Tunde Abatan, tunde2013abatan@gmail.com 08165660217
“To be ignorant of ones ignorance,says William Hazlett,is the malady of the ignorant.”
That nineteenth century philosopher saw well ahead of time and with the benefit of hindsight,he must have had nations and citizens like North of Nigeria in mind.
This region is the geographical enclave which though had the distinction of having produced nine heads of government who together have spent 45 years out of it’s 62 years of independence piloting the affairs of Nigeria, yet had the highest concentration of ignorant,illiterate and poverty stricken people making it the poverty capital of Nigeria nay the World.
Echoing,Hazletts view, the late elder statesman,chief Obafemi Awolowo, must also have had the problem of Nigerias North in mind when he postulated that…”an ignorant and poverty stricken person is the easiest prey to economic and political enslavement.”
Yes, true to his observation and declaration, the enslavement of the North of Nigerias masses over the years which Mallam Aminu Kano laboured in vain to liberate by giving education and enlightenment to it’s growing Talakawa,has defied all known norms.
Ever since the termination of the rule of Kanos political party,the People’s Redemption Party,PRP,which introduced free and compulsory education in it’s two states,Kano and Kaduna,has regressed.
Hence,the gains made by PRP through it’s two governors,Abubakar Rimi and Balarabe Musa have been reverses since by the reactionary approach to masses education by succeeding Northern leaders.
Instead, what we have today is 15 million out- of school children roaming the streets of the North’s nineteen state capitals .
This is done under the aegis of a backward and retrogressive cultural policy..the Almajiris.
Today, as Olusegun Obasanjo,a former Nigerias president predicted, the fifteen million out of school children are potential recruit ground for deadly Boko Haram and banditry now ravaging the North with potentials of spreading to the South.
The Almajiri system which benefited hugely from this retrogressive education policy which paid much emphasis on religious education ,will form the nucleus of the future ruthless bandits and Boko Haram religious extremists.
There is no question the fact that it had reduced the North to a shadow of what both Ahmadu Bello,the North’s first Premier and Kano wanted to build.
But by far the most deeply rooted malaise of which the North wanted to pull the southern parts of the country along it’s ruinous part of destruction is the retrogressive interpretation of Islamic tenets which has seen shedding of blood as it’s trademark.
According to Sheikh Ahmadu Gumi, if the late Mohammed,the refered Islam spiritual leader extended love to opponent of Islam,who criticised him,any adherent today who did what the overzealous did to youthful student, Deborah Samuel, last Friday in Sokoto,should not think of meeting Mohammed in Alhjanna…heaven.
Perhaps they are consumed by the strange doctrine of being compensated with seven virgins in heaven.
You wonder whoever told them there is marriage in heaven.
But then, is the sermon of Gumi, himself a product of extreme religious teaching, pleasant to the ears of even the educated zealots from the North who have continued to justify Deborah’s high -noon murder by social miscreants and criminals imbibe Gumis’ interpretation of Mohammamed beliefs and his teachings.?
For them,the criminals defending strange Islamic doctrine are needed to maintain their political and economic manipulation of the Talakawas afterall Karl Marx rightly classified religion as “opium of the masses.”
The question now is, is Gumi and the murderous zealots who bathe in human blood on the streets of Borno,Sokoto,Kano,
Kaduna worshipping same Allah?
Are the teachers influencing this murderous zealots victim of yet unknown Islamic doctrine which emphasize conversion by force and death verdict on adherents of opposing religion within their space?
Like the murder of the Alu 4, years ago, Fridays barbaric judgement on Deborah by fellow teachers in -tranning at Shehu Shagari College of Education, is a confirmation that the Islamic education those murderous guys are receiving is against humanity.
By inference, it means that when eventually they graduate and are released and recruited into the classrooms, their message to impressionable Moslem students under their care is violence and death for non believers in their Mohammedan teachings.
This is why for the North to continue to make Southern Nigerians see them as part of same country, then both it’s perverted ruling elite and clergy which have over the years use religion to hold sway in leadership, must commence a reorientation of what Mohammedan Islamic tenets is all about.
Today’s declaration of Fatwah for non- believers who condemn their god cannot make the Northern moslems belong to a modern Nigeria where new world of humanity in place since civilisation, has started it’s irreversible journey to catch up with the rest of the world.
Failure to do this means, both the reactionary North and modern South must take steps for establishment of separate Sovereigns as did North and South Korea.
At least, both countries have developed along their chosen path since then and the world has not collapsed.
Political merchants and pretensions:
It is now apparent that in its own odious way,the ruling All People’s Congress,APC,have through it’s planned presidential primaries proved to all and sundry that it has in it’s fold more pretenders and political sweat merchants whose sole interest is to bargain for what is best for its enlightened selfish interest.
That today about five or more pretenders beginning from Labour ministers,Chris Ngige who shouted on roof top about his chances after ‘due consultation’, and his minister of state for Petroleum counterpart,Timpre Sylva, have suddenly drop along the line,have proved that they are all bargainers and gamblers for power and relevance.
As outrageous as the princely N100 presidential nomination form levy, the rate at which the serving ministers,governors and senators declared interest you will think APC really wanted to show stuff of the men of ideas in it’s fold to change Nigerias course.
By and large, what we have today are politicians whose only redeeming value is continuation in office for personal advantage.
With the way most of them voted with their feet,returned to their offices and forfeited the N100 million nomination money raised by their ‘friends’ and well wishers’ means that their initial expression of interest was all a fluke to bargain for office and position.
What this means in effect is that the APC presidential nomination has turned into a crowd funding venture on which it has raked in at least N2.5 billion in it’s coffers.
Should the aspirant who emerged out of the remaining contenders and pretenders had no money to fund the campaign proper, the APC had in it’s kitty enough to wet the ground and move the mountain.
The abandoning of their ‘ambition’ and aspiration especially among nine serving ministers is actually a trade off and bargaining for recognition from the eventual winner.
For President Muhammadu Buhari, tolerating serving ministers who have expressed partisan interest in sensitive positions like Central Bank of Nigeria,CBN,Nigerian Printing and Mint Company is a faulty and ill -advised management style in a country seriously in need of outstanding public officers to manage it’s affairs and not opportunists ready to cling to opportunistic but sensitive positions sacrificing national interest.
President Buhari could definitely have done better than making his corterie of palace jesters pilot the sensitive offices that deserve impartial but competent managers.
