The Nation Newspaper

Category: Friday

  • Farewell to HU

    Farewell to HU

    After 24 years of productive engagement in teaching, research, and administration, and learning a lot from colleagues and students, I ended my formal relationship with Howard University (HU), Washington, DC. yesterday, the 30th day of June, in the year of our Lord, 2016. It has been a memorable journey in many respects; and I am grateful for the positive experience and successful outcome of the journey.

    I first stepped on the campus of Howard University in February 1992 when I was interviewed for the position of Professor and Chairman of the Department of Philosophy. As soon as I entered the campus, even before the rigorous interview began, I knew that Howard was the place for me. It turned out to be everything that I longed for to make my contributions to scholarship and community.

    I chose Howard University over other institutions that gave me offers of appointment because of its long and rich history of scholarship and service. Founded in 1867, Howard University earned its reputation as the Mecca of scholarship for African descendants worldwide. On top of her scholarship, however, Howard is also attractive for its social engagement, and for the training of servant-leaders with a focus on freedom, justice and equality.

    Many African leaders passed through Howard University, from where they renewed their abiding interest in freedom and justice and pledged their commitment to the freedom of African peoples worldwide. Howard has produced exemplary leaders for America and the global community.

    Occupying the Chair of Alain Locke, the first African-American Rhodes Scholar and towering figure of Harlem Renaissance, was an honour and an uncommon professional opportunity that I grabbed and made the best of. Locke placed philosophy at Howard on the map of philosophical scholarship. Though Africana philosophy had not been a recognised or sought-after specialisation at his time, he anticipated its rise in the second half of the last century, with his focus on the philosophy of race and intercultural relations.

    With my departmental colleagues on board, and the encouragement of a supportive administration, I was determined to advance the cause of Africana philosophy as a tribute to the pioneering efforts of Locke, and the success of that determination remains one of the initiatives that I will always be proud of.

    Howard Philosophy department not only features an undergraduate programme in Africana philosophy, there is also an infusion of Africana content throughout the entire curriculum. My colleagues and I conclude that if philosophy must be true to itself as the search for truth, it must stand for the whole truth, and not a partial truth which celebrates the wisdom of only a fraction of humanity.

    It is near impossible to pull that off in other institutions. But Howard is special in the sense that, as an institution of higher learning, the leadership of Howard, from the beginning, understood its uniqueness and assigned to it a mission that cannot be replicated elsewhere. With “an enduring commitment to the education of underrepresented communities in America and the global community”, Howard has opened its doors to the world’s marginalised and neglected from its inception.

    The mission of Howard is unique. It prides itself as “a culturally diverse, comprehensive, research intensive and historically Black private university, (that) provides an educational experience of exceptional quality at the undergraduate, graduate and professional levels to students of high academic standing and potential, with particular emphasis on educational opportunities for Black students. Moreover, the university is dedicated to attracting and sustaining a cadre of faculty who are, through their teaching, research and service, committed to the development of distinguished, historically aware, and compassionate graduates and to the discovery of solutions to human problems in the United States and throughout the world. With an abiding interest in both domestic and international affairs, the university is committed to continuing to produce leaders for America and the global community.”

    The key is the “development of distinguished, historically aware and compassionate graduates and the discovery of solutions to human problems in the United States and throughout the world.” Howard has been faithful to this mission. Howard is the foremost university in the development of students who take seriously the issues of social justice and community service.

    It is not a coincidence that most of the major breakthroughs in the cause of social justice were initiated at Howard University. The landmark ruling on Brown versus Board of Education, which ended school segregation, had Howard School of Law faculty at its vanguard. The campaign for the freedom of Nelson Mandela and divestment from South Africa were spearheaded by Howard students and faculty. Mandela repaid this handsomely by choosing Howard as the institution to receive his first honorary degree after he regained his freedom and assumed the presidency of a free South Africa.

    More recently, Howard University students have demonstrated their fidelity to the core values of the institution with their unadulterated and unambiguous position on justice for the downtrodden in the face of police brutality.

    What will strike an African student or faculty just relocating to the United States and visiting Howard University for the first time is the commitment of the institution to Africa in all areas of its operation. In curricula offerings, in service programmes, in social activities, Africa is celebrated and venerated. There is no denying the fact that Howard students have a yearning for African original values undiluted by colonial presence and its post-colonial jaundiced vision.

    Where some African institutions neglect the study of African history and African languages, Howard is constantly adding to its offerings in these areas. From Hausa to Yoruba and Swahili, students have a variety of choices to advance their African cultural understanding. It is no surprise, as I reported two weeks ago, that Ooni Ogunwusi, Ojaja II received a red-carpet reception at the historic Blackburn Centre of the university recently.

    It was Howard University that first initiated the idea of an Alternative Spring Break (ASB), a student initiative to give back to the community. Some of these students have been volunteering their spring break for worthy causes for a long time. But shortly after the tragic Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Howard student leaders formally organised and decided to spend their Spring Break in New Orleans caring for the victims of the hurricane. Howard students have since been to Haiti, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Baltimore and the District of Columbia.

    ASB participants are self-organised. They raise their own funds. They go to inner cities to help drug addicts, assist struggling young people in elementary and high schools, and counsel HIV-AIDS patients. As one television anchor puts it, these are students that will change the world. For in the process of helping others with their time, they are also transformed, becoming more compassionate and less self-centred.

    Howard students are not in the business of asking for their individual rights. They are asking for how they can help less privileged ones in the community. That is the spirit of Howard. It is also what education is about. It is why like-minded individuals, be it faculty, administrators, staff, or students find a comfortable home at Howard and stay even when they have more attractive offers elsewhere. Howard is in the top rank of institutions that send students to the Peace Corps.

    My years at Howard have been greatly rewarding. I met here some of the most hardworking, self-less and genuinely committed individuals. In the last few years that I served in college administration, I have seen up close the milk of compassion flowing in high and low places. My faculty colleagues have been wonderful. Of those who helped me selflessly with the administration of the college, I must mention Drs. Greg Carr and Dana Williams. Dr. James Donaldson offered me the opportunity to serve and former President Ribeau concurred. I am eternally grateful.

    Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick, an outstanding surgeon and triple alumnus of Howard University, is a rare gem. His commitment is unassailable. His energy and dynamism is electrifying. His vision for Howard is inspiring. Exiting with him in charge, I am reassured that Howard University will “keep on keepin’ on” in truth and service.  HU! U Know!!!

  • CORRUPTION: Lessons Alhaji thought me…

    There are some men you come across in the course of life’s journey you wished had fathered you. Not because by the slightest of stretch, you disavow your paternity or you would rush to trade places; no.

    The reason is that as you forge character and mindsets in the searing crucibles of boyhood, adulthood and even manhood, precepts change rapidly and old perceptions are tweaked by new realities. So you are likely to come across men who are imbued with those extra qualities and impetuses which you desire and admire. And are bound to leave live-long imprints on your life.

    Such is the case of Alhaji. He is a man of awesome stature and presence. Towering above six feet and sturdy with it, he is a man of few words. He is laconic in the manner of a typical British middleclass gentleman. This perhaps arises from his long association and training from them.

    He used to be agonizingly fastidious and methodical with work – any size of work he had to do or gave you to do. He was thorough to the point of pain. For instance, he would rework an address until you, his aide get dizzy. Indeed, he worked like a clock, if not better.

    He reached the pinnacle of his career rising to be the chief executive of a bank as he seemed to have been destined to be by the sheer force of his work ethic and trove of intellect.

    It was at this point I served as his personal aide and media manager (of the bank) about 16 years ago. Alhaji thought me about the back-breaking discipline of work: the nullity of efforts without results and even the futility of results that fall short of desired targets – and yet again, all the things in-between.

    One of those days, I had informed him I had to leave the appointment as a bank manager to edit a new national newspaper. He did not initially understand why anyone would  prefer the turbulent world of journalism in Nigeria to the settled and pristine house of mammon where life is sunny and living paved in cobblestones.

    After many days when it was obvious that I really had to go, he gave me some unforgettable parting shots which have remained with me like precious pearls. From hindsight now, I think Alhaji must have notice the smoke of idealism billowing above the head of the heady young man seated before him.

    And he said to me, changing a system takes time, it is a long, painstaking and methodical effort. Things have gone bad over a long time and it will take some time to fix. I know you and your friend (Sully) are burning with the zeal to change the world but it has to be a gradual process.

    Then he dropped this clanger: “Corruption for instance, is like a forty-foot tanker laden with fuel and you have to turn it around a narrow roundabout. A wise driver must do it slowly, patiently and methodically. If he gets impatient and tries to do it hastily; of course the tanker will tip over and its combustible cargo would go up in flames and consume the entire neighbourhood including the driver.”

    This was in 2003, over 13 years ago during the reign of President Olusegun Obasanjo when corruption ravaged the land and Transparency International consistently consigned Nigeria among the league of bandit nations.

     

    New IGP and injustice against Ndigbo

    Many readers of this column will jump to the conclusion that one raises this matter of inequity because one is Igbo. But justice has no tribe. This is not the first time this matter of PMB’s injustice to Ndigbo will come up here and it won’t be the last it seems.

    A new Inspector-General of Police has been appointed concluding PMB’s rout of Ndigbo from the nation’s security establishments. This has never happened before.

    At the National Security Council meetings where crucial life and death decisions are taken, Ndigbo are not represented. This is a dangerous precedent. For a group that represents at least one quarter of the country, this is deliberate exclusionism that cannot be explained.

    We say this because in a few years hence, if power changes hands and the Northwest or Northeast is excluded in this manner, we all would have to condemn it as unjust. It is actions like these that nation fracture nations and sow seeds of perpetual discord.

    The danger of this seeming small matter of today will germinate into a big iroko tree many years after.

    Meanwhile, I congratulate the new acting IGP, Mr. Ibrahim Idris.

     

  • What makes a nation?

    What makes a nation?

    More than one hundred years after the birth of modern Nigeria, there can be no credible denial of its tottering steps to true nationhood. The ominous signs are there for the blind to see. The cacophony of divergent voices regarding its true character is too deafening to be ignored by rational minds. Assume that Boko Haram is a fanatical jihadist insurgency without an ethnic or tribal coloration, both the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) have not been ambiguous in declaring the objective of their struggle. Neither of these groups feels a sense of belonging to the Nigerian nation.

    It is a terrible mistake to think that these two groups are outliers in an otherwise assembly of patriotic groups in the Nigerian nation space. No, there has never been a time, especially since the beginning of flag independence, when this country has enjoyed a total commitment and patriotic sentiment of attachment to the nation. Instead, a good number of ethnic nationalities have taken advantage of several policy decisions to rally their groups for ethnic solidarity with various serious consequences, including violent clashes between ethnic groups.

    At every such point in the checkered history of the republic, there is a reminder of the prophetic words of the sage: Nigeria is not a nation; it is a mere geographical expression. The import of that declaration, it’s raison d’etre was to challenge the “mere geographical expression” to strive to become what it was not; to embark on the journey to nationhood. But it was twisted, and the patriot was villainized.

    The various governments, from civilian to military, have come to perceive their duty in the very narrow and mechanical sense of providing for the security and social and economic needs of the people. But there has always been a crucial need to mobilize citizens for the creation of a nation out of the motley crowd. Unfortunately, this critical need has never been met.

    The intra-party crisis in the Western Region in 1962 took such a dramatic and tragic turn because it exposed the ethnic fault lines, a further exacerbation of the pre-independence tensions. The civil war of 1967-1970 was the shameful gangrenous outcome of an untreated political wound.

    Since 1970, we have moved from crisis to crisis because we have yet to learn the lesson of those first ten years of the life of the republic with the hope of attaining nationhood. But what makes a nation?

    In 1882, only thirty-two short years before the birth modern Nigeria, Ernest Renan, the French philosopher and historian, gave an answer to this important question. In a conference presentation, Renan dismissed all potential answers, including race, language, geography, religion, ethnicity. While any or all of this may help, they do not suffice. For, a nation is “a spiritual principle resulting from the profound complexities of history. It is a spiritual family, not a group determined by the lay of the land.”

    One essential character of this spiritual family is the individual sentiments toward the entity, which they see as representing their interests, and for which they are willing to make sacrifices including, if necessary, the supreme sacrifice. Individuals see themselves as belonging to a history that reaches back to generations before them. They are proud of the labor of their past heroes and willing to contribute to the future life of the entity. It is this voluntary self-abnegation, this dialectic of individual and community being, this remembrance of the past and witnessing to the present, that constitutes the nation.

    Renan suggests that a nation “is a great solidarity constituted by the feeling of sacrifices made and those that one is still disposed to make. It presupposes a past but is reiterated in the present by a tangible fact: consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life.” He then introduced what has become a popular metaphor: a nation’s existence is a daily plebiscite, just as an individual’s existence is a perpetual affirmation of life.”

    Nations are modern. Tribes and empires are ancient. There is something paradoxical about the origin of nations and the Renanian account. Historically, the Germanic invasions of Europe facilitated the creation of nations, including France, England, Italy, Spain, etc. But the nations so created had their distinct characters, independent of, or in spite of the character of their invaders. It helped that the Germanic invaders took over the language of their victims; that the conquerors adopted a new religion shared by their victims; and that conqueror and conquered intermarried. With the virtue of forgetting and forgiving, the brutality of the conquests soon gave way to the molding of nations.

    Nigeria does not share the history of France or England. Rather, the story of some of its ethnic nationalities, the Yoruba, and Hausa-Fulani especially, is closer to the story of the founding of those modern nations. Compare the Oduduwa invasion and hegemony with the Germanic invasion, and you get the founding of the Yoruba kingdom and its spread from Ile-Ife to Benin Republic. Similarly, the Fulani invasion of the Habe kingdoms and its expansion to Ilorin is noteworthy.

    We may not know how each of these kingdoms would have ended up if there was no invasion by Britain and the southern and northern protectorates were not amalgamated in 1914. We know, however, that apart from stopping the emergence of genuine nations in this hemisphere, British invasion created a new entity to which it did not devote the kind of attention and sacrifice that the Germanic invaders devoted to it at its infancy.

    Instead of welding the new entity together in a way that promotes unity and generates a common purpose and sense of belonging, Britain deliberately divided in order to conquer and maintain her stranglehold. Therefore, rather than creating and molding a new nation, Britain created several more nations. The seed of that deliberate strategy did not fail to germinate.

    Whereas the memory of a historic past, of ancestral sacrifices, of common suffering and common joy are integral to the spiritual principle that constitutes the nation, we have a multiplicity of these in the various constituents of the country. Whether it is the memory of the civil war, or the memory of June 12, or that of the Ogoni 9, we are not short of memories. But not everyone identifies with each of these memories and there lies the challenge. We do not appear to have a national memory that serves as a unifying force. Even the memory of anti-colonial struggle had its divisive facets.

    If memory does not unify, or if it serves to divide, then we need the mental attitude of forgetfulness. It is hard but as the Yoruba elders put it: those who don’t learn how to forget past palaver will live their lives in solitude.

    But there is more in our circumstance to worry the nationalist. Many now have problem forgetting the past and joining others towards the writing of the Nigerian history as a nation that we want it to be. They feel that at every point they are still being reminded of past atrocities even when they try to forget. They feel like second-tier citizens or aliens. Whether in reaction to policy decision and implementation, appointments and deployments, a feeling of helplessness and betrayal is hardly a positive factor in instilling the national consciousness that is needed for nation-building.

    Absent these conditions, it is difficult to cultivate that other factor in the creation and sustenance of the national soul. The first, which we touched upon above is memory. The second is the “desire to live together, the desire to continue to invest in the heritage that we have jointly received” as Renan put it.

    A present desire to live together is predicated upon the perceived justice of present arrangements. It falls upon the political leaders, therefore, to make justice and fairness, compassion and empathy, forthrightness and the fear of God, their watchwords. Even at this late hour, Nigeria can be a nation of men and women, desirous of embracing its imperfect present while vowing their contributions to its glorious future. The alternative is too scary to contemplate.

  • The Hijab saga in Osun State

    The Hijab saga in Osun State

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

     

    Preamble

    Quite a number of ardent readers of ‘The Message’ must have anxiously waited for today’s article having been familiar with the writing style of this columnist. ‘The Message’ is well known for its currency, promptness and research especially on matters relating to justice and logical deductions. Thus, writing on the controversy surrounding the wearing of hijab in Osun State’s schools by Muslim female pupils cannot be strange at this time. The issue has generated so much of unwarranted heat that only a few people will wonder if decorum has any role to play in religion at all in this case. And the Press which is supposed to be the Fourth Estate of the Realm is not helping the matter as men and women of the pen profession have shamelessly turned themselves into the judiciary passing judgments on the pages of newspapers or radio and television stations.

    As expected, this article is about the unnecessary hyperbolic brouhaha going on in Osun State over a court judgment on the baseless controversy surrounding the wearing of hijab by the State’s secondary school Muslim female pupils as ruled by the court of law. The brouhaha became ridiculously laughable when one looks at the caliber of people involved and the role they are playing in spite of their self-acclaimed education and religious leadership.

     

    VP’s Comment

    Nigeria’s Vice-President, Professor (Pastor) Yemi Osibajo SAN, was, as usual, eloquent, last Monday (June 20, 2016) while commenting at a conference held in Abuja on law and religious freedom in Nigeria. He said that law should not be enacted to hinder religious freedom. His Excellency was apparently speaking in reference to the controversial bill seeking to control the propagation of religions against provocation and fanaticism in Kaduna State.

    By inference that comment can equally be applicable to the situation in Osun State where the State leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) is taking the law into its own hands with crude impunity against the court judgment on the case. Instead of contesting the judgment in a higher court, if it finds it objectionable, as the Lagos Muslim Community did in a similar case two years ago, Osun State CAN decided to constitute itself into a counter court with little regard for decorum expected of religious leadership.

    That situation has elicited many logical questions which would have been raised and answered in this article but a thorough and sincere stakeholder has relieved yours sincerely of that trouble in an article published by Premier Times of June 18, 2016. Excerpts from the article written by one Kikiowo Ileowo (a Christian) and entitled “Much Ado about Hijab Wearing to Schools In the State Of Osun” are presented verbatim here as follows:

    “Much has been said in recent times about the wearing of Hijab and Church robes to school by pupils in public schools in the State of Osun. However, what has apparently been missing in the discussion is the availability of facts and logic, and for discussants to analyze the true situation of things before making their opinions public.

    Before going to the crux of the matter, let me lay a background to the true situation of things with regard to the recent hullaballoo amongst organizations that purport to represent the interest of diverse religious groups in the State of Osun. We have Christians represented by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN); Muslims, represented by the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN); the government, led by Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, and other interested parties in the case.

    The religious conflict got to a crescendo last week when an Osun State High Court judge, Justice JideFalola, delivered a judgment in favour of a case instituted by the MSSN against the state government on the right of female Muslim students in state public schools to wear Hijab to their various classes. The judge declared the wearing of Hijab in public schools by female Muslim pupils as legal and appropriate.

     

    Litigation

    “The Muslims had dragged the state government headed by Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola to court over the refusal of some ‘Christian’ public schools to allow their female students wear the Hijab. After the judgment, CAN Osun State Chapter instructed Christian pupils to wear church robes to school if the state government dared implement the judgment.

    To cut the long story short, some five students, following the instruction of the CAN leaders, wore church robes to school this week. In fact, the CAN leaders followed the pupils to schools to make sure they weren’t turned back for wearing their church robes (never mind, they didn’t carry out the action over the failure of some Christian pupils in their examinations).

    Interestingly, a similar suit by the Muslim group in Lagos failed as the judge, Justice Modupe Onyeabor, ruled that the prohibition of the wearing of Hijab over school uniforms within and outside the premises of public schools was not discriminatory. According to her, the ban does not violate Sections 38 and 42 of the 1999 Constitution as claimed by the plaintiffs. The Judge also said Section 10 of the Constitution made Nigeria a secular state and that government must maintain neutrality at all times. Justice Onyeabor held that the government had a duty to preserve the secular nature of the institutions concerned as argued by the then Lagos State Solicitor-General, Mr. Lawal Pedro (SAN). Muslims in Lagos have since proceeded to the Court of Appeal where it is yet to be determined. Why should the case of Osun CAN be different? Aren’t they supposed to be the salt and light of the earth? Aren’t they supposed to be leading by example? Rather than take the legal route, CAN in the state of Osun resorted to self-help, asking students to disobey school rules by wearing unapproved uniforms. The Christians based their argument on one point; the Muslims cannot be allowed to wear hijab in ‘Christian schools”.

     

    Authority for Taking over Schools

    “By Edict No. 14 of 1975, the then military government took over private/missionary schools because, according to available records, “the owners charged exorbitant fees and did not give quality education to students. School buildings were of substandard structures, unqualified teachers were employed, teaching and learning materials were inadequate, while classrooms were over-crowded.”

    Muslims have been wearing Hijab to schools for a very long time. As a Christian, it doesn’t hinder my faith or ability to learn. If the CAN leadership has a problem with it, they should approach the law courts, rather than embark on actions that could cause disaffection amongst the peace loving people of Osun.

    That was the summary of the situation of privately owned schools that prompted the takeover of all such schools in 1975. It should be mentioned here however that the findings of the Western State Government in 1975 was not at variance with, but a replica of one common feature of the reports of the various Educational Review Committees set up at different times in the old three main regions of Nigeria. These include the Oldman’s Report in the old North, Dike’s Report in the old East, and Banjo’s Report in the Western Region. The reports of the various committees intensely reflected the acute immobility that had characterised the inherited colonial system that involved prejudice, high handedness, religious discrimination in pupils’ enrolment, staff recruitment and the general administration of schools.

     

    Validation Decree

    “In fact, the “Takeover of schools Validation Decree” of 1977, which still remains in force, states that, “the hold of government on those schools has afforded the government to be able to provide sustained education to the mass majority of the Nigerian public at an affordable cost, without RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION AND BIAS”.

     

    Connotation

    What this means is that there are no Christian or Muslim schools in Osun. There are only PUBLIC schools. The government back in 1976 resolved to keep the names given by the missionaries. That is why you have public schools bearing names such as Ede Muslim Grammar School, Baptist High School, etc. The schools may bear religious names, but they belong to the government/public. It is being financed with public funds. Most of the schools now wear new looks, and have modern learning equipment paid for by ALL citizens of Osun, which include Christians, Muslims, Traditional Worshippers, Agnostics and Atheists alike.

    Therefore, the schools Christians are laying claim to are government schools. They were acquired from diverse sources: religious bodies, individuals, communities, groups, etc in 1975. That was 41 years ago. But for the five students of Baptist High School, Adeeke, Iwo, many Christian pupils in Osun ignored the CAN leadership, toeing the path of decorum and civility. In truth, the schools compound where the orchestrated drama took place housed three schools with a combined population of about 3000 students and we saw no other student wear unapproved garments to school.

    Thank God other citizens did not take the law into their own hands. Imagine if the traditional worshippers – many of whom are in abundance in Osun – decide to start wearing traditional robes such as Bante, Ifunpa, Ofi, etc. Or imagine, for a minute, adherents of Osun religion demanding the wearing of white uniforms only, with white beads to school? Or, children of Sango worshippers, in another instance, insisting on wearing red caps to school, with earrings in the ears of their boys?

    Conclusion

    “Muslims have been wearing Hijab to schools for a very long time. As a Christian, it doesn’t hinder my faith or ability to learn. If the CAN leadership has a problem with it, they should approach the law courts, rather than embark on actions that could cause disaffection amongst the peace loving people of Osun”.

    • Kikiowo Ileowo is the Chief Strategist at Revamp Media.

  • In Search of a ‘Yusuf’

    Preamble

    This world is a dramatic entity mysteriously coded in parables. Every living thing therein sees it and relates to it according to its own nature of existence. It takes history to decode it only after the actors might have left the stage. Who are we? Where are we coming from? And where are we going from here? Those are some of the questions which all rational human beings should ask themselves from time to time.

    But, in Nigeria, such questions have been rendered irrelevant because the circumstances of life in this retrogressive country have changed the priorities of her citizens. The only question now in vogue, which everybody seems to concentrate upon is this:: ‘what am I getting from this?’ Hmmm! We live in a material world without any material substance.

    That very question is the real drama that has permanently engaged the attention of Nigerians since the commencement of the fourth republic. It is the question that crowns money as the king of the world. It is the question that fosters greed and fetters humanity to the stake of Satan. It is the question that presents mirage to man as the only substance worthy of pursuit. Incidentally, however, no answer to that all-time question has ever proffered any solution to any human problem. Such an answer would rather confirm the ephemerality of this world.

     

    Hope or Despair?

    What can we say of a man who fixes his eyes on the sun but does not see it? Instead, he sees a chorus of flaming seraphim announcing a paroxysm of despair. That is the parable of the country called Nigeria. Like the Israelis of Moses’ time, Nigerians have become gypsies wandering aimlessly and wallowing in abject poverty 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? We have land in abundance, not in terms of size alone but also in terms of agrarian soil and rich vegetation. At least over 77 million hectares of land is said to be arable in Nigeria. Out of this, only about 34 million hectares was reportedly being cultivated for various agricultural activities including husbandry some years ago. This has even dwindled to less than 25 million square hectares as more and more rural youths keep migrating to cities and towns for imaginary greener pastures.

     

    Bountiful Blessings

    We are blessed with rainfalls that water our plants from the sky and graze our animals to satisfaction. We are endowed with variety of nourishing food crops enough to feed us from generation to generation without importing from anywhere. The Qur’an testifies to this in chapter 80 thus:

    “Let man reflect on the food he eats; how ‘We’ pour down the rain in torrents and cleave the earth asunder; how ‘We’ bring forth the corn, the grapes, the fresh vegetables, the olive, the palm products, the thickets, the fruit-trees and the green pasture for you and for your cattle to delight in…” Allah’s favour is regular and incessant. We cannot deny it.

    In addition to the aforementioned, we have energetic and dedicated work force that is married to the farm land in Nigeria despite all odds. We also have intellectual brains that are capable of engaging in research work days and nights to ensure agricultural improvement of our country.

    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.

     

    Dearth of Leadership

    What we have consistently lacked is a responsible government that should care about our foremost heritage which is agriculture. That food is becoming a threat to Nigerians today is purely due to naivety of the past governments especially in the disastrous past 16 years of the so-called democratic dispensation from 1999 to 2015. That misfortune started when the first shot at the Presidency in 1999 was entrusted to a parochial ‘prisoner’ who had lost contact with the actual reality of the modern life.

    On his assumption of office in that year, some die hard Nigerian optimists saw him as a reincarnate of the Biblical Yusuf (Joseph) of the Egypt of yore who could rescue Nigeria from an impending economic scourge. But no sooner had he assumed office as President than Nigerians realized that the man who was thought to be a modern day Yusuf coming from the prison to transform the dream of Nigeria into reality was actually a Mathew without focus.

    As a farmer that he claimed to be, before incarceration, he had been expected to act like Chairman Mao of China who started the revolution of that country with agricultural self-sufficiency. But this Mathew eventually confirmed that a man cannot give what he does not possess. Thus, with his style of governance, he proved that he was never tutored in good governance and decency. Those who imposed him on Nigeria have since openly confessed their calamitous error while expressing a belated regret even as are now liking their bleeding fingers with internal agony. Today, Nigeria is worse than what she was two decades ago.

     

    Compounded Tragedy

    The South West governors of that time and their South East counterparts also did not help the matter. Rather than focusing on agriculture which was the natural occupational endowment of their regions, those gold diggers preferred to depend on oil boom largess coming to them from the federal government through the so-called allocation revenue sharing. To them, such a quicker way of making money was more beneficial than investing in agriculture which could only yield results perhaps years after they might have left office.

    In Nigeria, the cost of running government alone is enough to render the   country bankrupt. What were we doing with about 40 federal ministers and scores of Presidential Senior Special Advisers as well a retinue of Special Assistants when even America with her huge economic resource, large but effective population and adequate financial wherewithal had only about a dozen ministers?

    Besides, what informs the idea of the so-called constituency allowances for legislators running into billions of naira, at the federal and state levels, especially at a time when innocent women and children were crying for food which is a foremost necessity of life?

     

    Evidence of Hunger

    No one could think about two decades ago that artificial hunger would be added to the abysmal level of poverty in Nigeria despite the unprecedented rise in price of oil in the international market during those wasted years. However, with the lotus eaters in government, Nigeria became an artful trick adopted to bamboozle the populace into blind submission. The propaganda in the 1980s, spearheaded by a government agency called Mass Mobilization for Self Reliance, Social Justice and Economic Recovery (MAMSER), established by the self-styled military President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, and headed by Professor Jerry Gana was almost hypnotizing. That Agency’s slogan of “Food and Shelter for All in the Year 2000” rented the air with wide reverberation but in the end, nothing came out of it. Rather, some new multi-millionaires suddenly emerged from the smart project. That slogan was to later change in the 1990s to: “Vision 2010” with loud brouhaha under the dark goggled dictatorship of Sani Abacha. And when year 2010 began to approach under the Presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo, the slogan again changed to: ‘Vision 202020 in which Nigeria was deceptively envisioned to become one of the 20 most buoyant economies in the world. Both of that vision and its initiators have now naturally and quietly fizzled out into hopelessness.

     

    Game of Deception

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

    In a report of the Food and Agricultural Organization some years back, about 300 Nigerians were said to be dying of hunger daily. Only God knows what that figure has risen to become now. Yet, rather than reacting to that sad news practically by devising a policy of rescuing the downtrodden people from the scourge of poverty, our government turned deaf ear. Rather, it continued to assure the populace that Nigeria would soon become one of the biggest economies in the world even as the easy money accruing from our petroleum resources was being partly stolen brazenly and partly shared monthly among states and political cronies without any benefit to the masses.

     

    Yar’Adua’s Tenure

    By some actions taken during his tenure, President Musa Yar’Adua of the blessed memory remains commendable for showing the example of governance with human face and human heart. He regulated the importation of food items and suspended tariffs on importation of essencial food items to the relief of all and sundry. He also released grains from the national silos to check inflation and pumped N400 billion into the economy for the purpose of creating about 10 million jobs then. He also granted unconditional amnesty to the then South-South agitators and thereby opened way for negotiation with them in the interest of peace and harmony.

    Although, such measures were far from being adequate for a country which was aspiring to become one of the biggest economies in 2020, the move was generally seen as a good beginning of a hopeful future. However, as soon as Yar’Adua died, all progressive steps were suspended and the national treasury was thrown open for audacious thieves to scoop upon with impunity.

     

    The Jonathan Years

    Now, it is evident that no miracle could have yielded any success based on a ramshackle foundation laid down for Nigerian economy by a Mathew (from the prison) who, as President, could hardly reason beyond the siege mentality of the prison yard from where he had emerged. If Goodluck Jonathan who succeeded Yar’Adua as President had sincerely meant well for Nigeria he would have known that the vessel which took this country’s Napoleon to the proverbial island of Elba was incapable of conveying Nigeria to the Cape of Good Hope.

    Yusuf (Joseph), the son of Ya’qub (Jacob), did not know that he could have any solution to the then fundamental problem of Egypt. But the accident of history never ceases to play itself out. Without Yusuf, only Allah knows what the history of Egypt would have been today. And without a Pharaoh’s dream of drought, the story of Yusuf would have been totally different from what we now know of it.

     

    Egypt of the 1970s

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

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

    Uganda for Instance

    Less than three decades ago, Uganda, a sub-Sahara African country, found herself in the position of Egypt. A colossal drought broke out in that country killing thousands of people and virtually wiping out the entire cattle business in the country. No Pharaoh had any dreamed premonition and no Yusuf was in a prison to translate any dream into a solution.

    What the Ugandan government did to find a solution was to reset the country’s agricultural focus. Rather than concentrating on tilling the already sapped land and rearing the cattle, which drought had eroded, a new focus was brought to bear. Uganda took to commercial ‘bee farming’ as a relieving alternative. The seriousness which the government of that country attached to the new focus was such that Uganda became a leading country in the production and exportation of honey and other bee products to Europe and the United States.

     

    Nigeria’s Situation Today

    Today, Nigeria is not afflicted by drought or famine. Neither is she engaged in any uncontrollable war. Yet, the fear in vogue is hunger compounded by insecurity. How this country arrived at such a deadly scourge is irrelevant for now. What is relevant is how to get out of it. Like Egypt of yore, Nigeria needed a ‘Yusuf’ to unravel the mystery surrounding the dream that brought this scourge about. With the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as President, that ‘Yusuf’ seems to be here. It is only left to Nigerians to learn a lesson from the Egyptian example by cooperating with the current government as the Egyptians of yore did with Yusuf who eventually solved their problem. Chief Audu Ogbe is now the Minister of Agriculture. Will he be the long awaited Yusuf?

    It is in the interest of those in government, especially the legislators who are most active in sharing public funds, to let the national wealth spread across board legitimately if only to avoid the current Lagos situation where every house has become a prison in which the occupants are self-jailed voluntarily. To ignore the rule of law and shun justice in a land blessed with milk and honey is to cultivate trouble with insecurity in all its ramifications.

     

    Observation

    Where people are well educated and conscious of their rights; where they perceive wealth as a divine privilege and not an exclusive right of any group; where they see themselves as qualified but denied their legitimate entitlements; nobody can consign them to ignominy indefinitely. They will react in no uncertain terms. That was what obtained in the recent past which paved way for insurgency. It must not be allowed to continue. Let Nigeria grow from a country into a nation that we may all be proud to be her citizens. “….God does not change the situation of a community until such a community is ready for change”…. Q. 13:11

  • Ode to Beauty Haram

    Expresso is back. After about a six-month interregnum, your award-winning column returns. Nigeria is in the harmattan of her nationhood; a time of despair and unbelief perhaps too tenuous for column keeping. It is a time reason has given way to anger, guns and gunboats. Our docile and acquiescent pasts have today brought us culminations of a bitter kind. But is this by any chance denouement?

    The above-titled article was published on May 2nd, 2014. Ardent readers of this column will remember it. But the truth is that it was written about six months earlier under the title: “The beautiful thief.” It was stuff from the furnace of a columnist’s deviant umbrage at the wanton pillage of the treasury back then. It was irreverent and explicit, taking liberty on the dowager, Diezani Alison-Madueke. Of course that was pure ‘defamation’ and no responsible editor-in-chief would let it run. Evidence was at loggerheads with proof and in this trade, what you can’t prove you must spike regardless of the weight of circumstantial evidence. So the original piece had to be reworked and re-jigged and fettered with the cold chains of nuance.

    Diezani, the powerful oil minister in the last administration has not been convicted still but the revelations emanating from all quarters are as mind-twisting as we all conjectured. We knew she had her hands almost six feet deep into the till and that she was impunity cast in the mold of a beautiful woman. But we all watched helplessly as our commonwealth was being voraciously gobbled by those charged with their keep.

    She defied the National Assembly and railroaded the judiciary. Of course the presidency was her plaything. The EFCC now acting up was blind-sided and the ICPC was busy chasing petty civil servants and drawing the fine line between stealing and corruption. Meanwhile Lady D was on the rampage! Her N3.58 billion ($18m) home in Abuja, was only discovered by the EFCC recently. And her swaggering allies, Jide Omokore and Kola Aluko, did they just accumulate an alleged $1.8 billion assets today?

    More important, has the NNPC, the cove of corruption, been rid of all the conditions that bred Diezani? Not at all, the sleaze probably goes on, perhaps on a lesser scale… we must begin to re-imagine our processes and rethink our methods… now the flash back.

    ODE TO BEAUTY HARAM: Beauty is transcendental. It is providence’s final testament to man’s elevated status. Beauty, no matter the form or configuration, is imbued with the divine: a bougainvillea tree in glorious bloom; a stream coursing merrily  through the country side; the setting sun in blazing orange radiance over white-caped kilimanjaro  and the mother of all beauties – a sculpted damsel set down all so delicately among earthlings by our creator.

    Yes, womanhood is the mother of all beauties ever created because it is the only kind of beauty with fluttering, seductive eyes. It is through femininity that our creator found a collocation between man and celestial beings.

     

    To the grand old man of Law @ 85

    This is to Professor Obi Benjamin Nwabueze, (SAN) who turned 85 recently. A lawyer, university teacher, administrator, statesman and patriot, he is probably the most luminous legal mind of his time and certainly the most prolific having authored no fewer than two dozen books in constitutionalism and constitutional law.

    Just a sampler of his sturdy intellectual stature: starting from 1962 he taught law in England, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland and Ghana. He also helped draft the constitution of some of these countries. In Nigeria, he left his imprint at the universities of Lagos, Nsukka, Ahmadu Bello, Ife, Jos, Anambra State University and the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs.

    Among the first laureates of the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) Nwabueze’s life of brilliant scholarship, industry and zealous national service probably has no comparison today.

  • Development matters

    Development matters

    His Imperial Majesty, Ooni Adeyeye Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, made history on June 15, 2016 as the first Yoruba monarch to visit Howard University Washington, DC. in recent memory. In his honor, a symposium on Culture, Healing and Development was organized by the Departments of Philosophy and Mathematics, with Dr. Kola Abimbola as the Chief Organizer. In a moving ceremony, Provost Anthony Wutoh and Dean Bernard Mair welcomed Kabiyesi to the University on behalf of President Wayne A. I. Frederick who was out of town. My contribution to the symposium, which was keynoted by Professor Wande Abimbola and Kabiyesi himself, is the subject of today’s column.

    The 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Report, defines sustainable development as “development which meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This definition raises five important points.

    First, the emphasis is on “sustainability” which requires consideration for the future generation. Second, this consideration for the future generation is African. A typical African will refrain from jeopardizing the future of his or her children and grandchildren.

    Third, however, sustainable development appears to have, over the years, come to represent the struggle to protect the environment on the fear that if our human actions or inactions negatively impact the environment, we are collectively endangering the future of our grandchildren.

    But Africa is in a dire shape. The resources available to her people are miniscule compared with those available to the West. The present generation of Africans in general, and Nigeria, in particular, are struggling to survive the harshness of the lottery of life that is their lot.

    Africa has mineral resources and fossil fuel deposits which others have exploited at the detriment of the owners. African land is easy target for dumping of toxic wastes from the West, which unsuspecting landowners negotiate to keep for money to feed their children and grandchildren. But what they bury on their land today will germinate in the not-too-distant future to harm those same children.

    The fourth point is no less troubling. If we shift the focus of sustainability from the future of the planet, an imperative which many in the wealthy West still resist, and concentrate instead on sustainability as preserving resources for our children and grandchildren, Africans are still in an uncomfortable position. The poverty that many who exist at starvation level endure in the present is so evident that there is little or no expectation that they are even capable of leaving anything for the future of their children. As in the case of the Widow of Zarephath, their concern is to fetch the firewood to cook their last meal.

    Finally, on the matter of sustainable development, there is always going to be outliers even in Africa, and some of these are not necessarily positive. For even in the midst of the hopeless desert of resources, there are oases of stupendous wealth, many of them acquired at the back of the poor masses. This is the group that Growth theories of development favor, the ones who benefit directly from the corrupting influence of capital and political patronage.

    How about focusing on development as meeting the basic needs of the people for, say, nutrition, health, education, and shelter? The purpose of development must be to provide the people with the opportunity to live meaningful lives. This requires moving away from abstract accounts of gross national product, rebased economy, and similar jargons, to concrete and specific issues of the needs for the survival and flourishing of human beings.

    Assume that we focus on basic needs and the sustainability of development that makes basic needs the center of its approach. We must then ask the question: What matters in the matter of achieving sustainable development goals for Nigeria? Fortunately, Nigeria is not alone. She belongs to the comity of nations, which collectively sets standards for acceptable human interaction and relationships. Since what affects one part impacts others directly or indirectly, we have to abide by the treaties that we sign and the resolutions that we adopt.

    On September 25, 2015, the United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development, in which Nigeria was an active participant, adopted seventeen goals for sustainable development, the top eight of which are significant for fulfilled life.

    The top eight goals are to end poverty in all its forms everywhere; end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture; ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages; ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all; achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls; ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all; ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all; and promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

    The United Nations is as strong as its weakest member. It cannot, and it is not expected to, take over the reins of power in any of its member nations to implement the resolutions that members adopt. It relies on the ability of each of its members to do that. Therefore, when one goal expresses the imperative of ending “poverty in all its forms everywhere”, what it actually does is to express its desire that every member state must make this a goal with a timeline of 15 years, to 2030. It is the call of duty and responsibility. So, what really matters and what does it require on the part of Nigeria?

    What matters are visionary leadership, ethical consciousness, and strong institutions. I recall my observation back in August 2015 that “a strong and selfless leader with a vision will see through the cracks, rise above the fray and inspire the entire nation, young and old, men and women, of all faiths and all backgrounds, with personal example of hard work, self-discipline and transparent incorruptibility. He will not be distracted by perennial nay-sayers, or partisan critics because he has his eyes set on the prize of national advancement. He will go for the necessary restructuring of the economy and the polity, and investment in human development, as the sine qua non of transformation.” I still believe that leadership matters in the case of Nigeria.

    Ethics also matters, and the major culprit in our development-deficit circumstance is the ego which has become the be-all and end-all in all areas of our lives. Where everyone only looks out for self and no one worries about the collectivity without which the self cannot be, the result is an inadvertent annihilation of the self. More seriously, however, where the focus of the self is the greedy lust for material possession, regardless of considerations of desert, it is easy to see the inescapability of a Hobbesian anarchy of the kind that has characterized the republic thus far.

    Finally, institution matters. Strong and purposeful leaders will create institutions that will outlast them, and ensure that their legacy of discipline and moral probity is immune to destabilization by forces of retrogression. We lack strong institutions because we lack strong and visionary leaders.

    For lacking visionary leadership, ethical consciousness, and strong institutions, Nigeria has yet to make the expected impact in the matter of sustainable development. Yet we have the tools and the potentials. The sleeping giant just has to wake up from slumber.

    Among the tools are traditional ethical and value orientation, including the values of truthfulness, hard work, community and fellow-feeling. Every nationality group in Nigeria has moral resources from its pre-colonial past to dig into and deploy for sustainable development.

    We also have the National Ethics, embedded in the “The Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy” clause of the 1999 Constitution, which includes discipline, integrity, dignity of labour, social justice, religious tolerance, self-reliance, and patriotism. We only need to worker harder to activate these in our national life to secure the future.

    Ooni Ogunwusi has started well in the matter of traditional leadership with the various steps that he has taken. I pray for an abundance of perseverance, consistency, and longevity for him.

  • Mirror of Life

    Preamble

    Here is the month in which the revelation of the Qur’an began. The revelation of the sacred Book in this sacred month called Ramadan is quite symbolic as it confers the entire habitat of human existence. It is the Qur’an that enables humanity to know the significance of the month called Ramadan. Thus, the relationship between the Qur’an and Ramadan is as symbiotic as the one between the egg and the hen. It is difficult for the one to claim an origin that is different from that of the other. Ramadan brings the Qur’an into life just as the Qur’an gives Ramadan its divine identity.

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

     

    Revelation

    The revelation of this sacred ‘Book’ to mankind through an unlettered desert Arab, Muhammad (SAW) the son of Abdullah and Aminah, began in 610 CE. It lasted 22 years and three months (12 years in Makkah and12 years plus three months in Madinah). The book contains 114 chapters and 6236 verses (not 6666 verses often erroneously quoted by most Nigerian Muslim clerics). Of these 114 chapters, 86 were revealed in Makkah and 28 in Madinah. But the 28 chapters revealed in Madinah constitute two thirds of the Book. And this is because the Makkah chapters are short and rhythmic while those of Madinah are long and prose-like.

    Although the Qur’an was revealed orally, its writing began as soon as its revelations commenced. The writing was however done on primitive materials like wood, animal hide, back of trees, tablets of rock and others of the like which were then readily available. It was only a year (633 C.E) after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), that those writings were rendered into a book form not in a foreign language as in the case of the Bible but in Arabic which was its original language of revelation. And one of the wonders in documenting the Qur’anic revelations is the classification of those revelations into chapters and verses by the Prophet himself despite his unlettered status.

     

    Manner of Presentation

    The manner of presenting the Qur’anic revelations is simple and direct. It employs neither artifice nor conventional poses. Its main appeal is to man’s intellect, feelings and imagination. It does not only touch the anecdotes of previous Prophets and nations in different ages and even the accounts of earlier revelations, it also covers the entire period of human existence from the beginning of creation to the very last Day of Judgment.

    Besides the above, the Qur’an also gives insight into some natural phenomena like spherical objects and revolution of the earth (Q. 39:5) the formation of rain (Q. 30:48); the fertilization of the wind (Q. 15:22); the revolution of the sun, the moon and the planets in their fixed orbits (Q. 36:29-38); the aquatic origin of all creatures (Q. 21:30); the duality of the sex of plants and other creatures (Q. 36:35); the collective life of animals (Q.6:38); the mode of life of the bees (Q. 16:69) and the successive phases of the child in the mother’s womb (Q. 22:5 & 23:14). It is only in the Qur’an, of all revealed Books that all these can be found. Or can anybody point out anything similar to these in any other revealed book?

    Yet, the purpose of this Qur’an is not to teach history, astronomy, philosophy or sciences. It is rather to guide mankind in their pursuit of knowledge towards achieving the benefits of each of these fields throughout human odyssey.

     

    Language of the Qur’an

    Most Muslim clerics recite the Qur’an in its original language (Arabic) without understanding what they are reciting because they do not speak that language.  Some read it as a means of solving their imaginary problems thus taking the Qur’an for a charm which must yield result if manipulated towards their whims. The Qur’an is not meant for that purpose. It is rather the manual of life for man by which he lives his daily life and conducts his daily affairs.

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

     

    Proof of Originality

    That the Qur’an is the only revealed ‘BOOK’ in the world today that has consistently retained the originality of both its language and contents for over 1400 years is enough a testimony to the proof of its divine origin. That also confirms not only the genuineness of the prophet-hood of Muhammad (SAW) as a Messenger of Allah but also the lucidity of Arabic as one of the oldest languages in the world today. Thus, just as there can be no proof of the identity of a messenger without the authenticity of the message so can there be  no proof of the genuineness of the prophetic mission of Muhammad (SAW) outside the proof of the originality of the Qur’an.

     

    Proof of Divine Origin

    It cannot be strange to see anybody who perceives the immortal God in the image of a mortal being to perceive Islam as a mere dogma like any other religion. It is such people who keep asking for the proof of Qur’anic revelation as if other revelations before the Qur’an do not need proof. In reason and logic, asking for the proof of the Qur’an after all the manifest evidences in its contents is like asking the sun to prove its rays. However, it is the nature and character of unbelievers to deny the truth and refute the obvious. But does it really bother the sun that a blind man denies its existence? Or can a brook be bothered in anyway if the herds boycott its water?

     

    Features of the Qur’an

    Qur’an leaves no aspect of life untouched just as it leaves no secret unrevealed. Problems and solutions; history and lessons; crimes and penalties; justice and righteousness; discipline and courage; friendship and trust; leadership and governance; education and methodology; marriage and divorce; widowhood and orphanage; childhood and inheritance; poverty and wealth; opinion and logic; facts and figures; life and death; darkness and light; war and peace; leadership and power; angel, jinn and man; heavens and earth; all these and many other  matters relating to man and his environment form the subjects of discussion and guidance in the ‘Divine Diary of Life called the Qur’an’.

     

    Profile of the Qur’an

    The revelation of this Book to mankind through an unlettered desert Arab, Muhammad (SAW) son of Abdullah and Aminah, began in the month of Ramadan in year 610 CE. It lasted about 23 years (10 years in Makkah and12 years plus a few months in Madinah). The book contains 114 chapters and 6246 verses (not 6666 verses often announced by most Imams and Alfas). Any individual can verify this by checking the number of verses in each chapter and adding them together. It does not take more than one hour to do this.

    Of the 114 chapters contained in the Qur’an, 86 were revealed in Makkah and 28 in Madinah. But the 28 chapters revealed in Madinah constitute two thirds of the entire Sacred Book. And this is because the Makkah chapters are short and rhythmic while those of Madinah are long and prose-like.

     

    Writing of the Qur’an

    Although the Qur’an was revealed orally, its writing began almost immediately the revelations started. The writing was however done on primitive materials like wood, animal hides, back of trees and others of the like which were then readily available. It was only much later, after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), that those writings were brought together and rendered into a book form.

    One of the wonders of recording the Qur’an in writing is the classification of those revelations into chapters and verses by the Prophet himself despite his Inability to read and write.

    The manner of presenting the Qur’anic revelations is simple and direct. It employs neither artifice nor conventional poses. Its main appeal is to man’s intellect, feelings and imagination. It does not only touch the anecdotes of the past Prophets in different ages and nations as well as the accounts of earlier revelations, it also covers the period from the beginning of creation to the very last Day of Judgment and beyond.

     

    Qur’anic References

    Not only that, Al-Qur’an also gives insight into some natural phenomena like sphericity and revolution of the earth (Q. 39:5) the formation of rain (Q. 30:48); the fertilization of the wind (Q. 15:22); the revolution of the sun, the moon and the planets in their fixed orbits (Q. 36:29-38); the aquatic origin of all creatures (Q. 21:30); the duality of the sex of plants and other creatures (Q. 36:35); the collective life of animals (Q.6:38); the mode of life of the bees (Q. 16:69) and the successive phases of the child in the mother’s womb (Q. 22:5 & 23:14). Yet, the purpose of this Book is not to teach history, astronomy, philosophy or sciences.

     

    Qur’anic Lessons

    In this glorious Book are practical lessons such as the great deluge, the cataclysm of Sodom and Gomorrah, the defeat of Jalut (Goliath) by Daud (David), the doom of the tyrannical Pharaoh, and similar catastrophes that had afflicted iniquitous people of the past. All these are taught to man through the Qur’an that he (man) might know how to re-assess himself continually and properly akin to the guidance of Allah.

    Apart from the facts mentioned above, many other devices were adopted from time to time, by Allah, to remind man of his mortality and to see him through a successful sojourn on earth. But unfortunately, man has always been blind to genuine divine guidance just as he has been deaf to warnings and deviant of reason as much as he has persistently been insensitive to rightful thoughts even as he remains unreceptive to positive ideas. In his choice to form freemasonry with Satan, man has ignorantly and continuously strayed into a quagmire of sorrow. Taking Satan for his best friend, he refuses to use the long spoon with which he is provided through the Qur’an by Allah to dine with the damned Lucifer.

     

    Testimony

    To Muslims who understand the teachings of Islam through the Qur’an, all the genuine Messengers including Musa (Moses) and Isa (Jesus) are from Allah and all the divinely revealed ‘BOOKS’ are series of the same Allah’s  ‘MESSAGE’ to mankind. They are like Ambassadors of a nation to another nation. Changing them from time to time does not change the constitution of nation from where they come or the foreign policy of that nation. This fact has been firmly established in the Qur’an itself thus:

    “The Messenger of Allah (Muhammad (SAW) believes in what has been revealed to him from his Lord; and every true believer also believes in Allah, His Angels, His revealed Books and His Messengers. We do not discriminate against anyone of them (those Messengers) as they say we hear and obey (the contents of the revelation). Oh God! We seek your forgiveness. To You is our return” Q. 3:285-286

     

    Discipline

    It is evident that true Muslims are not known for maligning any Prophet or genuinely revealed ‘BOOKS’ that have not reflected any traces of human tampering. Right from its very first day of revelation, the Qur’an has come with undeniable proof. But it takes only a divinely cleansed heart to comprehend such proof and acknowledge its authenticity. Qur’an itself is the master proof of all other celestial messages that preceded it. It is the final divine revelation which has no human interference or tampering.

    Neither Prophet Muhammad (SAW), who brought this Sacred Book to mankind nor any of his companions (or disciples) had a say in it. The Book contains no chapters or verses according to anybody. And unlike some other books no one speaks in the Qur’an on behalf of Allah in the name of revelation. Even the personal expressions of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) about mundane life which are generally known as Hadith were not to be mingled with the verses of the Qur’an despite his endowed divine inspirations. And where such expressions seem to contradict any part of the Qur’an they automatically become superseded by the contents of the latter.

     

    The Qur’an as Mirror

    Qur’an is the extraordinary compendium in which the activities of man from the very beginning of human existence to the end of human life are chronicled. It is the eternally concrete ‘MIRROR’ through which the descendants of Adam and Hawau can see life in its past, its present and its near and far future. This ‘MIRROR’ is the spectacle that heals the blind, the natural manure that fertilizes the human brain and the greatest treasure in the possession of mankind.

    For the rightly guided mind, the Qur’an is the eye with which to see, the ear with which to hear and the sense with which to reason. It is the bridge across the valleys of life; the insurance against any damnation; the passport for salvation and the only reliable redeemer of mankind.

    For any divinely tamed mind therefore, life begins and ends with the Qur’an, Allah’s own tradition and the only authentic fountain from which man can draw and sip the living spring of wisdom. The sense that reasons with the Qur’an makes no mistake. Any mind that thinks with the Qur’an can never be devilled. Any eye that sees with the Qur’an can never incur sore. Any tongue that talks with the Qur’an can never stammer. Any power that genuinely rules with the Qur’an can never fall. Meanwhile, the Almighty Allah warns in this non-such Book (the Qur’an) thus: “But whosoever deviates from My guidance, verily for him is life of subjugation and We shall raise him up a blind person on the Day of resurrection” (Q. 20: 124).

     

    Controversy

    Meanwhile, there is a raging controversy among Muslim scholars over the first and last revelations in the Qur’an. Much as this controversy is unwarranted, it may be necessary to clear the coast here (without claiming authority) if only for the purpose of authenticating history.

    It is almost a consensus that the first revealed chapter in the Qur’an is Suratul ‘Alaq (Chapter of the Clot). But the very first revelation reaching   Prophet Muhammad (SAW) through Angel Jubril is ‘BASMALAH’ (In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful) which precedes every chapter in the Qur’an except one (Suratut-Tawbah) .

    As a Messenger of Allah to another Messenger of Allah, Angel Jubril couldn’t have commanded Prophet Muhammad (SAW) to read anything without doing so in the name of Allah who sent him with the message. Thus, Suratul ‘Alaq, as preceded by ‘BASMALAH’, could only have been the first revealed verse but not the first chapter.  And that is logical.

    As for the last revelation in the Qur’an majority of Nigerian Muslim scholars believe that it is chapter 5, verse 3 of the Qur’an which says: ‘’Today, I have perfected your religion for you and completed my favour on you. And, I am pleased with Islam for you as religion’’.

    That verse of the Qur’an that was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) at ‘Arafah while performing his farewell Hajj couldn’t have been the last revelation because came 81 days before the demise of the Prophet (SAW). Another revelation came thereafter which about nine days before the Prophet fell sick and died. This can be found in Qur’an 2: 281 which says: “And fear the day when you shall all return to Allah; the day when every soul shall be requited according to its desert and none shall be wronged”.

     

    CLARIRFICATION

    The earlier verse was an accentuation of Hajj as the last pillar of Islam. And that was why it came on ‘Arafah Day. The latter is a reminder of man’s final destination and the account of his worldly activities. These and many more are what readers of the Qur’an should know inside out. But the big question is this: who will teach them when the supposed teachers have sold out to money and ignorance? To Muslims who are conscious of their spiritual affinity and retain their conscience for the day they will meet their Creator and account for their deeds on earth ‘The Message’ says RAMADAN KARIM!

     

  • Rethinking public education in Oyo State

    Today, I offer my two cents on the ongoing dialogue on public education in the pace-setting state of Oyo. I recognise the agony of the Number One citizen of the state, Governor Abiola Ajimobi, on the unacceptable condition of the state’s public institutions and the future of the children that they produce. On this basis, the governor has presented a proposal on the management of schools to education stakeholders. Titled “Participatory Management of Public Schools in Oyo State”, the governor made it clear that it is “still an initiative, not yet a policy.” It is incumbent on every responsible citizen to contribute to the shaping of a progressive educational policy out of the initiative or to suggest alternative initiatives.

    There are two different issues that demand our attention. The first is the matter of form. Then, there is the question of substance. By form, I mean the process or the means of approach to the initiative. Is it democratic or dictatorial? Is it imposed without discussion or is it adopted as a consensus after dialogue? Substance refers to the content of the initiative. What are the key provisions of the initiative? One may find an initiative commendable with respect to form but condemnable with regard to substance. The converse is also true. One may commend the substance and reject the form. I would like to speak to both of these issues.

    We cannot overemphasise the importance of education as an indispensable factor in the development of nations and individuals. Beside the fact that education is a leveller and equaliser, it is also true that the nations that have excelled in development have been the ones that invest heavily in the education of citizens young and old. Examples abound in the East Asian countries that achieved independence at the same time that Nigeria did.

    By the same token, it stands to reason that if a nation is to maximise the full benefits of citizen education, it must deploy ALL its resources and mobilise all its forces—human, material and mental—toward the development and implementation of an optimum education policy. Deploying all forces and mobilising all resources mean engaging all stakeholders in productive dialogue and affording them the opportunity of contributing to the emergence of a policy and program of action which they can all buy into.

    Democracy, which we proudly affirm, functions properly and productively if and when no individual or group is left out of the market place of ideas, and if and when no one approaches that same place with a mentality of “my way or no way.” Democracy rewards open dialogue with near-perfect policy ideas which procure benefits for the greatest number of people.

    However, some entity has to initiate the dialogue. Proposals have to be placed on the table by someone. In a democracy, the entity that is entrusted with the responsibility to direct the affairs of the nation or state is also expected to initiate and lead the dialogue about which direction to go in the matter of the education of citizens. Should it be public or private? Or should we have a combination of both? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

    To initiate the dialogue with some ideas placed on the table of ideas does not mean that those ideas are sacrosanct. They are merely the starting point for discussion and other well-reasoned ideas are to be entertained. Between any government and citizens as groups, organisations, special interests, and individuals, this should be an article of faith, a mutually understood procedural template.

    This is precisely my understanding of what Governor Ajimobi tried to do with his administration’s new initiative on the management of public secondary schools in Oyo State. Inviting the public to debate the pros and cons of the initiative is an excellent example of respect for participatory democracy and it is a commendable approach.

    We must acknowledge the interests of segments of the state populations in the matter: parents, teachers, labor, religious groups, and whole communities. A sound education is the means to future happiness of each of these groups and its members. In particular, labor has a stake as parents and workers. Hence the invitation extended to these groups for dialogue.

    It is disturbing that organized labor allegedly decided not to take advantage of the opportunity for dialogue to present a reasoned opposition to the initiative but instead chose to disrupt the stakeholders’ meeting to which it was invited. It is alright to reject a proposal based on any ground of reasoning. But reason also requires that it be done in an atmosphere devoid of intimidation and physical abuse. Going that route is very unfortunate for several reasons, top of which is that it does not bode well for the moral education of the children on behalf of whom we claim to act. For it’s unclear the ways in which the uncontrolled violent aggression of adulthood is better than the temper tantrum of childhood.

    Now to the substance of the governor’s initiative, which I interpret as the force of reality over idealism. The present situation is unacceptable. The state does not have the resources to singly educate her children. Therefore, since it takes a village, she needs partners in the halls of public institutions. But realistically, these partners cannot be expected to act like CARITAS. They need to be incentivized. If they are going to put their resources into funding public education as government partners, there must be some return.

    Children in such collaboratively managed schools may have to pay some fees for their education that will not apply to children in pure public schools. And for many citizens, this doesn’t go well with their idealistic view of free education of all children by the state. Of course, there are still going to be purely private schools, including, ironically, the one established by the National Union of Teachers (NUT). Surprisingly, no one has sensed any contradiction in that venture.

    I find myself torn in this matter. I have an abiding belief in the responsibility of the nation to provide good education for its children. But the state has to have the resources to discharge this responsibility. Where the resources are unavailable, we must ask serious questions regarding why? And there are multiple culprits including limited tax base; tax fraud by businesses and individuals; inability of states to tax personal and business properties; proliferation of public institutions with avoidable running costs; low workforce productivity, etc.

    The fact is that there has always been a combination of school models even prior to the beginning of the first republic. When free education was introduced in the former Western Nigeria, there were public institutions, private schools, and grants-in-aid mission schools, including, Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Anglican, Christ Apostolic, African Church, Ansar-Ud-Deen, Ahmadiyya, Nawar-Ud-Deen, etc.

    These schools charged fees and received grants from the government which moderated the amount of tuition they charged. When such schools, including the purely private-for-profit schools, were taken over in 1975 by the federal government, many objected that it was a wrong step since the mission schools were doing a great service at moderate cost to the state and parents. Indeed, those grants-in-aid institutions were quasi-public institutions.

    In response, therefore, to the governor’s clarion call for input, my humble suggestion in the face of the reality that the state is faced with is this. The five models of collaborative partnership enunciated in the initiative document need to be packaged into one model. If it is going to be structured more like the grants-in-aid institutions of old, then it needs more tweaking and cropping.

    On the other hand, however, it makes sense to start small by inviting the former proprietors of grants-in-aid institutions to negotiate a new partnership arrangement. Those missions and communities that are so interested in the education of children may be requested to provide infrastructure and facilities management, while the state is responsible for the training, recruitment and payment of teachers. Those schools still bear the names of their various founders. It is time for the progenitors to shoulder some responsibility for the maintenance and upkeep of their adorable babies.

  • Guest of integrity

    Guest of integrity

    Guests, everywhere in the world, are of different types. Some are of honour and treated with integrity because of their acknowledged dignity. Some are bereft of honour but merely tolerated for their nuisance value. Each time we talk of guests, people invariably think only of humans in the erroneous belief that no other creature could be qualified for that title. What they don’t seem to know is that humans are just a fraction of Allah’s creatures. There are millions of others not often noticed by man. One of such creatures is environment of which season is a part. The phenomenon called season comes in different forms with different intensity and at different times of the year.

     

    Similitude of Seasons

    Seasons are like the tides of an ocean. They roll out spirally in quick succession and reshape the world’s environment from time to time. They come in multiple of months. No one measures a season in the absence of months as there can be no seasons without months.

    Europeans have so much respect for seasons that when they have an important guest they call him an ‘August visitor’. The month of August is the peak of summer season and the most comfortable month of hospitality for the Caucasian race of Europe hence the term.

    In Islam, the most venerable guest is Ramadan. Its visiting time is not restricted to any particular season or Gregorian month. Its arrival in the world may coincide with that of any season. It is therefore a guest of all seasons.

    With Ramadan as a special guest of honour, not only the Muslims but the entire humanity is consciously or unconsciously engaged in hospitable activities. Those who cannot fast in it do take advantage of its presence to sell or buy some relevant needs and wants. Thus, there can be no indifference to the awful presence of Ramadan in any part of the world.

    Once every year, Ramadan creeps into the world like the early morning light. It moves kaleidoscopically into an arena where the centre becomes its stool. It lifts its veil and beams a focus on the world with an arresting attention in the days just as it envelops the nights in a shroud of a divine covenant linking the dream of man with his fulfilment.

     

    Its journey

    No one knows Ramadan’s port of embarkation. No one knows its destination. All we know of it is that of a guest that is so vividly present in our world and yet so invisible. Its arrival is often heralded by a retinue of envoys. The months of ‘Rajab’ and ‘Sha’ban’ are the immediate escorts that alert us of its imminent arrival. Like the sun in the midst of stars, Ramadan ascends the throne in full regalia and all other months, (lunar and solar) quickly take their bow.

    Call it the king where other months are chiefs and you will be dead right. Call it the doctor in a world of sick people and you will not be wrong. Call it the sage among the novice and you would have hit the nail on the head. Call it the compass in the wilderness of straying humanity and you would have spoken the truth. Call it the reformer of human soul; the sterilizer of human spirit as well as the purifier of human body and you will not be disputed. In its entourage are equally invisible ministers like piety, knowledge, truth, justice and peace all of which usher it into the world with splendour.

     

    Definition

    Deriving its name from a natural healing phenomenon, this ninth lunar month is truly baking in effect. The word:  Ramadan is derived from the Arabic word ramd (meaning baking). The name had been in existence before the advent of Islamic calendar. It was coined from a baking summer that immediately followed a freezing winter. Ever since, Ramadan has been perceived as a pivotal agent for firming up all loose ends in the life of man. And it does that with a touch of perfection.

     

    Its mission

    The entire month of Ramadan which consists of 30 or 29 days is spent in fasting from dawn to dusk. Such fasting is not about abstinence from foods and drinks alone. It is also about self restraint from all sinful acts. It is about repackaging one’s destiny through a new but sincere resolution.

    Fasting during this month is believed to figuratively burn away all sins. It was in this glorious month that the revelation of the Qur’an to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) first began.

    In this month, all gates of paradise, according to the Prophet, are open while those of hell are closed. The first ten days in it are blessings galore for those of the Muslim Ummah who need blessings and seek for them. The next ten days personify forgiveness for those who realize the gravity of their sinful acts, repent on them and resolve never to return to such acts again. Thus, Ramadan is far beyond a month. It is a season.

     

    Its anchor leg

    The last ten days of this sacred month form the anchor leg of Ramadan which is meant for the liberation of mankind from the manacles of Satan. Whoever is so liberated automatically becomes like a new born baby arriving in a new world with a tabula rasa (clean slate).

    In these last ten days is a particular night (Laylatul Qadr) in which the secret of human destiny is encapsulated. It is otherwise known as the ‘Night of power’. Meeting that night consciously and spiritually is like securing the key to one’s own apartment in Paradise. But one needs to remain awake throughout those nights to be fortunate to meet the D night.

    Allah did not disclose even to Prophet Muhammad (SAW), which particular night it is. But by asking the Muslims to look for it in the odd nights of the last ten days, the Prophet has helped us tremendously. However, who can be so sure of the odd nights when the issue of sighting the crescent before starting Ramadan remains controversial?

    Also, during the last ten days of Ramadan, some willing Muslims, in accordance with the tradition of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), do go for Umrah in Makkah or take to I’tikaf (spiritual seclusion) locally, to reaffirm their total submission to Allah. Following this is a session of charity made compulsory for all Muslims irrespective of age, gender and status, to give to the poor and the needy. This is called Zakatul Fitr or Sadaqatul Fitr. It is given in the very early morning of Ramadan Festival Day or the night before it to enable the poor and the needy celebrate the festival with the Ummah in a festive mood.

     

    Anticlimax

    The first day of the month of Shawwal that immediately after Ramadan is the anticlimax of expectation traditionally spent in great celebrations with rejoice and observed as the ‘Festival of fast Breaking the (Eidul Fitr).

    Where else can one find a guest like Ramadan? Where else can one meet a guest that hosts his hosts and heals them of ignorance and diseases? It was probably more to Ramadan than to man that Prophet Muhammad (SAW) referred when he said: “whoever believes in Allah and the ‘Last Day’ should venerate his guest”.  That guest is Ramadan. That is why Muslims often say in this unique month: ‘RAMADAN KARIM’ which means ‘Venerable Ramadan’.

     

    Preparation

    To start or end fasting in Ramadan, sighting of the crescent is just symbolic. The indices of recognising when to start or end the month are naturally vivid to those who care.

    Ramadan is preceded by two glorious lunar months of Rajab and Sha’ban for fun. The number of days in those two months is to enable any serious Muslim know the time of arrival of Ramadan and prepare for it. No lunar month exceeds 30 days and none is less than 29 days.

    Crescent or no crescent, it is very possible and easy to know when to start Ramadan every year. The confusion often created by the sighting of the crescent is therefore avoidable. If Rajab is 30 or 29 days, no one looks for the crescent before starting Sha’ban. As soon as Rajab ends, Sha’ban starts.

     

    Dynamism

    Islam is a dynamic religion and nothing should be rigid or dogmatic about sighting the crescent before starting Ramadan. Sighting the crescent is not the only condition for starting the great month. After all, the new crescent is not necessarily visible to all eyes at any given time in any locality at a particular time. That is why a few people who may be privileged to sight it are implored to invite some others to witness it and then inform the recognized authorities who will in turn, announce the arrival of Ramadan to the Muslim community in the locality or region.

    Besides Faith (Iman) and Hajj (which are the first and last pillars of Islam), nothing else is really globally uniform in practical terms with regards to timing. The variation in the geography of the earth has legitimized the variation of time in the observance of Salat, Sawm and Zakat. Iman is global because it resides permanently in the hearts of the believers irrespective of their localities. Hajj is equally global because it is performed in only one place at a particular time.

     

    Geographical factor

    Where a gap of about nine to eleven hours exists between one part of the world and another, talking of global uniformity in starting or ending Ramadan can only border on sheer ignorance. For instance it is impossible for the Australian Muslims living in Australia and their South American brethren residing in Brazil or Argentina to start Ramadan on the same day. Even within Nigeria, all Muslims can start Ramadan on the same day, only if they have equal access to information. And even with that, it is not possible for them all to start or end daily fasting at the same time of the day. That is why the announcement or publication of Ramadan timing according to the various localities is necessary.

    That Ramadan fasting is prescribed as a universal obligation for all Muslims in a particular month is deliberate. Allah who did the prescription is not oblivious of the geographical variations in the world. Neither is He unaware of the possible invisibility of a new crescent to most eyes. The design is to allow for the reverberation of the effect of Ramadan across the world. And time variation in worship or celebration of festivals is not peculiar to Islam. Even in Christianity, neither Easter nor Christmas is globally celebrated in one day. And, there is no media noise about it.

    What is global about Ramadan fasting is the month and not the time. Dawn and dusk vary from locality to locality. It is therefore possible for the Muslims in one part of the world to be breaking their daily fast at a time when their brethren in another part are commencing theirs. Thus, the genuineness or otherwise of Ramadan fasting is not to be judged by man. That is why Allah is reported by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) as saying in a sacred Hadith (Hadith ul Qudsi) that: “Fasting is mine and I am the One to grant rewards on it.”

    Welcome to the coast of Ramadan. This sacred ‘ship’ must not leave the coast without you on board. Ramadan is like an institution of learning. A good Muslim must not just pass through it he must also allow it to pass through him. Who knows when the last time to witness the month will be?

     

     Where is Gawat?

    Retrospectively, July 10, 2012 (a Tuesday) can be described as a shocking day for Nigerian Muslim Ummah. That day, the Nigerian electronic media waves throbbed with a shocking and unbelievable news saying: the popular Islamic programme (e dide e mu sari je) presenter was missing. The waves added that whoever knew his whereabouts or heard any information about him should report to the nearest Police Station or any other relevant authorities. The breaking news sent jitters to millions and puzzled millions of others. Here was a well known human being and not a chattel. Where and how do you start looking for him?

    Brothers and sisters immediately took up the matter as a knotty task which must be unraveled. Text messages and phone calls, e-mails and face-book communications began in earnest. Yours sincerely was busy with a project in Ilorin when the sad news came through text messages. In less than one hour after the outbreak of the news the entire world had known of it. And that evidently confirmed the global village created by the modern technology. Thus, the search for ‘a golden fish’ in a turbulent ocean became a task for all and sundry.

     

    Unfortunate Rumour

    Thereafter, the Nigerian factor set in. Rumours began to fly across boundaries as evil agents added their inputs. First, we heard that Gawat had been found and taken to his family. Then came the devilish rumour that the episode was a complicity in which his wife’s hand was vivid. The evil rumour mongers even had the audacity of sending text messages to me   saying that his wife was already in Police gulag. I immediately called the wife to enquire about her whereabouts. And when she told me that she was at home with the children I heaved a deep sigh of fervent relief. It was one moment of embarrassment at its topmost height.

    I had known Razak Gawat since 1984 as an amiable gentleman with a wonderful sense of humour. He was humble, respectful and magnanimous in appearance, utterances and actions. When I met his wife a couple of years later I believed that a compatible couple was in the making with potential model. And it actually turned out to be so.

     

    Imagination

    One can now imagine Hajiya Fatima’s life without Alhaji Razak Aremu Gawat. It is possible to be dead suddenly for whatever reason but the body will be seen. And in a jungle like Nigeria called a country, it is possible for a prominent person of Gawat’s status to be kidnapped for a ransom by hoodlums and their godfather. But in this case, none of these occurred. What is unimaginable and which remains a puzzle is for a person of Gawat’s personality to suddenly disappear mysteriously with his car within the city of Lagos without any trace. Now, all said and done, four years after that agonizing episode, the question still being asked, despite the acclaimed security in the country, is: ‘where is Gawat?

    Well, the evil doers might have done their worst but let not those behind this devilish episode feel that the deed has been finally sealed. Yes, to man it may look so. But to Allah, nothing is ever hidden as the divine repercussion of such an episode is just a matter of when and how. We pray Allah to protect and stand by Gawat’s family.

    Watch Out for Ramadan Guide

     

    The usual daily column often written by yours sincerely in the month of Ramadan will start in this newspaper on Monday, June 6, 2016 when Ramadan is supposed to commence.  Please, watch out for it as it will be quite interesting. RAMADAN KARIM!