The Nation Newspaper

Category: Friday

  • Muslims and use of water

    Muslims and use of water

    This is another dry season in Nigeria and many other African countries when most people are in search of water. In this season, most rivers dry up as much as most wells. This is the season in which sellers of water make profit and buyers are forced to economize the use of water. It is the season in which the global importance of water in the life of man is often reconfirmed. In their deep-rooted research centuries ago, scientists decided to coin a formula (H­2O) for use in analyzing the natural contents of water. From such analysis, they identified the various types of water and their uses in an environment. They then concluded that water is actually the source of life for all living organisms. Water is ubiquitous in the environment. It comes from the showers of the sky and stored in the natural bowl of the earth.

    Definition

    According to Encyclopedia Encarta (1993-2008 edition), water is the major constituent of any living matter as it constitutes about 50 to 90 percent of the weight of living organisms. The basic material of living cells called protoplasm consists of a solution in water of fats, carbohydrates, proteins, salts, and similar chemicals.

    Water acts as a solvent transporting, combining, and chemically breaking down these substances. Blood in animals and sap in plants consist largely of water and aids transportation of food and removal of waste material. It also plays a key role in the metabolic breakdown of such essential molecules as proteins and carbohydrates.

    This process, called hydrolysis, goes on continually in living cells.

    Composition

    Because of its capacity to dissolve numerous substances in large amounts, pure water rarely occurs in nature. During condensation and precipitation, rain or snow absorbs from the atmosphere varying amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases, as well as traces of organic and inorganic material. In addition, precipitation carries radioactive fallout to the earth’s surface.

    In its movement on and through the earth’s crust, water reacts with minerals in the soil and rocks. The principal dissolved constituents of surface and groundwater are sulphates, chlorides, and bicarbonates of sodium and potassium and the oxides of calcium and magnesium.

    Surface waters may also contain domestic sewage and industrial wastes while ground waters from shallow wells may contain large quantities of nitrogen compounds and chlorides derived from human and animal wastes. Waters from deep wells generally contain only minerals in solution.

    Almost all supplies of natural drinking water contain fluorides in varying amounts. The proper proportion of fluorides in drinking water has been found to reduce tooth decay and similar ailments.

    Apart from concentrated amounts of sodium chloride, or salt, seawater contains many other soluble compounds, as the impure waters of rivers and streams are constantly feeding the oceans. At the same time, pure water is continually lost by the process of evaporation, and as a result the proportion of the impurities that give the oceans their saline character is increased.

    Rainy season

    Now, in Nigeria, like in many other African countries, we are expecting another season of rains when, as usual, water will be found everywhere but none will be available for drinking. That is the season in which the sky opens up its generous bowl to pour down water in abundance. But the earth has no room to accommodate the gesture.

    That is a period when plants and animals feel that their needs for survival have been grossly exceeded. The world is often flooded with water everywhere and humanity becomes restive. The bounties of Allah seem to be too much for the need of man. In Europe, Asia, Africa and America, the story is one and the same. That is the season in which the world will be grappling with a deluge.

    Blaming nature

    When this happens, the tendency is for the scientists to lay blame at the door-step of what they call global warming. They will give many reasons, including the depletion of the Ozone Layer, as the cause. But many centuries before scientists began their research, the unlettered Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had taught Muslims how to handle environmental dryness as well as deluge. One of such solutions is to thank Allah and request for a moderation of His largesse. This is the time to realize that moderation rather than excess of anything is the best in man’s life. In Islam, there is no cause or effect of a matter that is not known or cannot be controlled by Allah. Whatever happens in the life of man is by Allah’s permission.

    The world is like a queue. You enter it at a point and come out of it at another point. This is one major lesson which every Muslim has come to learn through the observance of daily prayers (Salat). In Salat alone where queues are essential, a lot of lessons are there to learn.

    Ritual baths

    The very basic lesson to learn in Salat is hygiene. As a new convert to Islam, you have to undergo a ritual bath called Ghuslu-s-Shahadah or Ghuslu-d-dukhul fil Islam (convert’s ritual bath) which is performed with water. When you want to observe any Salat, be it obligatory or supererogatory, you must perform ablution with water. This is called Wudu’. If there is no water, you take to Tayammam (dry ablution). As a Muslim, after an intercourse with your spouse, you must perform a ritual bath called Ghuslul Janabah before you can observe any Salat.

    When a Muslim woman completes her monthly menstrual period she must perform a ritual bath called Ghuslul Haydah before she can resume observance of Salat. A Muslim woman who has just completed her blood-dripping period following child delivery must perform a ritual bath called Ghuslu-n-Nifas before she can resume observance of Salat.

    A newly born baby in Islam must be taken through a mandatory bath called Ghuslul Wiladah which is also done with water.

    Muslim pilgrims must commence their Hajj or Umrah activities with a ritual bath called Ghuslul Hajj or Umrah at their respective Miqat before they enter the condition of Ihram. When a Muslim, male or female is dead, a ritual bath is performed on his or her body. This bath is called Ghuslul Janazah. Anybody who carries out a bath on a dead body must also undergo a ritual bath of purification called Ghuslu-t-Taharah mina-n-Najasah (bath for purifying self from filth).

    This is because a dead body in Islam is like a filth which must be disposed of as soon as possible before it starts to decompose and thereby constitutes health hazard for the living. Whoever touches such filth has had a share of it and must therefore cleanse up before observing any Salat. Such a person cannot participate even in Salatul-Janazah on the body of the deceased person which he has just cleaned up until he has taken the purification bath.

    Unique hygiene

    Muslims are expected to clean up with water through ablution at least five times a day. And, as a prophetic tradition prescribes, they are also expected to perform ritual bath on Fridays in preparation for Salatul Jum’ah though such bath is Sunnah (optional) rather than Fard (obligation). Naturally, women, especially Muslim women utilise water much more than men. They are the ones who take care of the children and, in the process; they clean up for them many times a day. Besides, women are the ones who must clean up for menses every month. They are the ones who must clean up ritually after 40 days, following child delivery. They are the ones in charge of matrimonial kitchens where they use water day and night. Thus, when the demography of women in any society is compared to that of men one can imagine the quantity of water consumed daily or weekly by women.

    Given the fact that water plays a central role in the life of a Muslim therefore, two important conclusions can be reached. One is the fact that Islam is absolutely a religion of purity. And that is why Prophet Muhammad was reported to have said that “Allah is pure and He will not accept anything impure.” The second is that Muslims are the greatest consumers of domestic water in the world. This is because, besides using water socially, commercially or domestically like other human beings, an average Muslim uses additional one third of total water used by any non-Muslim on a daily basis.

    Muslims’ attitude to dryness

    It thus becomes understandable why Muslims feel more worried when there is dryness and water cannot be easily accessed. This is what led to the idea of a special prayer called ‘Salatul Istisqai’ (rain-seeking prayer). This prayer randomly observed by Muslims when shortage of water becomes acute cannot be observed without water ablution. It is a way of reconfirming to Allah that the main purpose of our existence on earth is to worship Him just as the purpose of keeping domestic animals is to serve man. Salatul Istisqai which is usually followed by heavy rainfalls is a major evidence of an existing covenant between Allah and His faithful servants. The wonderful effect of that Salat contradicts any scientific theory. Non-Muslim meteorologists have always wondered how possible it is for rain to fall at an impossible time, following a congregational prayer by some Muslim faithful in a locality or region. But to their amazement, they have regularly seen the potency of such prayer in bringing rain not only for Muslims but for all and sundry. The question is: ‘does any other religion prescribe similar solution to the benefit of mankind? This one trillion Naira question is still begging for answer even almost one and a half millennia after the introduction of Salatul Istisqai as a bringer of rain.

    Seeking rain water

    That Salatul Istisqai (special prayer for rain) actually brings rain even in a severely dry season remains a puzzle to unbelievers, especially in the West who see everything, including God, as a product of science. Yours sincerely first took part in the observance of Salatul Istisqai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as a student in that country, in 1976. The two rakat prayer had hardly been concluded when the sky opened its shower and rain started falling in torrents. It rained for nine hours continuously in that desert country and flooded the entire Emirates like the historic deluge in Prophet Nuh’s (Noah) time.

    It took more than a week before normal social and commercial activities could fully resume. I have since participated in the same exercise twice thereafter, once in Nigeria and once in Saudi Arabia.

    However, the effect of Salatul Istisqai is not necessarily immediate. At times, it may take a week or more before the rain starts pouring. And, if, after some time, following the observance of Salatul Istisqai, rain does not come, the Salat can be repeated. Allah has a design for everything. He knows when rainfall will best serve the need of man.

    And in seeking such a favour, Muslims must not try to jump the queue.

    Manner of observance

    Any participant in Salatul Istisqa’ is expected to be in a sober mood and be absolutely confident that the prayer would be accepted. The essence of raising one’s hands to Allah in prayer is to further confirm that there is no intermediary between man and Allah in worship and in prayer. Allah Himself emphasizes this in the Qur’an by saying to Prophet Muhammad thus: “When my servants ask you about Me, tell them that I am very close to them. I accept the prayers of those who seek from Me but let such seekers expect the giving from Me alone; let them be confident in My ability to accept prayer so that they may be guided aright”. However, there is need to correct the wrong notion being spread around that dresses must be worn inside out by those who will partake in Salatul Istisqai. There is nothing like that in Islam.

    The effect of Salatul Istisqai in bringing rains is just symbolic of all other prayers by Muslims. No genuine Muslim prayer is ever turned down by Allah. Acceptance of prayer may not be exactly in accordance with human expectation, it may not be as promptly as man wants it but eventually, a Muslim will realize that his prayer has been accepted by Allah without an intermediary.

    The role of water in Hajj

    Unknown to the non-Islamic world, performance of Hajj every year is a great blessing to humanity rather than just a mere act of worship by Muslims. Hajj is the biggest congregation of human beings on earth.

    Allah loves and respects congregations of pious people who praise Him and pray to Him for the needs of the world. That congregation is essential for the continuity of human existence. There is no country in the world today without Muslim pilgrims joining their brethren from other parts of the world in requesting Allah to save the world from perishing. And each year, as such prayers are accepted, the world is confirmed saved despite the evil moves of Yajuj and Ma’juj (Gog and Magog) as well as their agents who are ignorantly pursuing their own destruction every minute. Thus, like Salatul Istisqai which brings water to everybody and not Muslims alone, Hajj is to the benefit of mankind and not Muslims alone. Thus, its preservation must be ensured by everybody in the interest of continued human existence.

    Conclusion

    Without water, it will be difficult to observe Salat or to fast in Ramadan or to give Zakah or to perform Hajj. Without water, it will be impossible to bear children and bring them up, or to keep farms and sustain them. Water is life. But this is not for Muslims alone. The difference is that Muslims use part of the water to show gratitude to Allah by worshipping Him. Others use it for mundane life alone which is sheer vanity.

    Knowledge is like water which softens the earth for seeds to germinate and for plants to be nourished to fruition. Knowledge in Islam is much more important than worship. No one can validly worship Allah without knowledge. And if for this reason alone, it should behoove the entire Muslim Ummah of the world to join and cooperate in using water to worship Allah. That is the essence of knowledge. It cannot be trivialized.

  • What You Should Know About Muslims and use of water

    What You Should Know About Muslims and use of water

    This is another dry season in Nigeria and many other African countries when most people are in search of water. In this season, most rivers dry up as much as most wells. This is the season in which sellers of water make profit and buyers are forced to economize the use of water. It is the season in which the global importance of water in the life of man is often reconfirmed. In their deep-rooted research centuries ago, scientists decided to coin a formula (H­2O) for use in analyzing the natural contents of water. From such analysis, they identified the various types of water and their uses in an environment. They then concluded that water is actually the source of life for all living organisms. Water is ubiquitous in the environment. It comes from the showers of the sky and stored in the natural bowl of the earth.

    Definition

    According to Encyclopedia Encarta (1993-2008 edition), water is the major constituent of any living matter as it constitutes about 50 to 90 percent of the weight of living organisms. The basic material of living cells called protoplasm consists of a solution in water of fats, carbohydrates, proteins, salts, and similar chemicals.

    Water acts as a solvent transporting, combining, and chemically breaking down these substances. Blood in animals and sap in plants consist largely of water and aids transportation of food and removal of waste material. It also plays a key role in the metabolic breakdown of such essential molecules as proteins and carbohydrates.

    This process, called hydrolysis, goes on continually in living cells.

    Composition

    Because of its capacity to dissolve numerous substances in large amounts, pure water rarely occurs in nature. During condensation and precipitation, rain or snow absorbs from the atmosphere varying amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases, as well as traces of organic and inorganic material. In addition, precipitation carries radioactive fallout to the earth’s surface.

    In its movement on and through the earth’s crust, water reacts with minerals in the soil and rocks. The principal dissolved constituents of surface and groundwater are sulphates, chlorides, and bicarbonates of sodium and potassium and the oxides of calcium and magnesium.

    Surface waters may also contain domestic sewage and industrial wastes while ground waters from shallow wells may contain large quantities of nitrogen compounds and chlorides derived from human and animal wastes. Waters from deep wells generally contain only minerals in solution.

    Almost all supplies of natural drinking water contain fluorides in varying amounts. The proper proportion of fluorides in drinking water has been found to reduce tooth decay and similar ailments.

    Apart from concentrated amounts of sodium chloride, or salt, seawater contains many other soluble compounds, as the impure waters of rivers and streams are constantly feeding the oceans. At the same time, pure water is continually lost by the process of evaporation, and as a result the proportion of the impurities that give the oceans their saline character is increased.

    Rainy season

    Now, in Nigeria, like in many other African countries, we are expecting another season of rains when, as usual, water will be found everywhere but none will be available for drinking. That is the season in which the sky opens up its generous bowl to pour down water in abundance. But the earth has no room to accommodate the gesture.

    That is a period when plants and animals feel that their needs for survival have been grossly exceeded. The world is often flooded with water everywhere and humanity becomes restive. The bounties of Allah seem to be too much for the need of man. In Europe, Asia, Africa and America, the story is one and the same. That is the season in which the world will be grappling with a deluge.

    Blaming nature

    When this happens, the tendency is for the scientists to lay blame at the door-step of what they call global warming. They will give many reasons, including the depletion of the Ozone Layer, as the cause. But many centuries before scientists began their research, the unlettered Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had taught Muslims how to handle environmental dryness as well as deluge. One of such solutions is to thank Allah and request for a moderation of His largesse. This is the time to realize that moderation rather than excess of anything is the best in man’s life. In Islam, there is no cause or effect of a matter that is not known or cannot be controlled by Allah. Whatever happens in the life of man is by Allah’s permission.

    The world is like a queue. You enter it at a point and come out of it at another point. This is one major lesson which every Muslim has come to learn through the observance of daily prayers (Salat). In Salat alone where queues are essential, a lot of lessons are there to learn.

    Ritual baths

    The very basic lesson to learn in Salat is hygiene. As a new convert to Islam, you have to undergo a ritual bath called Ghuslu-s-Shahadah or Ghuslu-d-dukhul fil Islam (convert’s ritual bath) which is performed with water. When you want to observe any Salat, be it obligatory or supererogatory, you must perform ablution with water. This is called Wudu’. If there is no water, you take to Tayammam (dry ablution). As a Muslim, after an intercourse with your spouse, you must perform a ritual bath called Ghuslul Janabah before you can observe any Salat.

    When a Muslim woman completes her monthly menstrual period she must perform a ritual bath called Ghuslul Haydah before she can resume observance of Salat. A Muslim woman who has just completed her blood-dripping period following child delivery must perform a ritual bath called Ghuslu-n-Nifas before she can resume observance of Salat.

    A newly born baby in Islam must be taken through a mandatory bath called Ghuslul Wiladah which is also done with water.

    Muslim pilgrims must commence their Hajj or Umrah activities with a ritual bath called Ghuslul Hajj or Umrah at their respective Miqat before they enter the condition of Ihram. When a Muslim, male or female is dead, a ritual bath is performed on his or her body. This bath is called Ghuslul Janazah. Anybody who carries out a bath on a dead body must also undergo a ritual bath of purification called Ghuslu-t-Taharah mina-n-Najasah (bath for purifying self from filth).

    This is because a dead body in Islam is like a filth which must be disposed of as soon as possible before it starts to decompose and thereby constitutes health hazard for the living. Whoever touches such filth has had a share of it and must therefore cleanse up before observing any Salat. Such a person cannot participate even in Salatul-Janazah on the body of the deceased person which he has just cleaned up until he has taken the purification bath.

    Unique hygiene

    Muslims are expected to clean up with water through ablution at least five times a day. And, as a prophetic tradition prescribes, they are also expected to perform ritual bath on Fridays in preparation for Salatul Jum’ah though such bath is Sunnah (optional) rather than Fard (obligation). Naturally, women, especially Muslim women utilise water much more than men. They are the ones who take care of the children and, in the process; they clean up for them many times a day. Besides, women are the ones who must clean up for menses every month. They are the ones who must clean up ritually after 40 days, following child delivery. They are the ones in charge of matrimonial kitchens where they use water day and night. Thus, when the demography of women in any society is compared to that of men one can imagine the quantity of water consumed daily or weekly by women.

    Given the fact that water plays a central role in the life of a Muslim therefore, two important conclusions can be reached. One is the fact that Islam is absolutely a religion of purity. And that is why Prophet Muhammad was reported to have said that “Allah is pure and He will not accept anything impure.” The second is that Muslims are the greatest consumers of domestic water in the world. This is because, besides using water socially, commercially or domestically like other human beings, an average Muslim uses additional one third of total water used by any non-Muslim on a daily basis.

    Muslims’ attitude to dryness

    It thus becomes understandable why Muslims feel more worried when there is dryness and water cannot be easily accessed. This is what led to the idea of a special prayer called ‘Salatul Istisqai’ (rain-seeking prayer). This prayer randomly observed by Muslims when shortage of water becomes acute cannot be observed without water ablution. It is a way of reconfirming to Allah that the main purpose of our existence on earth is to worship Him just as the purpose of keeping domestic animals is to serve man. Salatul Istisqai which is usually followed by heavy rainfalls is a major evidence of an existing covenant between Allah and His faithful servants. The wonderful effect of that Salat contradicts any scientific theory. Non-Muslim meteorologists have always wondered how possible it is for rain to fall at an impossible time, following a congregational prayer by some Muslim faithful in a locality or region. But to their amazement, they have regularly seen the potency of such prayer in bringing rain not only for Muslims but for all and sundry. The question is: ‘does any other religion prescribe similar solution to the benefit of mankind? This one trillion Naira question is still begging for answer even almost one and a half millennia after the introduction of Salatul Istisqai as a bringer of rain.

    Seeking rain water

    That Salatul Istisqai (special prayer for rain) actually brings rain even in a severely dry season remains a puzzle to unbelievers, especially in the West who see everything, including God, as a product of science. Yours sincerely first took part in the observance of Salatul Istisqai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as a student in that country, in 1976. The two rakat prayer had hardly been concluded when the sky opened its shower and rain started falling in torrents. It rained for nine hours continuously in that desert country and flooded the entire Emirates like the historic deluge in Prophet Nuh’s (Noah) time.

    It took more than a week before normal social and commercial activities could fully resume. I have since participated in the same exercise twice thereafter, once in Nigeria and once in Saudi Arabia.

    However, the effect of Salatul Istisqai is not necessarily immediate. At times, it may take a week or more before the rain starts pouring. And, if, after some time, following the observance of Salatul Istisqai, rain does not come, the Salat can be repeated. Allah has a design for everything. He knows when rainfall will best serve the need of man.

    And in seeking such a favour, Muslims must not try to jump the queue.

    Manner of observance

    Any participant in Salatul Istisqa’ is expected to be in a sober mood and be absolutely confident that the prayer would be accepted. The essence of raising one’s hands to Allah in prayer is to further confirm that there is no intermediary between man and Allah in worship and in prayer. Allah Himself emphasizes this in the Qur’an by saying to Prophet Muhammad thus: “When my servants ask you about Me, tell them that I am very close to them. I accept the prayers of those who seek from Me but let such seekers expect the giving from Me alone; let them be confident in My ability to accept prayer so that they may be guided aright”. However, there is need to correct the wrong notion being spread around that dresses must be worn inside out by those who will partake in Salatul Istisqai. There is nothing like that in Islam.

    The effect of Salatul Istisqai in bringing rains is just symbolic of all other prayers by Muslims. No genuine Muslim prayer is ever turned down by Allah. Acceptance of prayer may not be exactly in accordance with human expectation, it may not be as promptly as man wants it but eventually, a Muslim will realize that his prayer has been accepted by Allah without an intermediary.

    The role of water in Hajj

    Unknown to the non-Islamic world, performance of Hajj every year is a great blessing to humanity rather than just a mere act of worship by Muslims. Hajj is the biggest congregation of human beings on earth.

    Allah loves and respects congregations of pious people who praise Him and pray to Him for the needs of the world. That congregation is essential for the continuity of human existence. There is no country in the world today without Muslim pilgrims joining their brethren from other parts of the world in requesting Allah to save the world from perishing. And each year, as such prayers are accepted, the world is confirmed saved despite the evil moves of Yajuj and Ma’juj (Gog and Magog) as well as their agents who are ignorantly pursuing their own destruction every minute. Thus, like Salatul Istisqai which brings water to everybody and not Muslims alone, Hajj is to the benefit of mankind and not Muslims alone. Thus, its preservation must be ensured by everybody in the interest of continued human existence.

    Conclusion

    Without water, it will be difficult to observe Salat or to fast in Ramadan or to give Zakah or to perform Hajj. Without water, it will be impossible to bear children and bring them up, or to keep farms and sustain them. Water is life. But this is not for Muslims alone. The difference is that Muslims use part of the water to show gratitude to Allah by worshipping Him. Others use it for mundane life alone which is sheer vanity.

    Knowledge is like water which softens the earth for seeds to germinate and for plants to be nourished to fruition. Knowledge in Islam is much more important than worship. No one can validly worship Allah without knowledge. And if for this reason alone, it should behoove the entire Muslim Ummah of the world to join and cooperate in using water to worship Allah. That is the essence of knowledge. It cannot be trivialized.

  • Killer-herdsmen and the logic of accommodation (1)

    Killer-herdsmen and the logic of accommodation (1)

    The brutal and heartless violence inflicted on Benue farming communities by Fulani herdsmen over the New Year holiday is the latest in what has become a perennial crisis of bloodletting. The pictures were simply too gruesome for my sensibilities and I quickly deleted all after seeing a few. We may look at the incident and earlier ones and the prospective solutions from several perspectives: common humanity, human rights, and legality and constitutionalism.

    How was it possible for human beings with souls and hearts to inflict such mortal damages on their fellow human beings? What could possibly excuse such beastly attacks comparable only to a lion mauling its victim? As they lifted their machetes, did those human slayers see goats or human beings like themselves? And why did they think that whatever grievances they had justified the wanton and senseless massacre?

    One official of Miyetti Allah, the socio-economic and cultural organization representing the herders, argued that the herders were defending their livelihood against farmers and cattle rustlers. Assume that the herdsmen traced their loss of 1000 cattle to the individuals they macheted to death, was that a reasonable excuse? What are the courts for? What is policing for? When their cattle destroyed farmlands and ruined the economic hopes of farmers, did they react by macheting their cattle to placate the farmers? Did they not attack the farmers for complaining against their cattle? Didn’t that mean that they value the life of cattle more than they value the life of human beings? These are the questions that swirl in my head as I ponder the mindset of the creatures who were capable of such callousness.

    Perhaps my sensitivity to violence against humanity beclouded my thinking. Perhaps there was more to it that I had ignored. Could there be a moral excuse, if not a religious one, which I was missing? So, beside what the defenders of the attacks may describe as a “myopic idealism” of common humanity on my part, let me try and look at other angles: economic survival, human rights, legality and constitutionalism, which have featured in one form or the other in the discourse of justification.

    Economic survival is one justification that has been attributed to the herdsmen in respect of their attack on defenseless fellow citizens. Miyetti Allah observed that the anti-open grazing law promulgated by Benue State government gave its members no option because their livelihood was at stake.  By nature, they are pastoralists. They must move with the seasons to find pasture for their cattle and money for their pockets. That they ran into farmers’ lands, fed their cattle on farmers’ crops was just unfortunate. That has never been their intention. But they must survive economically. Do farmers have the right to economic survival? Sure, they do. And do farmers own the land on which they have their farms? Yes. So, whose economic survival interest has moral weight and ought to prevail in case of conflict? Your guess is as good as mine.

    How about human rights? Again, we must concede that both farmers and herdsmen have human rights, which must be respected. But in case of conflict, governments also have the responsibility of intervening and adjudicating competing interests in the light of known facts.  The most relevant human rights to our discussion include the right to life and the right to freedom of movement. The latter has been brought up in the case of Miyetti Allah against the Benue State government. With respect to the right to life, however, there is clearly a case to be made against anyone, herdsmen or farmers, who takes the life of an individual without due process. The United Nations has established this. As the President has vowed to bring every culprit to justice, we are waiting and watching.

    Freedom of movement is the second. But clearly this right cannot be absolute. Just as in the case of the argument for economic survival, if the right to freedom of movement is asserted in contexts in which it conflicts with the right to economic survival of another individual, it is the responsibility of the political authority to intervene. That is presumably what Benue State government did by passing its anti-open grazing law.

    But Miyetti Allah presumably does not depend on the elusive concept of human rights. The group invokes the legal and constitutional frameworks of the country to lay claim to the rightness of its cause. It argues that the Nigerian constitution provides for the free movement of citizens as well as goods and services across state lines and no state government has a right to stop them. Passing anti-grazing law by one state, it argues, is a violation of this legal provision. Therefore, it demands that the federal government must call Benue State government to order. It is not argued that the state has no jurisdiction. Only that since free movement of goods and services is on the exclusive list, any state law that conflicts with it must therefore be rendered null and void.

    Both arguments are unfortunately unsound. The provision for the freedom of movement of individuals is, again, not an absolute one and its validity in specific contexts must be determined by its effect on other civil rights, including the right property. The land use act vests the ownership and control of lands in states. States allocate lands to individuals and families as needed. Furthermore, some family lands with requisite titles have had to be grandfathered at the inception of the land use act. Therefore, the right of such families to their land must be weighed against the constitutional right to freedom of movement. And where I have an allocation from my state, my title to it gives me a right which cannot be violated by any trespasser even when I acknowledge that he or she has a right to freedom of movement.

    The same logic applies to free movement of goods and services. Just as there is a civil right to free movement of goods and services, so there is a civil right to property which may not be violated by appeal to the right to move goods and services. This is so simplistic a logic that it’s hard to imagine how it did not occur to Miyetti Allah, which based its argument on the constitutional provision for free movement of goods and services.

    In the long-gone era when herdsmen respected the sanctity of the right of farmers to their farmlands and crops, no governor or premier thought of legislating against open grazing. But no governor can in good conscience stand by to watch the economic lifeline of his or her citizens destroyed by cattle with impunity.

    Importantly, the right of the farmer against such impunity is divinely sanctioned, as Exodus 22:5 declares: “If anyone grazes their livestock in a field or vineyard and let them stray and they graze in someone’s field, the offender must make restitution from the best of their own field or vineyard.” As my Pastor explains, “even the scripture is against open grazing and invasion of other people’s farmlands by cows.” I am almost certain that there is a corresponding injunction in the Holy Koran.

    Hopefully, the federal government is not shirking its responsibility in this matter. The Presidency was unfortunately slow to respond. As I observed last week, presidential leadership required that the president address the nation and visit the state to reassure affected citizens that they have a compassionate father who cares for their wellbeing.

    However, all is not lost. The president hosted the Benue delegation and appealed to them to exercise restraint to allow the government to work on solutions. But he also appealed to them to accommodate their fellow citizens. It’s unclear what this means. Accommodate them as their cattle graze on farmlands? Or accommodate their need for open grazing provided they do not trespass on farmlands? Or yet still could the president be thinking ahead and appealing to Benue and other states to be open to the solutions being proposed by the federal government? I will examine these solutions next week.

     

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  • Disrespectful remembrance

    Disrespectful remembrance

    Another January 15 is here, our chosen Remembrance Day in honor of our fallen heroes. They labored and sacrificed for us to have a country to be proud of. Having a country is the lowest common denominator of humans in a world with artificial boundaries. Having one that is the pride of her citizens is the dream of patriots. It was for this dream that our armed forces fought, and many died.

    Admitted, many of our soldiers had few or no options. Though they were not conscripted, they were compelled by circumstances of birth. But there were also many that chose to give up more lucrative and peaceful alternatives. Instead of going into civil service with its promise of regular promotions and power to influence policies, they signed up to protect and advance the territorial integrity of a nation that they loved. Along with their fellow citizens, without paying attention to the barrier of tongue and tribe, many of them made the supreme sacrifice for their beloved country.

    If the spirit of the dead can ponder choices made or avoided, they might now ask: to what purpose? Was it worth my death? Indeed, is this nation worthy of my sacrifice? And if they could march back en masse, it is not unimaginable that, notwithstanding the side on which they fought and died, they would be united in vengeful accusation: we died for your sake and what have you done to justify our sacrifice? You have only made us regret.

    Would they be right? What might be our answer?

    Of course, they would be right. And in case you object, you will only be confirming their assessment of our lack of integrity, in view of how we have ridiculed their memories. They are right to the extent that while they fought for the unity and progress of the country, we have never been more disunited; and we have made negligible progress, considering where we could be.

    First, with regards to the symbolic memorialisation and remembrance of selfless sacrifice, we failed to come together as one to acknowledge their sacrifice with genuine and proper memorial across all the zones, regions, states, and local governments. Without such a grand national ritual of genuine remembrance, we have only managed to demean their memory. Surely, families organise annual memorial services in honor of their patriarchs and matriarchs. And periodically, in a few cases, ethnic nationalities honor their favorite officers with elaborate memorials. But as a nation, we have not really acknowledged the significance of the civil war. If we did, January 15 would not be the Memorial or Remembrance Day. Instead, we would remember the fallen either on the day that the first shots were fired or on the day the war ended.

    I surmise that our leaders decided on January 15 because in their usual paranoid sensitivity to the mere mention of the civil war, they fear giving it more recognition than is necessary. But ignoring its significance does not erase the fact of history; it only demeans and belittles the sacrifice of those brave men and women who heeded the call of the nation at its hour of need.

    It is, perhaps due to this first sin of forgetting, that we have been afflicted with the scourge of failure to understand what went wrong and come up with appropriate solution. With a wrong diagnosis of our ailment, we applied the wrong medication which has only aggravated our disease-state with the manifestation of embarrassing symptoms in our economic life, social fabric, spirituality, and political system.

    For the economic symptoms of dysfunction, consider the following fact. Between 1967 and 1970 when our heroes sacrificed for the unity of the nation, we fought a civil war without borrowing a kobo. We even boasted to the world that money was not our problem but how to spend it. Forty-eight years later, our cities and villages are wallowing in abject poverty and gross inequality. While less than 1 percent of the nation lives in obscene opulence, many fellow citizens are dying of hunger and disease. And of the 1%, less than 20% make their wealth from honest hard work. The remaining 80% are parasites in the rentier economy that has been responsible for the nation’s backwardness.

    Back in 1970, universities received adequate funding and produced excellent graduates whose productivity further advanced the economy. But since the mid-80s, without an economic plan that factors in population growth along with its requirements of educational, health, and social needs, we have relied on our gut instincts concerning those needs or, at worst, on hope that things will work out. Now, we find ourselves unable to provide for the educational and employment needs of the population. There are those with good connections that get into the workplace in the public sector only to find that they are not guaranteed wages as at when due. Governments owe workers an average of five months’ salary. Yet, we expect high productivity from those workers.

    There are also social symptoms of national dysfunction. What the economy fails to deliver, the devil provides in the dysfunction of our social life. Villages with their reservoir of moral values are deserted for the cities with their rivers of vices. The mixture that ensues in such a context could go either way: virtue takes preeminence and the vicious is educated and assimilated into the realm of virtue, or vice takes over and subsumes the virtuous. Unfortunately, the latter is the case with the further consequence that vice gets exported to villages from which virtue flees. Cultism and illicit drug are no longer the shameful preserve of our cities; villages have a fair amount of their share of these maladies, no thanks to village city returnees.

    Mortified by the distress of economic and social life, and desiring to escape the material reality of our individual and national circumstances, we seek refuge in spirituality. Churches and mosques litter our landscape from the coast to the desert. Men and women of God assure us that all will be well with their messages of prosperity that is our portion only if we obey God’s instruction, including the very important one regarding giving. So out of our nothingness, we give so we could receive. But it soon occurs to us that many come deceptively in his name, bearing false witnesses for their own material benefit while the masses still wallow in abject poverty. But why would God allow this if not to further punish us for our disrespectful remembrance of the fallen heroes?

    The most undeniable evidence of our national dysfunction is the political system and the leaders that it has spawned in the last 50+ years. It is significant that of the leaders that have ruled this country since 1966, only three have been true civilians without military background. How is it then that the military leaders that took us into and out of the civil war and led the country for more than forty years have failed so woefully to truly honor the sacrifice of their fallen colleagues with a political and developmental agenda that lift the country?

    Going into the 2015 elections, the selling point of President Buhari for many of us was his legendary leadership acumen: capacity for discipline and integrity, and a unique ability to bring the country together in UNITY and PROGRESS. This was what I believed. This was what I sold to readers. What went wrong? To fail to notice that something is terribly amiss is to be under a spell.

    Many of his fellow-citizens do not think that the president has met their expectation in grave matters. They don’t believe that he has used his bully pulpit effectively. He needs to reassure them that he truly belongs to everyone and to no one. For instance, in the matter of the killer herdsmen, the symbolic gestures of an address to the nation plus a presidential visit are more reassuring than press statements. In times like these, leadership empathy is a necessity. Our heroes died so we could live in peace. We could do much better to honor their memory.

     

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  • Governance Islamica

    Governance Islamica

    Monologue

    This article is not appearing in this column for the first time. It was first published about five years ago (2013) and has since been repeated once on popular demand. However, it is still being repeated here in response to requests from some readers who find it relevant for this period in the life of Nigeria as a country. Here it goes:

     

    Preamble

    “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. Almost 60 years after the country’s independence, Nigerians have become like Egyptian gypsies wandering aimlessly in the wilderness of despair and wallowing helplessly in abject poverty even in the midst of abundance. What else do we expect from Allah beyond the invaluable bounties with which He has blessed us? What is Nigeria not blessed with? But to which beneficial extent have we utilized those bounties?

     

    Our resources

    We have land in abundance, not just in terms of size but also in terms of agrarian soil, rich vegetation and exceptionally clement weather. At least over 77 million hectares of land is said to be arable in Nigeria. Out of this, only about 34 million was reportedly cultivated for various agricultural activities about 20 years ago. This has now dwindled to less than 20 million square hectares as more and more youths are migrating  incessantly from their villages to cities and towns in search of imaginary but unavailable greener pastures only to further aggravate the frightening insecurity in the land.

    We are blessed with rainfalls that water our crops from the sky and graze our animals to satisfaction. We are blessed with sunshine that photosynthesizes our crops and balances our weather. We are endowed with a variety of nourishing foods that are enough to feed us from generation to generation without necessarily importing anything from anywhere. No country is more fitting to the contents of chapter 80 of the Qur’anic testimony to the above assertion than Nigeria: “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 vegetation, the olive, the palm, the thickets, the fruit-trees and the green pastures for you and for your cattle to delight in…”. Allah’s favour is constant and manifest. We cannot deny it.

     

    Dedicated workforce

    In addition to the aforementioned, we have energetic and dedicated work force that is married to the farm land, plants and husbandry in Nigeria. We also have intellectual brains that are permanently engaged in research work to ensure Nigeria’s economic improvement especially in the agricultural sector. Yet, hunger, poverty and squalor are the profits of these endowments.

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

    What we lack as a people is a responsible government that can manage all these resources with sincerity to the benefits of the citizenry and care about Nigeria’s foremost economic heritage which is agriculture. That food is becoming a luxury rather than a necessity in Nigeria today after 57 years of independence is a misfortune successively engendered by the naivety and short-sightedness of those who have been claiming to be in government especially at the federal level. Capitalizing on the docility of Nigerians, the federal and State governments keep squeezing the citizenry exploitatively in the Machiavellian belief that peoples’ impoverishment is a major instrument of perpetual rule over them by those in government. Otherwise, how can one justify the failure of State governments to pay the salaries of their workers even after they were given subventions by the federal government for that purpose?

     

    Margret Thatcher’s wish

    Britain’s first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, once alluded to Nigeria’s precarious situation in a press interview when she was celebrating her 80th birthday. She was casually asked by journalists to indicate where she would wish to live if she had an opportunity to come back into this world. In her response to that question she said she would like to come back into the world as a Nigerian ruler an answer that threw the interviewers into sarcastic laughter. And when asked to explain what she actually meant by that answer the ‘Iron Lady’ said: “Nigeria is the only country in the world where people can be pushed to the wall by their rulers and they would rather enter the wall than turn back to confront those rulers”. Thatcher’s statement here may sound like an impetus to a parochial government, but any reasonable person will know that elasticity has its limit.

     

    Parable of governance

    Governance in Islam is like pregnancy in the womb of an expectant mother. The duration of such pregnancy is naturally defined barring any anomaly or aberration. Its delivery depends on the safety of its carrier and the circumstances of her well being. And, after delivery, the baby is claimed, not by the carrier of the pregnancy but by the impregnator.

    There is no pregnancy without semen firmly planted in the womb of a woman. And the semen planter is a man who will eventually be called the father of the baby. For this reason, children bear the names of their fathers rather than those of their mothers as surnames.

    By analogy, one can compare governance to a pregnant woman who could not have become pregnant without an impregnator. The impregnator in this case is the populace that gave those in government the mandate to rule them. And just as the product of the womb (the child) belongs to the impregnator as a matter of legitimacy so should dividend of governance be the property of the governed populace. A child who bears his mother’s name as surname is nothing but a bastard.

    After life, security, law and justice, nothing else is held as sacrosanct in Islam as governance which can be compared to a magnificent shade under which people are supposed to take cover during torrential rains or burning sun. In a democratic setting, such a shade is owned by the citizenry. Those who claim to be its custodians are just servants holding it in trust for the people.

    Advising the federal government to learn from the experience of OPEC countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates may be quite irrelevant here since such advice has no meaning to those in government. After all, the same advice had been given severally in the past without any sensible heeding. You can’t give what you do not have.

     

    Saudi Arabia for instance

    In Saudi Arabia, education is totally free from the primary school to the University. Everything including tuition, hostel accommodation, books, feeding and transportation is provided free by the government. In addition, all students are paid monthly stipends to solve personal problems that are capable of diverting their attention from studies. And, in summer, all foreign students on scholarship are issued free tickets to travel to their home countries on holidays.

    What it takes to enjoy all these is to be qualified for admission and every other thing follows automatically. Yours sincerely knows this much because I was a beneficiary. My first degree was obtained from King’s University, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. And if I was not fortunate to benefit from that great opportunity I, probably, would not have had the opportunity of University education because of my humble background to which Nigerian government was indifferent despite the obvious talent in me and many other Nigerians in my shoes. If all these could be done for students in that country, research facilities for lecturers can be taken for granted.

     

    Saudi industrial cities

    Today, Saudi Arabia has taken her wealth beyond oil and other mineral resources. The two gigantic industrial cities of Yambu’ and Jubail alone with more than four thousand industries including petrochemicals which she established in the early 1980s are enough to see her through the future in the absence of oil. And what is more, that country does not depend on oil for survival anymore despite her position as number one oil exporter in the world.

    Besides, there is no aspect of human development and material investment eluding Saudi Arabian attention in all parts of the world today, including agriculture, shipping, aviation, textile and electronics. And most of these are public owned without any dubious deregulation and deceptive ‘blind trust’ privatization.

     

    Nigeria’s Federal Might

    Shortly after Nigeria’s south-west governors assumed office in 1999, yours sincerely wrote an open letter to them, which was published in Vanguard newspaper where I was then the Deputy Chairman of the Editorial Board. In the letter, I suggested three major areas of economic success with which they could jointly sustain the pace-setting stature of that region.

    First was a regional power generating centre with which to permanently stabilize electricity supply. With this, I pointed out that not only would industrialization take a sound footing but also that most unemployed young men and women would become self-employed to the greatest relief of those governments.

    Second was a regional railway system that could serve not just as a mass transit for the commuters but also as a cargo courier for all the goods, especially farm products in the region. With such a regional railway in place, the region would have become the doyen of commerce in the country and every able hand would have been effectively engaged without bothering their State governments.

    Third was the establishment of a common refinery that could fill the vacuum created by constant non-availability of oil products and incessant arbitrary increase of their prices. Each of these projects could be jointly put in place by the six South-West states since they were all on the concurrent list.

     

    FG’s Blockade

    If the then South-West governors had not been prevented from implementing those suggestions by the then vicious government at the centre, perhaps the situation in the region would have been different today and the other regions would have followed suit in a new progressive economic competition. That was the kind of competition that put the Asian tiger states (Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore) ahead of Africa. Experience has shown that an inept federal government in Nigeria can only hold the rein of power for the purpose of self-enrichment of certain individuals and never for the benefit of growth and development of the country. The experience of Lagos State’s innovative investment in electricity which was thwarted by the federal government can still be vividly recalled. And the President at that time was not from the North.

     

    The missing link

    In modern economic management, there can be no place for the middle class in the absence of such infrastructures as mentioned above. And without the middle class which is conspicuously missing in Nigeria, no economy can thrive to the benefit of the populace. That is why the multinational companies in Nigeria are leaving the country in droves for some other African countries.

    The current lopsided situation which deliberately puts over 97 per cent of the national wealth in the hands of about three percent of the idle populace is not only ungodly but also prone to unpredictable future consequences. We have begun to see such traces. It is therefore, not in the interest of the current regime in Nigeria to continue to drag the dead body of this country towards political murky water as it has constantly been the case since 1999.

     

    Origin of democracy

    Whenever the West talks of democracy today, the impression it gives is that democracy is a Western invention. This is very far from the truth. Despite the lengthy and speculative Platonic theories on democracy, the West did not come in contact with it, practically, until it had a political encounter with the Muslims in Spain. That was in the 8th century A.C. And even with that encounter, it remained a mere spectator in the field of democracy until expediency brought about what was called ‘Magna Carter’ in England in 1215 A.C.

    What the West calls democracy today was what Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had called ‘interactive government’ which he practiced as far back as the 7th century. At the time when he established the Islamic State, there was no single empire or nation in the entire world without a monarch. The idea of democracy, which the West came to adopt as its heritage, is purely Islamic.

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

     

    Candid advice

    Now, rather than celebrating mediocrity in the name of democracy as often done on the 29th of May every year since year 2000, what the current administration should spend its remaining two years doing is true and sincere reformation which should henceforth take the front burner of governance if only to restore the missing confidence in the people and reassure that Nigeria can still become a nation after all, despite years of economic devastation.  If those in government are not ashamed of ruling a country in perpetual cycle of despair, some of us, the ruled are.

    Celebrating anything called democracy in this situation is not just a sham but also an additional injury to the bleeding hearts of the citizenry. While the intra party rancour surges ahead, it is necessary to hint here again that only a forthright economic clemency can serve as a panacea for Nigeria’s chronic ailment called ‘the government’. God heal Nigeria.

     

    Democracy in Islam

    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 providing the needs of the people according to the available resources in the nation. It is about protecting the interest of the weak against the oppression of the strong. It is about managing the wealth of the nation with diligent sense of accountability. 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 democracy without all the aforementioned is oppressive and hypocritical. That was Nigeria’s lot between 1999 and 2007, the continuity of which we fervently pray Allah to forbid.

    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. Governance, whether democratic or monarchical, is fundamentally a function of culture. That is why a country like Britain claims to operate politically on a constitution that is partly written and partly conventional. Borrowing a foreign culture to practice democracy through a constitution written in a foreign language is like borrowing another man’s mouth to eat. Into whose stomach will the food go?

    “Allah does not change a people’s lot unless they change what is in their hearts. If He seeks to afflict them with a misfortune, none can ward it off. Besides Him they have no protector”. Q. 13:11.

  • A season of fake prophecy

    A season of fake prophecy

    Preamble

    This is the season of fake prophecies in Nigeria, the season in which some obvious fraudsters bask in the empty euphoria of delusion. This is the season when Nigerian fraudsters give the impression that prediction and prophecy are one and the same and therefore take undue advantage of people’s ignorance to dupe them in the name of prophecy under the cover of religion.

    Whereas prediction is about imagination just as foresight is about intuition, both are evidently human while prophecy is divine.

    There is something strange about prophecy which continues to remain a puzzle to rightly guided human beings. It is like the night that is invisibly pregnant but which miraculously delivers wonders in the day. Genuine prophecy is neither by fabrication nor by pretext. Its roots are firmly planted in the rich soil of divinity and its agents were divinely chosen and called messengers of God. The last of such messengers was Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who left this earth almost 1500 years ago. Anybody whoever claimed or is claiming to be a prophet after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is surely a fraudster and an agent of the Lucifer.

     

    Appointment of prophets

    Only Allah appoints prophets for an appropriate nation with an appropriate mission at an appropriate time. But this has been bastardized by self-styled ‘prophets’ of the modern world especially in Nigerian who see prophecy as an umbrella of fortune under which they can hide to mine gold and silver. Such people only sooth-tell satanic dreams to their ignorant and parochial victims who are callously milked in the name of prophecy.

     

    Wealthy prophets

    Except for King Daud (David) and his son King Sulayman (Solomon) who were divinely guided to show the world how wealth is legitimately acquired and managed, no prophet of Allah was ever stupendously rich. This can be compared with today’s situation where prophecy is measured in terms of wealth in the possession of the fraudsters who are parading themselves as prophets. Today, mere prediction has been deliberately turned into prophecy which in turn has become a major platform for preaching prosperity rather than posterity at the expense of godliness and humanitarianism.

     

    Genuine prophecy

    It is not by clandestinely predicting the number of Kings who will die in a locality in the coming year or the governors who will lose their seats to opponents or even the number of people who will lose their lives in various accidents that a person can proclaim self a prophet. Genuine prophets are known not by words of mouth alone or amount of wealth they possess but by the exemplary actions that may serve humanity in good stead for many, many centuries or even millennia after their demise. Prophets Isa (Jesus) and Muhammad (SAW) are good examples of such genuine Prophets.

    Prophecy, therefore, is not to be judged by yearly predictions of fraudsters who satanically claim to be prophets. Virtually all the religious tenets and regulations in Christianity and Islam today are reflections of the prophecies of the two great men mentioned above in the past two millennia or thereabout. Both men (Jesus and Muhammad) never pretended to be able to do what they were not divinely assigned to do. They never sought wealth and thus, they had no cause to be fraudulent.

     

     Today’s fake ‘prophets’

    In contrast, however, fake prophecy today is a product which finds a large market in Nigeria for which ignorant and parochial people queue up in multitudes before fraudsters with the intention of gaining fraudulently what they are not divinely destined to gain in life. Such people only fabricate satanic dream about their future and look for fraudsters who can authenticate such dreams for them satanically to suit their wishes or to solve certain insuperable problems. Thus, in the process, they are forced to carry out satanic instructions that may eventually bring ruins to them and pave ways for those fraudsters to zoom into material fortune without any care for conscience. Most broken homes and criminal activities of Nigerians particularly corruption today are traceable to fake prophecies and insensitive display of wealth in Churches and Mosques in this country. It is evident that the ridiculously stolen amounts of public funds by public officials end up in the pockets of the Charge de Affairs of those religious sanctuaries.

     

    A prophetic warning

    Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had forewarned the Muslim Ummah, about 1400 years ago, against the calamity that false prophecy could bring to mankind. Addressing his companions on a particular occasion at that time, he said:

    “There will be calamity!” He repeated this three times. But rather than asking him of its cause, his Companions simply asked for the solution. They had no cause to doubt him. And he told them to look for the solution in the legacy he was leaving behind. That legacy is the rule of law contained in the Qur’an and Sunnah.

     

    The Rule of Law

    The Prophet emphasized to his Companions that nothing besides the rule of law would ever bring the needed harmony to the world. He described the Qur’an as the all-time permanent solution to the various problems of all people and concluded that only individuals, groups or nations that hold it (Qur’an) tenaciously would escape the mentioned calamity.

    The Qur’an, according to Prophet Muhammad (SAW), is the mirror with which to view the past retrospectively and draw a lesson from its experience. It is the effective compass with which to find the way in the hazy wilderness of the present. It is also the impeccable telescope with which to view the future and escape its dangerous satanic dragnet. In other words, the Qur’an is an everlasting prophecy recalling the occurrences of the past, serving as the guidance of the present and turning focus on the future expectations with a view to clearing the way for the pious ones.

    By asking the world to follow the rule of law in all their ways, the Prophet never aimed at rising from his grave one day to govern any particular nation or region of the world. Neither did he leave any heir behind who would inherit the governance of the world. His objective, according to the mission he bore, was for the world to be in harmony through divine guidance.

    And, it is only in the interest of mankind to uphold the rule of law for the sake of their harmonious co-existence.

    To marry according to the rule of law; to divorce, if need be, according to the rule of law; to raise families according to the rule of law; to transact businesses according to the rule of law; to play politics according to the rule of law; to give judgment according to the rule of law; to conduct elections according to the rule of law; to legislate according to the rule of law; to govern according to the rule of law, these and more are the elements of the mission preached by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and there has never been an alternative to it since his demise about one and a half millennia ago.

    Today, is there any individual, group or nation not affected positively by the rule of law in the world?

    Every aspect of life has its rule of law. We work in the day and rest in the night not by our own volition but in accordance with the natural rule of law that guide our existence as human beings. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West to obey the rule of law that controls its operations. Fishes live in water. Plants grow generically and are fed through their roots in accordance with the natural rule of law that governs them. Disharmony prevails only when deviation occurs from the rule of law. And such is often caused by human beings. Carnivores like lions, vipers and eagles never voluntarily feed on plants. Herbivores like elephants, camels and goats never feed on flesh. To force them to do otherwise, in the name of experiment, is to cause disharmony in the animal kingdom.

     

    Causes of disharmony

    The world is in disharmony today because of deliberate deviation from the rule of law by those in power. Stronger nations want to usurp or dominate weaker nations as in the case of America in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

    Governments want to enslave the governed as in the case of Nigeria since independence in 1960. It is all an evidence of dogs eating dogs in the stable of greed. Why won’t disharmony prevail?

    But Allah so much loves mankind that He does not leave them permanently in the hands of devilish predators. From time to time, Allah sends conscientious individuals either as rulers or as counselors to rescue the oppressed. That was the fortune of Nigeria when Umaru Musa Yar’Adua emerged as President.

    His insistence on rule of law first sounded odd to some lawless elements who took such stand for granted because they never experienced rule of law in Nigeria before his coming. But that was the blessing that our country needed as a solid foundation for a strong building. Rule of law is the first sign of sanity in a society. It is an evidence of decency in a people. It is a thorn on the way of certain fraudsters who claim to be Prophets.

     

    Remembering Yar’Adua

    In beaming the light of rule of law on Nigeria, Yar’Adua was not a mere touch-bearer he also recognized the fact that one did not necessarily have to be governed by Shari’ah or canonical law to abide by the rule of law.

    What the Qur’an teaches which the Prophet emphasized is for everybody to follow the rule of law by which he or she is governed. To do this is to follow the guidance of the Qur’an or that of the Bible.

    If we had a President in Yar’Adua who could voluntarily return his annual security vote of about 2 billion naira to the national treasury because he did not see the need to pocket it as he did not see it as a personal booty; if we had a President in him who could return the federal budget to the National Assembly for amendment because he felt it was unnecessarily inflated at the expense of the populace; if we had a President in him who could promptly react positively to the cry of the people on high cost of food items in the market; if he could cause the price of cement to crash in favour of the downtrodden masses and suspend any increase on price of petrol indefinitely until his death, it was only because he had the fear of Allah at heart and strongly adhered to the rule of law. Thus with him in power it was becoming crystal clear that Nigerians were beginning to appreciate the fact that harmony was truly in sight through the rule of law. And such great gestures which had eluded this country for a long time before he became President came to add greater values to the lives of Nigerians. Rule of law is about conscience and decency of character. It marks the difference between man and beast. If Yar’Adua did not achieve anything beyond establishing the rule of law in Nigeria, that singular achievement was great enough for posterity. And what is more, he achieved much more by bringing a ray of hope to millions of Nigerians in less than two years of his leadership in a country where the sky had been dangerously cloudy before his assumption of office as President. When Yar’Adua was President, no sane person could sensibly compare sleep with death.

     

     Lost paradise

    Prophet Muhammad never spoke in a vacuum. His utterances were divinely guided. And the Qur’an confirms this thus: “He (Muhammad) never spoke out of sheer whim; his expressions are no other than inspired revelations; he is taught by the One who is mighty in power…”

    Nigerians of today have become like the Israelis of yore who after being rescued by Prophet Musa (Moses) from the scourge of Pharaoh, showed ingratitude to Allah and were thrown into the wilderness of life. Having suffered in the hands of a blind and deaf Nigerian Pharaoh for eight terrible years and having been liberated by an unexpected Musa (Moses), it only behoved conscientious people to be grateful not necessarily to that Musa (Moses) but to God who used him for this divine gesture. The sharp difference between the road to hell and the one to paradise which Nigerians experienced within the first decade of the fourth republic had shown how wonderful Allah could be in His deeds. It also confirmed the genuineness of Prophet Muhammad’s prophecy as divinely attested in Chapter 20, Verse 24 of the Qur’an thus:

    “When my guidance is revealed to you, (Muhammad) whoever follows it shall never err nor be afflicted; but he who gives no heed to My warning shall live in distress and be raised blind on the Day of Resurrection…”

    In his message to the nation on the occasion of Mawlidu-n-Nabiyy and Easter of 2008 (one year after assuming the office), President Yar’Adua appealed to Nigerians, with humility, to exercise patience with his administration saying there was blueprint for thoroughness and decency to take off governance in earnest. He neither used any abusive language that was the hall-mark of his predecessor nor did he ask Nigerians to continue to bear the unbearable while his own family lived aristocratically.

    Having a man like him at the helm of affairs while he was alive was a special blessing of Allah which Nigerians only came to realize after his demise. And shortly after his demise, that reality became a lost paradise. The Qur’anic verse quoted above must always be a reference point for all decent, law-abiding people. From all indications during his tenure, there was a sign of light at the end of our tunnel as a nation. A serious assessment of the governing style in Nigeria since 1999 will surely reveal that with the demise of President Yar’Adua, a template of governance in Nigeria has been lost. For both the rulers and the ruled to rediscover that template, the only panacea for Nigeria’s plight, especially in a situation where ordinary feeding has become a luxury, is the rule of law. Anything contrary may only pave the country’s way to waterloo. For politicians, professionals and artisans to rely on fake prophesy in the name of religion, as now prevalent in Nigeria, is to cling desperately to a sinking straw. Those who did it in the past are now part of the debris of a dormant history. The fraudsters of today who are parading themselves as ‘Prophets’ will surely not be different those of the past who have now been consigned to a permanent historical oblivion. Let those who have ears heed this axiomatic warning. Materialism is a mere vanity which has a limited time.

    “Allah does not change a people’s lot unless they change what is in their hearts. If He seeks to afflict them with a misfortune, no one else can ward it off. Besides Him, there is no protector (for any rational being).” Q.13:11. God save Nigeria from the evil antics of fraudsters wearing religious robes!

  • What is in the nation’s future?

    What is in the nation’s future?

    The beginning of a new year is a good time to seek information about the future and, for believers, only the divine being makes this information available through his servants. Of course, not everyone seeks to know. But a prophet has a responsibility to deliver the message whether anyone is interested or not.

    This year’s prophecies range from the pedestrian to the exciting. Some bet on the old law of induction, assuming the regularity of nature. Others err on the side of caution, assuming nothing is to be taken for granted. Some prophecies stay within the realm of the spirit to highlight what they see as the lot of the believer in 2018. Others cross the spiritual border to the political, with unfettered predictions for politicians.

    From Daddy GO Adeboye, there are prophesies about assassination attempts, record breaking temperatures, and misunderstanding among nations but no war. That we have started the last lap of earthly sojourn with a countdown to the end could be scary for those who are not ready to meet their maker because they have not shown mercy to the needy, or they have been responsible for the needless suffering of the masses. The upright is not worried.

    From Bishop Oyedepo, it is well for the anointed. Here is more of prayerful affirmation of a positive outlook than a declaration of disaster. It’s a New Dawn for the believer— in family life, finances, and spiritual life. “No one shall be a victim of road accident”, and it will be the “most fruitful year”. No need for worry because “no evil occurrence” around the life of the believer. Even the “strange things that will be the order of the day in 2018” are to the benefit of the believer because they will enjoy a “double restoration of all” that they had lost. These prophecies are soothing to the soul.

    MFM GO Pastor D. K. Olukoya, released 45 prophesies for 2018. With emphasis on 18 as a signifier of bondage, it’s a year for repackaging and reloading bondage, with “terrible attacks on marriages” and “wild and merciless striking of infirmities.” It’s a year in which “terror will swallow terror and vomit poison” and where you either “fight or perish.” Thankfully, it is also a year “of great fall for corruption” and one in which “personalities against this nation will destroy themselves.”

    There are more daring political prophecies. Prophet Wale Olagunju of the Divine Seed of God Chapel Ministries in Ibadan who “accurately predicted President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory” in the 2015 Presidential election has now “revealed that the Nigerian president will be dethroned in 2019 election by former VP Atiku Abubakar.”

    Olagunju also has prophecies on the future of the country. According to the prophet, even if Abubakar defeats Buhari in 2019, Nigeria will not avoid disintegration: “No amount of peace talk can prevent Nigeria’s disintegration. It is a matter of time”, and “the Igbo’s desire for Biafra nation has received divine approval.”

    As for party fortunes, the man of God declares that PDP is not dead and it “will bounce back and its members in the APC will return to their original house” while the “present rumpus in APC will continue.”

    Furthermore, the prophet declares that “any party that fields Buhari for the 2019 presidential election will be fielding liability as his candidacy will make the party lose the election.”

    Olagunju’s political prophecies are not limited to the realm of democratic politics as he also prophesied that “a new generation of military officers will in future overthrow the government of Nigeria to clear the rot perpetrated by reckless politicians.” This should send jitters down the spine of every democrat and lovers of civil rule.

    There is some similarity between Fr. Mbaka’s 2018 prophecies and that of Prophet Olagunju, and both had prophesied the victory of Buhari over Jonathan in 2015. Of course, we cannot scientifically prove that the prophecies of the men of God caused the victory or defeat of any candidate. The best they can claim is that they have the gift of knowing the future through what God reveals to them. We are not able to empirically verify God’s revelation of his thought and future action to anyone. Only believers understand.

    On New Year Eve 2015, Fr. Mbaka prophesied that Jonathan’s presidency was over because God had rejected him and Buhari will win. Buhari won and later praised Mbaka’s bravery at an Aso Rock meeting. However, the relationship was short-lived as Mbaka was upset with Buhari’s handling of his job as president.

    Specifically, Fr. Mbaka complained that Buhari had not addressed hunger and suffering. He observed that 2017 was “one of the most horrible years in this country”; that the “hardship is not from God, they are man-made; and that “the cabal and satanic agents …have wickedly kidnapped the goodwill and good intention of Mr. President…” He then urged Buhari to “change or be changed.” “The wind will be too strong that Mr. President and the cabal will be blown out of office shamefully.” The President is “to be blamed, not your cabal. You have your brooms, but the cabal have their bags; either you sweep them away or they throw you into the bag.”

    On the fight against corruption, Mbaka is uncompromisingly harsh, accusing Buhari of “selective” war, “a witch-hunt” in which “your party becomes a hideout for criminals so that any person who does not want to be arrested will become an APC person. Is that not corruption in itself?” This is brutal, coming from a servant of God who once openly canvassed for the president.

    We might ask: In 2015, why did Fr. Mbaka not see this turn of events happening in 2016-2017? Was he denied the spiritual gift to see beyond one year? That is an unfair question. God reveals what he wants to reveal, and it is not unusual for those he favors to turn out to be overwhelmed by human nature. Consider Samuel and Saul. God did not blame Samuel. After all, it was God’s declaration of Saul that Samuel affirmed.

    We should note, however, that the voice of humans is indeed the voice of God. And as there are spiritual prophecies, so there are secular predictions based on experience. A meteorologist uses scientific data to predict the weather so that we are all prepared. A political scientist predicts the outcome of elections based on polling data and social-economic trends that impact the lives of citizens.

    In 2015, the Economist endorsed Buhari for president just as Mbaka the man of God did. But in a recent scathing write-up, ominously titled “The Rise and Fall of Buhari”, the magazine soured on the president, arguing that he “is being plagued with failures across every single sector in the economy, the like that has never been seen before.” It refers to the recession which gripped the nation shortly after the inauguration of the president, the fall in the value of the Naira, the rise in unemployment and the hike in price of petroleum products and the ongoing scarcity of the product.

    What the spiritual father observed, the secular magazine confirmed regarding the fight against corruption: “As for the corruption fight, the facts on the ground do not show any one at all. Apart from a few officials harassed or imprisoned without court order, the country is yet to witness the first victim of the said campaign at the court stands…Government waste is on the rise, officials caught in graft were swiftly excused….”

    These are matters of grave concern. The President still has time to rein in graft and summon the better angels of citizens. But leadership must change 360 degrees. He must resist taking citizens’ patience for granted. Characterising every genuine complaint as malicious attack will not serve the President well. Elections aside, President Buhari wants to leave behind a legacy of good stewardship that is remarkable for alleviating the suffering of the masses. Ideas about good governance that are offered to correct the lopsided federal structure must not be dismissed as unpatriotic. There is still time for POSITIVE CHANGE.

     

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  • As 2017 retreats

    As 2017 retreats

    This is one heck of a year with a mix of pleasant and unpleasant memories, which does not cease baring its fury as it roars by to its end. Of course, for better or for worse, we will remember A.D. 2017. Whether, on balance, history will be kind to it is too early to tell.

    We feel the impact of events differently due to different personalities and temperaments. What touches me as tragic and unbearable may be of little importance to you. An event that appears to some as negative may be perceived as positive by others. Think electoral victory and loss. In the matter of the impact of a year on a nation, therefore, relativism holds sway.

    Despite this relativity of outcomes, it is not out of the ordinary for fellow-citizens to agree that a year has been particularly good or bad, if events are categorized according to their impact on the nation. A famine that leaves half of the population dead is catastrophic compared to winning an international soccer match. While we may rejoice over the latter and be thankful for small mercies, the former is a scourge of unforgettable proportion.

    On balance, is 2017 a year of positive developments? On the positive side, insurgency was degraded and denied a territory to lay claim to. Second, though we walked in the valley of the shadow of a second civil war, reason prevailed. Lesson learnt? We must continue to seek the best approach to governance in a multi-national state. Third, while we started the year with apprehension and unease with respect to the health of the Number One citizen, we are ending it with the president in good health.

    There are also negatives. The nation is still divided along primordial lines of resistance, almost sixty years after independence. We operate a quasi-unitary system to promote unity. Yet we are like separate unfriendly countries. Lesson learnt? Try a different direction. The economy stumbles along in fits and starts. The latest is the avoidable fuel shortage crisis that spoils the fun of Yuletide for many families, spawning conspiracy theories which further endanger desired unity. Politics, the institution that should provide leadership for national greatness, has unfortunately capitulated under the weight of corruption and nepotism.

    On the international scene, there are positives and negatives as well. There is a consensus on the urgency of a collective war on terrorism and the need to help the displaced and dispossessed victims of civil wars and terrorist attacks around the globe. ISIS has lost ground and cannot now boast of a caliphate headquarter. The battle is, of course, far from over as the wounded snakes still constitute imminent danger.

    The world needs peace to tackle issues of hunger, poverty and disease that afflict millions of its inhabitants. But the proliferation of nuclear weapons and biological agents continue to pose danger. The energy that ought to be directed to solving economic challenges gets dissipated while nations confront divisive issues of disarmament and geopolitics.

    Unfortunately, we witnessed the retreat of a once powerful leader in the promotion of freedom and justice around the world. Thankfully, others who still believe in the oneness of humanity are on hand to fill the vacuum. Just as individuals are not indispensable, nations also aren’t, and none should take others hostage. If the international community braces itself up to its calling, it can, through the United Nations, always count on the coalition of the willing. Recent events point to the resolve of that body to reassert its moral authority.

    From the foregoing, it seems clear that we have a mix of positives and negatives across the national and international platform. However, I am not willing to allow pessimism to get the better of me. Therefore, I conclude that in 2017, the positive outweighs the negative.

    However, the real reason that 2017 is a positive year for me is the spirit of community that trumped every negativity. Followers of this column may recall that in mid-October, I wrote about Okeho, my beloved country home, as it celebrated the centenary of its relocation to its present site. I see Okeho as an exemplar of the community spirit that is needed to make our nation great. If individuals can invest their time and resources in lifting and advancing their communities, the nation will be lifted and advanced.

    Officially, Nigeria has a total of 774 local governments. Each of these has an average of 20 towns or villages for a total of 15,480 local geographical communities. These local communities are deprived of many basic amenities. Their children go to school but there are no employment opportunities for them in their immediate environment and they have not been trained to be self-employed. There was a country and a region which prioritized gainful employment and provided opportunities for young school leavers to go into farming by establishing farm institutes, or go into artisanship by establishing trade centers. That was so yesterday!

    Without opportunities for progress in their village communities, young Nigerians invade the regional or state capitals where they drift along, often getting into trouble and into criminal gangs, populating prisons and detention centers. Children whose parents are in the forefront of virtue education back home arrive in cities and find themselves recruited into circles of vice. It is the worst nightmare of parents.

    Fortunately, while some thus find themselves in the belly of the whale in cities, others escape and make good lives for themselves, their parents and their children. That is the story of Okeho and the reason for my excitement in October. The many young men and women that made it to the celebration of the centenary were an inspiration to me. Since my family and I departed the country more than 25 years ago, I have only been back so infrequently that I hardly encountered the young professionals that I met in October.

    Meeting them was exciting. But knowing that they were all so dedicated to the progress of the community to make opportunities available for the ones left behind in the marathon of life was even more thrilling.

    At the end of the celebration, these young people decided to get involved. They set up committees for economic development, health and wellness, environment and infrastructure, education and mentoring, and history and tourism. They identified short-term, medium-term and long-term goals to achieve and they have been making progress in their deliberations on how to tackle the many developmental issues. I am elated.

    Of course, there are Nay Sayers. There are sadists whose intent is to inflict the most harm just to daunt your spirit. They will drag you to the mud to suck life out of your optimism. But they are in the minutest minority and the majority do not relent. This is the spirit that I appreciate in my fellow communitarians who believe that one with all is better than one with self. They give me reason for hope. Even when I was rudely shocked by some nastiness, I quickly warn myself not to empower dispiriting agents.

    Here then is my wish for my readers. Each of us comes from a community that needs us at this moment when all else appears to be against the spirit of community. If we lose our small communities to rural-urban migration, we lose the values that they inculcate in the youth. We will not have a nation that is value-conscious if we do not have communities that instill values. Looking back to offer help to communities in need does not detract from our national consciousness. For these communities are the indispensable cords that join the nation.

    Go then to your community. Set up community development organizations. Get involved in the struggles of the young ones trying to make something out of their lives. Encourage them and offer any assistance within your reach for their progress. In so doing, you are helping to build the blocks of national development. That used to be the spirit of our African ancestry not too long ago. We need to revive it in this age of rabid individualism.

     

    Happy New 2018!

     

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  • Islam’s charter with Christianity

    ‘In the introduction to his autobiography entitled ‘My Odyssey’, Nigeria’s first democratic President, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe wrote thus: “Man comes into the world and while he lives, he embarks upon a series of activities absorbing experience which enables him to formulate a philosophy of life and to chart his courses of action. But then, he dies. Nevertheless, his biography remains a guide to those of the living who may need guidance either as a warning on the vanity of human wishes or as encouragement or both”.

    The above philosophical quote serves as a reminder of what the divinely appointed Apostles of Allah represented in the lives of their followers. Those Apostles were men who came into the world as Ambassadors of one and the only God. Yes, they came at different times, from different lands and with different tongues, nevertheless, their message was only one and the same. That message is like a nation’s diplomatic mission abroad. Any qualified person could be appointed as an Ambassador to manage the mission. And from time to time the Ambassador could be changed but the mission remains the same as much as the nation which they represent remains a nation. Some of those Ambassadors could though be empowered as plenipotentiary it is unimaginable that any of them would deviate from the diplomatic policy that makes him an Ambassador for his country.

    Thus, from Adam, the great ancestor of man to Prophet Muhammad (SAW), the last of all Apostles of Allah, the message they came to deliver was one and the same because those Apostles were all sent by only one and the same God. If any difference is perceived in their mission, it could only be attributable to human ignorance through interpretations or misinterpretations in time and space.

    Each time I hear of killing, maiming or resorting to terrorism in the name of religion I feel scandalized. This is not just because I belong to a religion and I am involved in its propagation but also because I know the value of life and the vice in terminating it extra-judicially. Personally, I see those who kill people of other religions for the simple reason of difference in faith as brutal vandals waging war not just against humanity but also against God.

    Anybody who kills or maims or indulges in terrorism may claim to be an adherent of a religion but cannot genuinely claim to be acting for that religion. No divine religion prescribes killing or maiming as an act of worship. Religion may be used surreptitiously as a cover for such heinous act but the real motive is far away from religion.

     

    Conversation

    In a fortuitous casual conversation sometime ago over Nigeria’s disturbing political situation, a top Christian cleric enthusiastically told this columnist that Nigerians were the most religious people in the world. Yours sincerely did not agree with his assertion but to avoid any argument relating to religion I decided to keep mute. However, not comfortable with my silence, my interlocutor asked for my reaction to his statement. And when I asked him for the evidence of his alleged religiousness in Nigerians, he cited the ubiquity of Churches and Mosques as well as the length of time people spend worshiping in those sanctuaries as evidence. He added that even Muslims worship on Sundays nowadays citing examples of NASFAT, FATHIU QUAREEB and other ‘Assalatu’ groups. In response, I grinned amusedly and shook my head in disagreement. I then told him that in Islam, worshiping does not necessarily take any lengthy time as the number of times to worship per day is divinely specified and no daily Salat takes more than ten minutes on the maximum. I said as for the ubiquity of Churches and Mosques in Nigeria, it is not only an evidence of disunity among the so-called worshippers but also an indication of deification of ‘MONEY’. And while insisting that religion is the biggest business in Nigeria’s private sector today, I concluded that most Nigerians would rather sweat for the purpose of money than for the love of God citing the shameless preaching of prosperity and atrocious style of accumulating wealth by the so-called religious leaders as examples.

    I then challenged the Reverend gentleman to imagine removing money from Churches and Mosques in Nigeria today and see what would remain of them. I also went further to correct his misconception that Muslims now worship on Sundays by pointing out to him that Muslims only resorted to congregating on Sundays for prayers when Thursdays and Fridays which served as their cultural weekend days before Nigeria’s colonisation were forcefully turned into Saturdays and Sundays for them by the colonialists. After a long time of silence the Clergy man nodded in agreement with my analytical observation and confessed that until then he never gave any thought to the atrocious role which money plays in Nigeria’s religious activities.

     

    Evidence of Ignorance

    What most Nigerian leaders of Islamic and Christian religions do not seem to know is that the refusal of the adherents of both religions to study and understand the doctrines which guide those religions is the main cause of religious disharmony in the country today. This is however, not peculiar to Nigeria. It is global. Both Christians and Muslims jointly constitute more than half of the world’s population.

    And, it is from their common pond that the spiritual ripples which consistently make the world restive emanate. If the adherents of both religions had endeavoured to mutually study and understand the doctrines that guide their ways in life, the world would not have come under religious spell as we have today.

    How many Christian or Muslim leaders know, for instance, that in recognition of Jesus Christ as his predecessor and fellow Apostle, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) signed a charter with some Christian leaders in the year 628 CE and the charter remains valid till today? In that year (628 CE), a Christian delegation from St. Catherine’s Monastery went to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) to seek the protection of the Islamic government under his command. The objective was to elicit the support of the Islamic government in ensuring their security against the aggression of the Persian Empire. (St. Catherine’s Monastery is the world’s oldest Monastery located at the foot of Mt. Sinai which has a huge collection of Christian manuscripts second only to those of the Vatican and is known as a world heritage site). Prior to that event, many verses of the Qur’an had been revealed to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) acknowledging the divine mission of all the Prophets preceding him (Muhammad (SAW) including that of Jesus Christ. And because of those revelations, no Muslim can claim to be a true believer in Islam without accepting Jesus the son of Mary as a Prophet of God. One of those revelations states as follows:

    “The Apostle of Allah (Muhammad SAW) believes in what was revealed to him and so do the entire Muslim faithful. Every one of them believes in Allah, His Angels, His Books and His Apostles. We do not discriminate against any of His Apostles. They say “we hear and obey (the laws brought by those Apostles). Grant us your forgiveness Oh Lord! To you we shall all return….” (Q. 2: 285).

    Another verse of the Qur’an states: “There is no compulsion in religion. True guidance has become distinct from stray. Whoever renounces evil and believes fully in God has grasped the most reliable chord that never breaks. God is all-hearing, all knowing” (Q. 2: 256).

     

    The Charter

    In response to the request of the Christian representatives cited above, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) granted them a written charter of rights as follows: “This is a message from Muhammad the son of Abdullah serving as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far that we (Muslims) are with them. Verily, I and all the servants of God, as well as the helpers of Islam hereby make promise to defend

    Christians because they are my citizens and by God! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them (concerning their way of worship). Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one should destroy a house of their religion or damage it or loot it.

    Whoever violates this has breached God’s charter and disobeyed His Apostle. Verily, Christians are my allies and have my secure charter against all they hate. No one should force them to fight for a course in which they have no belief or compel them to migrate against their wish. Neither is the sacredness of their covenant to be violated nor their Churches to be disrespected. And if any damage should happen to their Churches, they must not be prevented from repairing them. No Muslim should disobey this covenant till the Last Day (end of the world)”. By this charter, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) asserted that Muslims and Christians were brethren in faith and no one of them should fight against the other on the basis of religion. And by validating the charter till the great Day of Judgment, the Prophet had precluded any future attempt to revoke the privileges contained in that charter by any nation, group or individuals. By implication, those privileges are inalienable. Besides, one remarkable aspect of the charter is that it did not stipulate any condition for Christians to enjoy the privileges.

     

    Reciprocation

    Believing that being followers of Jesus Christ was enough a condition to enjoy those privileges, the Prophet assumed that the Christians, would be civilized enough to reciprocate that unprecedented gesture wherever they coexist with Muslims not only by tolerating the latter’s mode of worship and way of life but also by refraining from any naked or avowed act of provocation against them which could precipitate a religious rancour. Another noticeable aspect of the charter is the Prophet’s silence on any payment by the protectorate Christians which was the general practice among nations in those days. Thus, that ‘Charter of Rights’ was a free gift. And from it the reason becomes clear why the Islamic State under the command of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) or any of his rightly guided disciples who became Caliphs never crossed swords with any Christian group or nation throughout their regimes. If any wars like those of the crusades ever broke out subsequently between Christians and Muslims it was centuries after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and the Caliphs and that could not be attributed to Islam as a religion. Such could have happened due to a deliberate breach by either or both sides on the basis of human whim.

    And in upholding that charter, the second Caliph, Umar Bn Khattab, refused to observe Salat inside the Church of Jerusalem when he visited the area following the liberation of that region by the Islamic State from the Persian Empire in which Zoroastrianism (worshiping of fire) was the religion. The Church of Jerusalem had been cleared by Muslim soldiers for the observance of Salat which Umar, as Head of State, was to lead. But when he was invited to lead the Salat, he simply ordered the soldiers to find another place for Salat and keep the Church intact for the Christians saying he would not do that which the Prophet prohibited. He then warned the Muslims who accompanied him never to convert Churches into Mosques for that would amount to bad precedent capable of breaching the Prophet’s charter with Christians.

     

    Prophetic Revelation

    Prior to the Prophet’s migration from Makkah to Madinah, a prophetic revelation came into the Qur’an in 616 CE which confirmed the brotherhood of Islam and Christianity. That revelation which formed a whole chapter in the Qur’an was entitled ‘The Chapter of Rome ‘. It started thus: “Rome, (the nation of the Christian Greeks) has been defeated in a neighbouring land. But after their defeat, they shall (themselves) gain victory within a few years. Allah is the Supreme Commander before and after. On that day (when they become victorious), the believers (Muslims and Christians) will rejoice in Allah’s help.

    Allah gives victory to whoever He wills. He is the Mighty One, the Merciful. That is Allah’s promise; He never reneges on His promise” (Q. 30: 1-5).

    And true to that prophecy, the Roman Empire surprisingly defeated the Persian Empire to the ecstasy of the Muslims just nine years after that revelation and thereby paved way for Christianity to be off the manacle of the pagan Persian Empire and to thrive once again side by side with Islam. Besides, the name of Jesus Christ is mentioned about 37 times in the Glorious Qur’an giving more details about his birth and disappearance than can’t be found in the Bible. Also a whole chapter of the Qur’an is dedicated to Mary the mother of Jesus confirming her chastity and the miracle of the birth of Jesus. That chapter is called ‘The Chapter of Maryam (Mary).

     

    Orientalists’ Antics

    However, despite all the indisputable facts mentioned above, the Western Orientalists and others who seek to foster discord between Christianity and Islam continue to focus and disseminate the differences between both religions with the intent of causing permanent conflict among their adherents. Those are the people who want the world to believe that this same Prophet Muhammad (SAW) held the Qur’an in one hand and the sword in another forcing people to accept Islam or be ready to die. The depth of their ignorance does not even reflect the illogicality of such blatant lie as the Qur’an was not compiled into a book when the Prophet was alive. And if one man had such a power to intimidate multitude enemies would he be forced to migrate?

     

    Conclusion

    The doctrine of one God one mission purportedly shared in the world today by three religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) cannot be from the same perception. Each of these religions has its own revealed Book and the adherents practice their faiths according to the doctrines contained in those Books. It will therefore be wrong of adherents of one particular religion to adjudge those of others as deviants or infidels who must be exterminated.

    Religion is like an examination. Those who sit down to write it using blue ink pen must not turn themselves into examiners using red ink pen to mark it. Paradise is Allah’s own domain. He admits whoever He wishes into it. And this is done not necessarily by sheer mortal’s recommendation. Only the Almighty Allah who chose our parents for us without our knowledge before we came into this world and who knows where each of us would finally be buried has the final say on everybody’s destination.

    If the truth must be told, the real cause of religious conflicts in Nigeria is not intolerance as often hypocritically claimed by some people but provocation under the guise of religion. Nigerian press is particularly guilty of this by fueling such provocation. It is wrong to expect tolerance to thrive in a society where provocation and injustice refuse to abate. Propagating a religion by denigrating another is an act of provocation. And those who want peace to prevail in Nigeria must desist from such intolerable act.

    Nigerian Church and Mosque leaders must refrain from negative sentiments and hypocrisy by dissuading their followers from interpreting the misbehaviour of some miscreants to mean the prescription of the religion they proclaim.

  • Fake federalism or a case of overstretched arms

    Fake federalism or a case of overstretched arms

    Federalism is a system of governance in which the center and the parts are coequal with each having assigned rights and responsibilities based on the principle of efficiency and effectiveness. If the assignment of responsibilities doesn’t respect this principle; if one level takes on responsibilities that overstretches its arms such that its reach is weak and therefore ineffective, it is safe to conclude that we have a debilitating case of fake federalism.

    But I will avoid labels because it turns off ears that ought to listen. Indeed, I will be charitable. I assume that those who insist on a strong center want the best for the country. They want to use the resources that accrue to the nation for the benefit of all the citizens of the nation. They do not want one section to suffer for lack of resources. It is a laudable intention. After all, we are one nation, indivisible.

    We are one family; the center is the patriarch, intent on spreading joy throughout the clan. What is the most efficient and effective approach? Is it by doling out goodies from the center or by going through the regions/states? Is it by the center taking on every task that it considers good for the family, or by sticking to those it alone can do best while ceding to states what they can do best?

    The latter was the intent of the founding fathers leading to the adoption of the Independence Constitution in 1960 and the Republican Constitution in 1963. With regions thus trusted and empowered, each of them launched a regional development agenda that also led to a huge lift for the country until 1966.

    When the military took over in January 1966, it diagnosed the nation’s ill health as disunity. It was a wrong diagnosis. What ailed the nation was selfish greed on the part of partisans. Based on its diagnosis, it prescribed the wrong medication which, instead of forging unity, ripped apart the country and led it to a civil war.

    In fairness, we must not deny that the military also embarked on national development and that it scored some achievements between 1966 and 1979 especially after the end of the civil war. But it was at the expense of regional initiatives and some of the federal government initiatives could have been more efficiently and effectively achieved by the regions or states.

    Civilian takeover did not change the direction of governance as the federal government continues to overreach. An example was the Shagari administration which launched a federal housing project across every local government without paying attention to the interests and needs of states. Hardly was any of the houses occupied. They now serve as ugly reminders of the overreach of that federal government.

    That approach however continued and even now, with a government of change in the center, the patriarchal model of federal governance is pretty much in place with the government taking upon itself responsibilities which fail to respect the principle of efficiency and effectiveness.

    I start with the most recently touted federal intervention by the Federal Ministry of Interior. Several media sources reported on Tuesday that the Ministry had just acquired 13 modern fire trucks and 11 water tankers for the Federal Fire Service (FFS) “to combat fire outbreaks” as the headlines put it. If you just read the news headline, however, you would be spared the remarkable details that emerge as you read further.

    Combating fire outbreaks is seemingly commendable, especially if that is within the Federal Capital Territory, where it can be most efficient and effective for the central government to operate its firefighting trucks and water tankers. However, the Ministry has taken on a more ambitious operation. The 13 fire trucks and 11 water tankers are to “combat fire outbreaks in the country.” The Minister, full of praise for the President who approved the scheme, added that “one bus for conveying fire fighters and other operational equipment are included”.

    The Federal Fire Service officials, including the Controller and Deputy Controller were naturally happy as they praised the move for its potential to save lives. While observing that this was the first time in history when the federal government responded to the need of the department for modern equipment, they expressed appreciation to the president and the government.

    Then it occurred to me: is this really an efficient and effective approach to firefighting? Why do we have a Federal Fire Service that is tasked with the responsibility of “combating fire outbreaks in the country”? I tried to educate myself by seeking clarification in our constitution. Isn’t this particular task best discharged by local government, not even state government? I did not find any clue. But my instinct about this tells me that there is something awkward about a Federal Government Fire Service. It is an overreach.

    Then I found an eye-opener. The “Federal Fire Service” was established in 1901 when there was no Nigeria and thus no federal government! The Honorable Minister alluded to this in his speech berating past governments of the federation for neglecting the agency. Those governments most likely had good reasons. The 1901 Fire Service was not meant for an amalgamated country. Therefore, it’s time is in the past. In the present, this government of change has the responsibility to take the country to the 21st century with adequate division of labor among its constituent parts.

    A few weeks ago, there was another news story about abandoned Federal Basic Health Centers across the country. Pictures don’t lie, and those pictures show outgrown bushes and dilapidated buildings around the centers. With good intention for the health of the children on the part of the patriarch, the children still suffer terribly from ailments that Basic Health Centers are supposed to cater for if they were structured to be efficient and effective. The question is “why is the federal government in the business of direct delivery of basic health care?”

    I caution against misunderstanding. Surely, the Federal Government has a right and a responsibility for the health of citizens and for keeping citizens safe from fire hazard. Indeed, there is no reason why both the federal and state governments can’t share this right and responsibility. But from this, we cannot logically or justifiably infer any responsibility on the part of the federal government for delivering these services directly to the people. Since there are other approaches such a responsibility cannot be logically inferred. And since there are more effective approaches, such a responsibility cannot be fairly or justifiably deduced.

    One effective approach is to leave the responsibilities for fire safety and for basic healthcare to local governments and state governments respectively. Of course, the federal government has the power of the purse in view of the lopsided revenue allocation system. This should change when these responsibilities are devolved to states. But even now, there is an approach that other federations judiciously use efficiently and effectively.

    The federal government can make polices for basic health care, encourage states to adopt these policies, offer grants to states that choose to, and monitor the performance of those states in providing basic healthcare to their citizens. If this were pursued as a goal, the basic health centers will function as expected, and the health of the people will be efficiently and effectively promoted as the federal government intends.

    What approach makes sense for fire safety? The Federal Government has an abiding interest in the safety of citizens and this includes safety from fire havoc. How best can it promote this interest knowing that it cannot, by itself, effectively prevent fire hazard across the 774 local governments? It is best to leave fire prevention and firefighting to states and local governments.

    There are other areas such as primary education and agriculture where states are best positioned to function efficiently and effectively for the benefit of their citizens and therefore for the good of the country, if the federal government will devolve responsibilities along with adequate resources to them and stick to those areas where it alone can perform best.

     

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