Tag: Monguno

Like most Nigerians I was shocked to hear that Shetima Ali Monguno, 92-year old elder statesman was kidnapped by the Boko Haram insurgents and taken to unknown hideout. Like most Nigerians who know Shetima Ali Monguno, I prayed and prayed for his eventual release and God answered our prayers. For those who don’t know this man intimately, he was just another statistics in the number kidnapped or killed by this murderous group calling themselves Muslims and as many have said, a true Muslim would not commit murder, kidnap or harm another person, but particularly, old men, women and children even in the time of war. The Boko Haram says that they are fighting a Jihad and even if in their warped ideology, they have divided the world into two namely; abode of Islam and Abode of War; there is no way Shetima Ali could have belonged to the Abode of War as a true Muslim. His place of birth, Monguno had been in contact with Islam as far back as the seventh century, less than a hundred years that the Prophet Mohammed walked the earth and his family has been Muslims since that time. When in the 19th century, the Sokoto-Fulani Jihadist, particularly, the son of the Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, (Uthman bin Fudi) Muhammad Bello wanted on the pretext of purifying Islam to overrun Borno, they were resisted by Muhammad El-Kanemi, a Shua Arab Cleric who saw imperialism camouflaged as Islamic Jihad. Although Mohammed El-Kanemi eventually displayed the 2,000 years old Seifawa Dynasty, the integrity and independence of Borno was preserved. In order words, since about 700AD, Islam had thrived in Borno well before it got to Hausa land and other parts of Nigeria.

These preambular statements are necessary to place Borno in the heartland of classical Islam where it had been for many centuries. Of course I am aware of the fact that a religion could manifest syncretistic tendencies which would need to be cleaned out in order to go back to the original religion. But whoever is leading the cleansing must himself be clean and holy. This was the case of Muhammad Ahmad, the grand Mahdi in the 19th century Sudan who styled himself the “Imam of the age” sent by God to return Islam to purity in the Sudan. His legacy still remains even up till today and at one time, one of his grandsons became Prime Minister of the Sudan.

What we have in the Boko Haram is something like the Maitasine rebellion in Yola and Kano and its Bulunkutu counterparts in Borno in the 1980s. It was clear that the leaders of this revolt were not really true Muslims but people who mixed Islam with traditional African beliefs and were quickly suppressed by the Armed Forces of Nigeria. The Sultan of Sokoto has dismissed the Boko Haram and their murderous campaign as unislamic, the reason therefore, of the persistence of insurgency can be found not only in any Islamic ideology, but in the poverty occasioned by the corruption and oppression of the Talakawa, by the ruling elite in many parts of the North.

Unfortunately, innocent people like the grand old man, Shetima Ali has had to suffer. It is common knowledge that Shetima Ali has held many important positions in Nigeria since the mid 1950s. He was a young minister in the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Federal Government and for several years minister in the Yakubu Gowon government; he was Pro-Chancellor of the University of Calabar at one time and for many years, a member of Nigeria’s delegation to the United Nations’ General Assembly. I got to know him very well as a man of integrity, purity and honesty. When I was Director of the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) in Washington between 1979 and 1982, I welcomed him many times to the United States in my official capacity. He overwhelmed me with his simplicity. He usually travelled without luggage but with a small briefcase which he would check into the plane and inside the small briefcase would be a long dark Kaftan and that would be it. When everybody would be waiting for their luggage, he would simply walk out with his briefcase to our waiting car. And when asked why he had no luggage and his reply would be “as soon as he checked into his hotel, he would remove the long Kaftan he wore, send it to the laundry and replace it with a clean one in the briefcase and alternated this until he went back to Nigeria. He would hardly claim his tour allowance. He ate very sparingly which explains his slim figure of over six-feet. He spoke English beautifully and still speaks it beautifully and as a Muslim, who could marry four wives, he only had one wife, an English woman after he had divorced his Kanuri wife.

As Minister of Petroleum during the Gowon years and President of OPEC, he could have become stupendously rich as many of his successors. He was so clean that in 1975, the University of Lagos wanted to give him an honorary degree for his exemplary life, but the young Turks including myself opposed it in Senate on an erroneous ground that nobody in public service in Nigeria could be clean. I later discovered that we were wrong and that our Vice Chancellor who nominated him, Prof. J.F. Ade-Ajayi was absolutely correct.

Several years later, I had the privilege to discuss with Shetima Ali and he told me the story of his life, how the then Minister of Lagos Affairs, Musa Yar’Adua gave him a plot of land in Victoria island and didn’t know what to do with it for years until a friend told him he could develop it by contractor finance, and this is the only material thing he has to show for all those years of his national service. I used to visit him when I was a Professor in the University of Maiduguri in his simple and frugal house where he would sit on an arm chair in front of the house either reading or reciting the Quran. He would graciously offer me tea which was the only drink he ever offered me. This abstinence from any drink except tea probably explains his health and longevity. Even though his eldest daughter, Fati, was married to one of the members of the Supreme Military Council during the Buhari, Babaginda, and Abacha years; he never used that connection to enrich himself as many would have done.

I have had occasions to discuss with him the problems of Nigeria when I was in Washington, United States and Bonn, Germany and he always appeared as an idealist who feel that if the leadership is right and exemplary, the country would do well. It is therefore a sad irony, that in his evening years he should be a victim of kidnapping and terrorism. I am sure the Boko Haram released him not because of any pressure on them, but because of the purity of the man in their captivity. They probably felt his death in their hands would undermine and erode the sympathy or tolerance that some people still have for them. Let us hope that the release of this saintly man would usher in the opportunity to dialogue with the Boko Haram and other insurgent groups, so that there can be peace in our time.

The title Shetima which Alhaji Ali Mogunu bears is the recognition that Kanuris give to their men of learning. It is from the same Arabic root like Sayyid or Said or Sheikh. Other forms of the same word occur in Hausa land and even Borno as Shehu and among the Malinke as Shekhu or Sekou; all meaning “leaders”. Shetima Ali has been for many years recognised as a leader among the Kanuri, he was first identified as a young man by Sir Kashim Ibrahim, the Governor of the Northern region, who himself used to bear the title Shetima and one hopes that a man so recognised by his people would be listened to by the Federal government for his ideas which he had previously made public in settling this Boko Haram problem.