweden and even Britain are all constitutionally monarchical, yet they are the same countries that assembled armed forces in Iraq in the early 21st century, pretending to want to ensure the entrenchment of democracy in those countries.

     

    The Counties in Africa

    There are 53 countries in Africa today. Only seven of them are Arab countries. The rest are what the European colonialists call Nigger countries. Of these 53 countries, only about 10 have not experienced civil war. The colonial devils 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 and coexist). Semantically, such areas only connote confusion. And that is what Europeans thrive on to enslave the black race perpetually and exploit African economy.

    There is no single Arab country in Africa that was not colonized 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 human civilization, was colonized, first by France and later by Britain.

    Now, despite their colonial experiences, how do these Arab countries maintain political sanity with relative economic progress?

     

    Reminiscence

    Sometime, in the recent past, the Federal Government of Nigeria was proposing a review of our constitution. The committee in charge was mandated to spend about one week in each of the six geo-political zones in the country, to listen to the contributions of those zones. The question is: how many tribes in each zone will make contributions to such review in just one week? Could that new constitution be translated and made available to the populace?

    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 democracy. Citizens of Arab countries are highly patriotic and can die fighting for the image of their nations. They are not as agitated as citizens of the black countries because most of their social needs are met by their governments. And when there is any major disagreement among them 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? Can you see why the black Africans always resolve their crises by gun to the delight of their colonial masters? With a situation like this, how can Nigeria ever become a nation when, ordinary National Identity Cards, cannot be produced for citizens even 62 years after independence? Yet our rulers are calling for patriotism.

    To continue to pretend that nothing is fundamentally wrong with Nigeria, democratically, is to play an ostrich by hiding behind one finger. And, for how long can a country do that? More will be discussed about democracy in this column, in a foreseeable future. In sha’Allah.

  • An embodiment of moral politics

    An embodiment of moral politics

    “FOR too long have the good people of this country been taken for a ride by some political leaders who shamelessly propound the false doctrine that politics is a power game. As far as I am concerned politics is the art of selfless service to our fellowmen.”

    —Chief Obafemi Awolowo, “Light over Nigeria”, Voice of Wisdom, 1981 pp. 89-92.

    Realists would like us to acknowledge the allure of immoral politics even if we are inclined to reject its consequences. For them, the urge to cheat is human; selfishness is a disease of the flesh with a ferocious grip on the spirit. They insist that greed is wired into the human DNA. And with passion, they contend that the quest for power and the willingness to use it for personal glorification is not unnatural to the human psyche.

    What are we to make of the realists’ reading of the political realm? Are they telling us to live with it or just find our ways around it? Does it follow from their position that moral uprightness is impossible in politics even if desirable? If ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, and if there cannot possibly be moral politics, it would follow that it is illogical to require political moral uprightness. You can’t ask people to do what is impossible for them to do.

    But moral uprightness is a requirement of politics because politics is a moral practice. Its presupposition is that the benefits and burden of social life can and must be distributed according to the demands of justice and fairness. This presupposition at once eliminates from consideration the assumption of realists about selfishness and greed as the defining mark of humanity and the driving force of politics.

    Here then is the dilemma. If politics requires moral uprightness and especially attention to justice and fairness and the suppression of selfish greed, but humans are, as the realist supposes, incapable of respecting justice and fairness in their dealings with one another, then humans are incapable of practicing politics. Is politics then for angels? I think we can agree that realists have a radically uninspiring understanding of human nature.

    Closely related to political realism is psychological egoism. The latter rules out the possibility of a morally sound action that is not motivated by self-interest. While realism doesn’t rule out such action, it considers it as politically naive and prone to failure. As Morgenthau puts it “political action and doing evil are inevitably linked” and it is incompatible for an action at the same time to conform to the rules of the political art (I.e. achieve political success) and to conform to the rules of ethics.”

    The foregoing would make sense if the premise of its position is valid. That premise that “the essence and aim of politics is power over man” and that to this extent, “it degrades man to a means for other men” is at variance with what we refer to above as the aim of politics: the distribution of the benefits and burden of social life in accordance with justice and fairness.

    Of course, if the aim of politics is the distribution of benefits and burden of social life in accordance with justice and fairness, individuals who are assigned to this task may fall short in various ways. They may choose not to follow justice and fairness. They may choose self-interest over the common good. But that choice on their part does not make their action right. An acknowledgement of this possible disconnect between principle and conduct is missing in the position of the realists.

    Thankfully, there is good news. While there are egoists who go into politics for the pursuit of power to dominate others and to promote their own selfish interests, there are also politicians who are exemplars of moral politics. These are decent human beings who see humanity as their theater of operation and human beings as subjects of interests which ought to be promoted in the spirit of the common humanity that we share. They don’t mind sacrificing their own interest for the common interests of their fellow citizens. They see their good in the good of others. All they care for is to make life more abundant for their fellow human beings.

    In our own clime and time, despite the attraction of power politics, despite the odds against “political success” for the do-gooder, one political leader stands out for his moral uprightness. No, he’s not a saint. No human is. But Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s approach to politics, and the legacy he left behind, is refreshingly different from that of those political leaders who he refers to in my opening quote above, that is, those who see politics as a “power game”.

    To see politics as “an art of selfless service to our fellowmen” requires a certain mindset with the requisite determination. The mindset is one of empathy and compassion. It sees others, even though biologically unrelated, as sharing a common humanity with oneself. It sees their suffering as one’s own suffering and thus unacceptable. It sees whatever detracts from their humanity as diminishing one’s own claim to humanity. It is a mindset that sees oneself as the keeper and promoter of others’ wellbeing because their wellbeing is as important as one’s own wellbeing. It sees the children of others, though poor, as no less important than one’s own. This is the mindset of a morally conscious individual. That was the mindset that Awolowo brought into politics. It is why his memory is eternally blessed.

    In my 2007 series on this page on “Progressives and the soul of the West”, I zeroed in on the value-imbued background to Chief Awolowo’s politics recalling how:

    “In 1947, in a lecture to the Assyrian Union of Teachers in Ibadan, Chief Awolowo addressed the contribution of education to the attainment of national freedom. Defining freedom as a “state of being free to do whatever you like, in whatever way you choose, and at whatever time you elect, Chief Awolowo observed that “no one can claim to be truly free who is ignorant. An ignorant person is a victim to be exploited and cheated at every turn by his more enlightened and unscrupulous fellow men.”

    Is it not clear that the fear expressed in this statement has been realized in the present politics of deceit and exploitation of the ignorant and poverty-ridden masses?

    “Chief Awolowo’s incursion into politics was motivated by a passion to make a contribution to the development of the educated person, who is able to contribute to national freedom. He prepared himself well for the task, first by giving himself a good education and assembling a company of educated and committed patriots. That free education became a cornerstone of the progressive agenda of the Action Group was therefore not a surprise.

    “Chief Awolowo urged the youth to shun the crazy attraction of wealth for selfish reasons because “any wealth accumulated on a selfish basis, at the expense of others, or at the expense of the State in defiance of social justice helps to create a disorganized society in which everybody will eat everybody and no one person can be safe.” Not heeding this moral lesson is the effect of what we are witnessing today.

    A personification of self-discipline and courage, Awolowo was a rare breed of a truth-telling politician, never making a promise that he did not fulfil. There is no better political success than not losing your soul in the quest for or exercise of power. Awolowo stood tall in this regard.

    I end this piece as I did the first part of that series:

    “As the undisputed leader of progressives, Chief Awolowo not only stood with the poor and the weak in defence of their interests, he made the promotion of those interests his raison d’etre as a politician and statesman. This is why his name will remain indelible in the hearts and minds of the people. This cannot be said of his rivals, dead or living.”

    Happy posthumous birthday to a leader of leaders!

    On this high note, I am off on vacation for a few weeks. I’ll see you soon.

     

     

  • The poverty of immoral politics

    The poverty of immoral politics

    The frighteningly unacceptable inference we made at the conclusion of our discussion of political evil last week was the following:

    “Yet, however, it is horrifying to infer from the foregoing that “political action and doing evil are inevitably linked”, and that “it is incompatible for an action at the same time to conform to the rules of the political art (i.e. achieve political success) and to conform to the rules of ethics.”

    “It follows that to be an ethical person, we must run as fast as we can from the realm of politics. How soothing is that!”

    It is frightening because, following its logic, there can be no moral or ethical critique of political actions. Political success requires distancing oneself from ethics. It is unacceptable because it implies that ethically conscious persons must run away from politics with the further inference that politically active persons cannot be ethical. To see why this is unacceptable, we only need a casual look at the raison d’etre, the reason of being, of politics itself.

    Before that exercise, however, I think I must explain my apparent obsession with this issue. This is the third week that I have examined this matter of the link between politics and morality, starting two weeks ago with “Encountering evil as the storms of life rage” and “Political evil” last week. Today it’s “The poverty of immoral politics.” “What’s the deal?” as Opalaba, my good friend, might ask.

    The answer is simple. It’s the singular issue that is at the foundation of all our challenges as a nation in distress. And as the Psalmist intoned, “If the foundation is destroyed what can the righteous do?” No matter how they came into being, whether by contract of association, conquest, or colonial imposition, the one constant factor in the longevity and success of nations is respect for justice and fairness and the liberty and wellbeing of citizens. All the Holy Books attest to this with their insistence on righteousness as the means to the uplifting of a nation. Needless to add, these are enduring moral principles.

    It is true, however, that we have not taken seriously this injunction whether in the way we deal with one another or in the way we approach the business of the state. We fought against the injustice of colonial imposition using these same moral justifications for the justice of our cause. Then, we achieved independence and instead of applying those moral principles to our internal relations, we simply changed position with colonizers while retaining their obnoxious policies of divide and conquer and intolerance of dissenting views.

    The wedge that the colonizers sought successfully to insert in our body politic, we gladly and effectively retained. It worked the way it was supposed to-a fratricidal war ensued with tragic consequences.

    At the end of the war, we proclaimed a platitude of “no victor, no vanquished”. But it was only a ruse which, like its predecessor war slogan, “to keep Nigeria one, is a task that must be done”, signified nothing. The war ended with a victor and a vanquished, and the unity of the nation is still aspirational, at best.

    What has been missing is a moral core that walks the talk of unity in diversity, one that sees others as mirror images of ourselves, that respects their humanity if not their tongue, that recognizes the human need for equal treatment, and one that avoids the temptation to use power for self-aggrandizement. It is quite easy but counter-productive to envision and pursue ethnic dominance in a multi-ethnic state. It’s counter-productive because it sooner or later triggers the same mindset and urge in others. After all, what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander. It’s more difficult but necessary to build together a nation where no one is oppressed and every ethnic or nationality group feels a sense of belonging.

    Now, to the reason it is unacceptable to have a clean demarcation between politics and morality or ethics, a separation which has been responsible for the missing moral core in our local, state, and national politics. As hinted above, to ask for such a reason is to ask for the raison d’etre of politics. The reason the inference from last week is unacceptable is that ethics and politics are close cousins. Ethics justifies politics and politics enhances ethics. Without a justification founded in ethical principles, political actions are just brute power devoid of authority. I do not deny that it happens even more frequently than one might wish. But that it so happens isn’t justificatory.

    This is especially true with a republican polity such as we claim to have if not the monarchial traditional polities that our colonizers got rid of. Our republic is founded on the assumption of citizens’ constitutional freedom and equality. For these values to be realized however, citizens must be accorded the means through good education and adequate employment. A system that breeds oligarchs through corruption that reduces ordinary citizens to penury cannot possibly enhance freedom and equality. To that extent it is an unjustified political system.

    Fidelity to the raison d’etre of politics therefore requires a laser beam focus on the common good, truth-telling and promise keeping, transparency and accountability, fairness in distribution of the benefits and burdens of citizenship, and suppression of selfish interest. This is not asking too much. Rather the foundation of a democratic republic is the proverbial “live and let live” axiom. It is the philosophy of “aparo kan ko ju kan” (literally, no partridge is taller than the other) in the elegant formulation of our people.  With attention and fidelity to these values, even when they face dire situation, citizens can weather it because they know that their leaders are doing their best with honesty and selflessness. That is when shared sacrifice makes sense.

    In contrast to the foregoing, however, immoral politics requires and selfishly benefits from the elevation of self, family, and in-group, whether ethnic, religious, or class over and above everyone else, neglect of the common good, deception and lying, and promise breaking. Where there is no morally identifiable distinction between citizens, it is unethical and politically unwise to discriminate between them. But that is exactly what immoral politics does. It is unethical because it is detrimental to the pursuit of the common good, which is normally the prerogative of the polity. It is politically unproductive because it jeopardizes the national unity that is so desperately canvassed by mouth only.

    Furthermore, the immorality of the maxim of immoral politics is discernible from an examination of its strategies. There are two options open to the immoral politician, neither of which shows its moral or political viability.

    First, the immoral politician may come out openly and transparently about his or her motives and intentions. That is to say, he or she may mount the campaign podium to announce that his or her motivation is to cheat, to oppress citizens, to enrich him or herself while in office and to marginalize ethnic and religious groups that he or she doesn’t belong to. Obviously, such an open confession of intent will backfire: no one will support a transparently immoral politics. Therefore, an openly immoral politician will not succeed.

    The second option for our hypothetical immoral politician is deception. He or she must have to keep his or her motive and intent close to the chest and pretend to be a do-gooder and pursuer of the common good. But eefin ni iwa (character is smoke); it cannot be hidden for long. You can only deceive some, perhaps, most of the time until it becomes clear to followers. Then they revolt and put an end to immoral politics

    Most terrifying, however, of the consequence of immoral politics is its corrupting capacity especially because of the impoverishing consequences of its policies and programs.  If it is entrenched enough that every would-be leader practices it, citizens may not see a better alternative than to join them. This is the worst case scenario, where we are in our politics. We have defined immoral politics down and our sense of outrage has been numbed.

  • Political evil

    Political evil

    Last week on this page, we encountered evil in its various forms. We distinguished between natural and human-made evil. We also made sure to clarify that some of the so-called natural evil also have human hands implicated. What we didn’t touch on last week was the very constant phenomenon of political evil. Indeed, with my suggestion that “man is not made for politics alone” some readers may have thought that evil and the storms that it generates have nothing to do with politics. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Let us therefore attempt to do justice to the existential problem of political evil.

    Political philosophers, political theorists and ethicists who have focused critical lens on the subject of political evil have been fixated mostly on the evil committed by states and non-state movements. A good example is Alan Wolfe’s book, fittingly titled “Political Evil: What It Is and How to Combat It.” In this book, Wolfe defines “political evil as “the willful, malevolent, and gratuitous death, destruction, and suffering inflicted upon innocent people by the leaders of movements and states in their strategic efforts to achieve realizable objectives.” Consistent with this definition, Wolfe’s focus in the book is on terrorism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and torture as a tool for countering evil. Recall here the Bush administration’s counter-terrorism measures, which included waterboarding.

    While Wolfe appears to suggest that terrorism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and torture exhaust the realm of political evil, I am of the view that there is more and that this is just one of the types of political evil and the others are no less abhorrent. We may thus identify three types of political evil, based on intention and or motive as follows.

    First, political evil committed on behalf of the state or non-state actors. This applies to the realm of foreign affairs, the focus of Alan Wolfe as seen above. A good example is when a powerful state lays siege on a weaker neighbor, demanding that the weaker state cease and desist from pursuing what it considers its interest or else the weaker state will suffer invasion. This is what is currently going on before our very eyes between Russia and Ukraine. We may see it as a power game between Russia and NATO. But when two elephants fight, it is the grass under that suffers.

    Realists will put such occurrences down as the reality of the struggle for power, suggesting that it is outside the realm of ethics. In a world divided into states, with each pursuing its own interests and no universal law governing their interactions, anything goes. It was the same struggle for power that led to the death of 6 million Jews and between 70 and 85 million in the Second World War. You’d think that we learnt terrible lessons from that era of realist politics. We created the United Nations and instituted international norms to govern our relationships. Yet Serbia and Bosnia occurred. Ethiopia and Eritrea occurred. So did Iraq and Kuwait and America and Iraq. Now its Russia and Ukraine. With tragic consequences for human lives!

    Second, in multi-ethnic and multi-national polities, there is evil internal to the state but with political agency implicated because it is the result of policies and practices that support collective actions that impact people’s lives. Here’s where I place ethnic cleansing and genocide. Rwanda wasn’t a foreign affair blunder. Neither was Darfur. Nor was Liberia. Or our own tragic civil war. It was internal politics that created the perfect storm for evil to explode and thrive. We cannot possibly examine all these cases without confronting profound immorality and wickedness, and the inhumanity of man to man. What makes them so is both the intent and the method, the goal and the means.

    If realists came to the defence of power politics in the struggle between nations, by appeal to the amoral nature of international politics, what can possibly be the mea culpa in the case of transnational politics? How can the atrocities committed in the name of national unity be morally defended? What is so sacrosanct about an artificial unity that is worth the lives of 100,000 soldiers and more than 2 million civilians? Or the deliberate cleansing of one ethnic group for the purpose of having a homogenous state? Is it by appeal to the divine will? Or a principle that transcends politics itself? Look deep enough and you won’t find one. If the end goal has no moral or even religious justification, how can the evil means adopted?

    Third, evil committed by actors on the political scene in the pursuit of political power and personal political interests. This includes killing opponents, lying, false promise, corruption and embezzlement of funds meant for the welfare of the people, thus bearing responsibility for the suffering and death of millions of citizens. How, if at all, can we make sense of this phenomenon?

    Following Hobbes, we might observe that in a state of nature, where no political umpire exists to regulate interactions between human beings, everyone is free to pursue his or her ends as they wish. With a base of egoistic nature, each will selfishly pursue their passion for survival needs including food, shelter, and security. Of course, they will also look for the means to achieve these needs, including collaborating with others if necessary. But more importantly, they will have the desire to acquire the power of domination over others because having power gives them the means to all other needs.

    Pursuing these Hobbesian thoughts further in our own time in a 1945 Ethics publication titled “The Evil of Politics and the Ethics of Evil”, Hans J. Morgenthau makes a significant contribution to our subject and it is worth quoting at length. According to Morgenthau, “the desire for power… concerns itself, not with the individual’s survival, but with his position among his fellows once his survival has been assured. Consequently, the selfishness of man has limits; his will to power has none. For while man’s vital needs are capable of satisfaction, his lust for power would be satisfied only if the last man became an object of his domination, there being nobody above or beside him, that is, if he became like God.”(Ethics, October 1945.)

    This “animus dominandi, the desire for power” is what Morgenthau refers to as one “root of conflict and concomitant evil.” To be clear, to acknowledge this uniqueness of the desire for power and the character of its attendant evil is not to accept it or give it a pass. Indeed, Morgenthau is not suggesting that two different ethical standards apply to private action and political action. His claim is that the same ethical standard applies; the only difference is the standard of compliance by each of them. While private action tends to comply more and is held more accountable, it appears that political action is less compliant with moral rules.

    Noncompliance of political action to ethical standard may be a fact. It is not thereby justified. To break a promise you make to your prospective supporters after you won your race is as unethical as the promise you made to your creditor to pay her back. Lying to save your face in a dire political situation is as unethical as lying to your spouse to cover your infidelity. In either case, you are using someone as a mere means to your end, whether in private life or in politics. To quote Morgenthau one more time: “To the degree in which the essence and aim of politics is power over man, politics is evil; for it is to this degree that it degrades man to a means for other men.”

    Yet, however, it is horrifying to infer from the foregoing that “political action and doing evil are inevitably linked”, and that “it is incompatible for an action at the same time to conform to the rules of the political art (i.e. achieve political success) and to conform to the rules of ethics.”

    It follows that to be an ethical person, we must run as fast as we can from the realm of politics. How soothing is that!

  • In Search of a ‘Yusuf’

    In Search of a ‘Yusuf’

    Monologue

    This article is not new. It was first written and published in this column 13 years ago (2009). Yet, the situation that warranted its writing and publication at that time continues to linger as an implacable spectre threatening, days and nights, to devour the lives of ordinary Nigerians. Thus, a repeat of its publication here today, is considered a sine qua non at the request of readers who still remember its contents and consider it as a potent psychological respite for our country. After all, readers, like customers, are kings and queens in their own right.

     

    Preamble

    An excerpt from the first publication of the article goes thus:

    “This world is a dramatic entity mysteriously coded in heterogeneous   parables. Every living thing therein sees that entity from the perspective of its own existence and relates to it as such. However, it takes history to decode it only after the actors in its coded drama might have left the stage.

    Who are we as a people? Where are we coming from? And, for where are we heading from here? These are some of the questions which all rational human beings, anywhere in the world, should ask themselves from time to time if there is any hope for progress. Those questions are an indication of a planned progress that can be pursued through positive actions.

    But, ironically, in Nigeria, such questions have been rendered irrelevant because the circumstances of life imposed on this retrogressive country have changed the priorities of her citizens. The only question now in vogue, which every privileged elite seems to concentrate upon is this: ‘what will I get for myself in this appointment?

    That obnoxious question is the real drama that has permanently engaged the attention of overwhelming majority of the so-called Nigerian elites since the commencement of Nigeria’s fourth republic in 1999. It is the question that engendered corruption and crowns it as the despotic king that now rules Nigeria with aggrandized impunity. It is the question that fosters greed and impunity beyond imagination even as it fetters conscience to the stake of Satan. It is the question that presents mirage to Nigerian youths of today as the only substance that is worthy of pursuit.

    Hmmm! We now live in a material world where immaterial   substances are taken or rather mistaken for value.

     

    No Answer

    Incidentally, however, no effort has ever been made to answer that all-time question even if to confirm the aberration in sticking to the evanescence of this world. If any such answer had been found and applied effectively, it   would have drastically reduced the current rate of crimes in Nigeria to the barest minimum. But alas, the opposite is the case.

     

    Hope or Despair?

    What can we say of a man who fixes his eyes on the sun but does not see it? Instead, he sees a chorus of flaming seraphim announcing a paroxysm of despair. That is the parable of the country called Nigeria. Like the Israelis of Prophet Musas’ time, Nigerians have virtually become like Egyptian gypsies of yore who were wandering aimlessly without a definite destination and wallowing in abject poverty in the midst of abundance. Where are we going from here?

     

    The Wasted Abundance

    What else do we expect from Allah beyond the invaluable bounties with which He has blessed us?

    What is Nigeria not blessed with? We have land in abundance, not in terms of size alone but also in terms of agrarian soil and rich vegetation. About two decades ago, over 77 million hectares of land was said to be arable in Nigeria over. Out of this, only about 34 million hectares were reportedly being cultivated for various agricultural activities, including animal husbandry. That was at about the time of writing this article in 2009. Today, this has further dwindled to less than 15 million hectares as vicious insecurity, especially in the farming areas of the country has now virtually put the control of those areas in the hands of Boko Haram terrorists and bandits.

     

    Bountiful Blessings

    As a people, we are blessed with an excellent climate that helps in maintaining our good health just as we are blessed with rains that water our plants from the sky and gives us the greeneries with which we graze our animals to satisfaction. We are endowed with a variety of nourishing food crops that are enough to feed our huge population without necessarily importing foreign crops for consumption. And, our population is large enough to form the needed market for the sales and consumption of our sundry products.

     

    Qur’anic Attestation

    The Qur’an vividly attests to the above assertion thus:

    “Let man reflect on the food he eats; how ‘We’ pour down the rain in torrents and cleave the earth asunder; how ‘We’ bring forth the corn, the grapes, the fresh vegetables, the olive, the palm products, the thickets, the fruit-trees and the green pastures for you and for your cattle to delight in…” Q. 80:24-

     

    Manpower

    In addition to the aforementioned divine blessings, we have energetic and dedicated work force that is married to the farm land in Nigeria despite all odds. We also have intellectual brains that are capable of engaging in research work in all fields of human endeavours to ensure the growth and development of our country.

    Nigeria is not lacking in forest and savannah. She is rich in rivers, mountains and minerals, all of which are great resources for people who are seriously seeking reasonable comfort and are not self-deceptive.

     

    Dearth of Leadership

    If Nigerians have consistently suffered from anything, it is a dearth of responsible leadership that should ordinarily care about our foremost heritage which is agriculture. That food insecurity is now a major threat to Nigerians can only be attributed to sheer selfishness, greed and avarice on the part of the ruling class especially in the disastrous first 16 years of the so-called fourth republic, (1999 to 2015), when the rain of dollars was falling torrentially from the sky of oil.

    That misfortune started when the first shot at the Presidency, in 1999, was entrusted to a parochial ‘prisoner’ who had completely lost contact with the actual reality of the modern time.

    On his assumption of office in that year, some equally parochial but die hard optimists, saw him as a reincarnate of Prophet Yusuf (Joseph) of Egypt of yore who could rescue Nigeria from an impending economic scourge.

    But no sooner had he completed his first four year tenure in office, as President, than those blind optimists realized that the man they classified as the modern day ‘Yusuf’ coming from the prison to transform Nigerian dream into reality was actually a ‘Mathew’ without any functional intuition.

    As a farmer that he claimed to be, before his incarceration, this Mathew had been expected to act like Chairman Mao of China who started the revolution of his country with agricultural self-sufficiency in the 1960s and was expected to be emulated by the third world leaders. However, far from acting like Mao, Nigeria’s parochial ‘Mathew’ eventually confirmed that no man could give what he does not possess. Thus, with his crude style of governance, he proved that he was never tutored in any decency that could fetch any expected good governance. Yet, while running the course of his second tenure in office, he tried to smuggle a third term into Nigeria’s constitution to pave his way towards life presidency which is typical of African leaders.

    Those who dragged him into the presidency from the prison eventually confessed their calamitous error and expressed a belated regret while licking poisonous blood from their bleeding fingers with internal agony. Today, Nigeria is worse than what she was before the turn of the century.

     

    Compounded Tragedy

    Most of the pioneer Governors of Nigeria’s fourth republic did not help the matter, as far as agriculture was concerned. Rather than focusing on agriculture which was the natural occupation with which their subjects were mostly endowed, those political gold diggers preferred to depend on oil boom largess coming to them from the federal government via the so-called revenue allocation. To them, such a quicker way of getting money illegally into their personal pockets was much more beneficial than investing in agriculture which could only yield results, perhaps years after they might have left office. The only seeming exception at that time was Lagos State where a foresighted erstwhile Senator held sway in commercial ventures despite the deprivation of that State of access to revenue allocation from the federal treasury.

     

    Cost of Governance

    In Nigeria, the cost of running government alone is enough to render the country bankrupt. By 1999, what was the federal government doing with about 40 federal ministers and scores of Presidential Senior or Special Advisers as well a retinue of Special Assistants when even America, with her huge economic resources, including technological wherewithal, had only about 25 ministers including the Vice President?

    Besides, what is the country’s gain in the idea of immunity for those Governors and the so-called special security vote for them? Besides, should anything be called constituency allowances for the legislators at the Federal or State levels, which run into billions of naira, especially at a time when innocent citizens are crying for food and are wallowing in abject poverty?

     

    Evidence of Hunger

    No one could have ever thought, about two decades ago, that artificial hunger could be added to the abysmal level of poverty in the this country despite the unprecedented rise in the price of oil in the international market during those wasted years. However, the lotus-eaters in government, at that time, fraudulently turned governance into an artful trick with which to regularly bamboozle the populace into blind submission. The memory of almost hypnotizing propaganda of the 1980s, spearheaded by a government agency called Mass Mobilization for Self Reliance, Social Justice and Economic Recovery (MAMSER), which was established by a self-styled military President, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, and headed by one Professor Jerry Gana, is not lost in us. That Agency’s slogan of “Food and Shelter for all in the Year 2000” which rented the air with a deafening reverberation remains unforgettable. But in the end, nothing came out of it. Rather, some new multi-millionaires suddenly emerged from the platform of that smart project to the gross disadvantage of the masses. That slogan was to be later changed, in the 1990s, to: “Vision 2010” with loud media propaganda that entailed no progressive change.

     

    Vision 2020

    And, when year 2010 was   approaching under the draconian Presidency of the mentioned visionless ‘Mathew’, the slogan changed again to: ‘Vision 2020, a year in which Nigerian government deceptively claimed to have envisioned making the country one of the 20 most buoyant economies in the world. Now, even in year 2022, where are the indications of the acclaimed visions?  And, now that the two deceptive visions and their initiators have politically fizzled out into perpetual oblivion, where is the place of Nigeria on the map of progress?

     

    Game of Deception

    It takes two to tangle. If the deceptive leaders of those years could pretend not to know that a game of deception was in place, why was the deceived populace also pretending to play along? It takes a visionless populace to beget a deceptive government as the case has always been in Nigeria. No country in history is ever known to have achieved economic Eldorado by any magic wand and Nigeria could not have been an exception. But that was the portion of a self-glorified country that calls herself ‘the giant of Africa’. And, today, what is the result of that self-deception?

     

    From FAO’s Report

    In a report of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) some years ago, about 300 Nigerians were said to be dying of hunger daily. Only God knows what that figure might have risen to become now. That was the legacy of the past rulers which became the heritage of today’s government. Yet, ironically, the same layers of the foundation of destroyed economy in the past years are the most vocal critics of the county’s economy today. What a shame?

     

    Yar’Adua’s Tenure

    By some actions taken during his tenure, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua of blessed memory remains highly commendable for showing example of governance with human face and human heart. He did not only admit that the election which brought him into office was faulty, he also promised to correct that error even as he regulated the importation of food items and suspended tariffs on importation of essential food items to the relief of all and sundry. President Yar’Adua also released needed grains from the national silos, from time to time, to check inflation and, at a time, he pumped about N400 billion into the economy for the purpose of creating about 10 million jobs as at 2008. And, besides reducing the pomp price of fuel, as a relief to Nigerians, he also granted unconditional amnesty to the then South-South agitators thereby opened way for negotiation with them in the interest of peace and harmony.

    Although, such measures were far from being adequate for a country which was aspiring to become one of the 20 biggest economies in 2020, the move was generally seen as a good beginning of a hopeful future. No other Nigerian President has ever taken such steps in government.

    However, as soon as Yar’Adua left the stage, courtesy of his demise, a change of gear was applied as all progressive steps which he had initiated when alive were obliterated and the doors of national treasury were widely thrown open for audacious looters to scoop on with impunity.

     

    The Jonathan Years

    When it became evident that no miracle could yield any economic success, based on a ramshackle foundation laid down for Nigerian economy by a visionless ‘Mathew’ (from the prison) who, as President, could hardly reason beyond the siege mentality of the prison yard from where he had emerged, the hope of Nigeria, as a country, was certified irredeemably dead. If Goodluck Jonathan, who succeeded Yar’Adua as President, had been well tutored in good governance, he would have known that the vessel which took this country’s ‘Napoleon’ to the proverbial ‘Waterloo’ was incapable of conveying his own government to the Cape of Good Hope. But the accident of history must never cease to play itself out especially in a situation where a hidden agenda is given a premium focus. But one indelible fact must never be forgotten.  Without a historic ‘Yusuf’ in Egypt of yore, only Allah knows what the history of Egypt would have been today. And, without a Pharaoh’s dream of drought, the role of ‘Yusuf’ in averting famine in Egypt would not have become a recurrent decimal in global history.

     

    Egypt of the 1970s

    Yours sincerely was a student in Egypt in the 1970s when the hostility between that country and Israel was fierce. Egypt was then an ally of the now defunct Union of Soviets Socialist Republics (USSR), while Israel was a satellite of the United States by proxy. Not only did Egypt suffer isolation from NATO member countries but even the Soviet Union which was supposed to be the main ally of Egypt was not forthcoming with any meaningful assistance beyond the supply of light and medium range weapons. Thus, the Egyptian government had to buckle up firmly in order to fend for its people at that critical time.

    Realizing the importance of food supply especially in a war situation, Egypt mobilized all her agricultural resources around the River Nile and forgot about any food importation. The result was tremendous as Egypt grew to become a food exporter rather than an importer that she had been for years.

     

    Nigeria’s Situation Today

    Today, Nigeria is not afflicted by drought or famine. Neither is she engaged in any uncontrollable disease. Yet, the fear in vogue is hunger compounded by insecurity. How this country arrived at such a deadly scourge is irrelevant for now. What is relevant is how to get out of it. Like Egypt of yore, Nigeria badly needs a ‘Yusuf’. But how to get one is a question that requires an urgent answer.

     

    Epilogue

    Where people are well educated and conscious of their rights; where they perceive wealth as a divine privilege and not an exclusive right of any group; where they see themselves as qualified but denied their legitimate entitlements; nobody can consign them to ignominy indefinitely. They will react in no uncertain terms. That is what obtains now in the country which has given an unprecedented rise to insurgency and banditry to the amazement of all and sundry. These must not be allowed to further continue. Let Nigeria grow from a country into a nation that we may all be proud to be her citizens.

    “….God does not change the situation of a community until such a community is ready for change (its misdemeanour)”…. Q. 13:11