WHERE ARE OUR CONSCIENCES?

The issue of almajirai and almajirci has occupied many discourses both privately and in public for over a decade now with nobody willing to do anything about the scourge, particularly those that may be directly responsible for its burgeoning profile in the recent past. Today, in most of our major cities, particularly in the north, these hapless fellow human beings are a permanent eyesore dotting all major street intersections, shopping malls, fuel stations and such other places where people spend money. A recent report by one of the organs of the United Nations put the number of these “wretched of the earth” to be about 10.6million. The report scared me. But looking around, I realised nobody is willing to do anything about these unfortunate souls. An otherwise noble tradition of scholarship, the almajirci has now taken a negative toga due to the neglect of those involved in it by a society becoming more and more selfish.

Growing up in the early seventies in Yola, the almajirai we know were the itinerant students of Islamic studies going from house to house in the neighbourhood begging for food during mealtimes. Immediately after having their fill, they would go back to their schools located in the compounds of their mallams. Those days, the almajirai learnt the Quran, jurisprudence, fiqh, hadith and other branches of Islamic knowledge sitting in a circle around either the teacher or one of the senior students who must have graduated from the basic classes. Before graduation, most, if not all, learnt one trade or the other apart from the Islamic knowledge to help sustain them in life. Some would go deeper in their search for knowledge and eventually become mallams with their own students. In those days almajirci was really what it meant – scholarship – no more, no less. You could not meet them on the streets, fuel stations, shopping malls with their ubiquitous begging bowls making nuisance of themselves by harassing motorists and shoppers. Their begging was confined to their neighbourhood and only for what to eat.

Today the average northern youth, particularly in Hausa land, starts taking care of his needs at the age of five. This is the age at which these luckless kids are sent out to the streets to satisfy their culinary needs by whatever means. They grow up in the streets from such a tender age to the age of maturity with neither scholarship nor trade learnt since they spend all their waking moments on the streets. They are thus exposed to the vagaries of the streets and of the criminal elements constantly prowling looking for innocent young recruits for their burgeoning criminal enterprises in a country where crime pays big time. At a time when their peers are in school, they are denied the opportunity by an uncaring society made up mostly by those who enjoyed free education in their time. We see them struggling for vantage positions at fuel stations and shopping malls where we go to spend money on things we do not necessarily want or need, with our kids ensconced in the comforts of our cars with windows wound up, cool air conditioner blowing their ever glowing skins and music blaring from hidden loudspeakers, conveniently blocking their wails for assistance of “a taimaka mana da na abinci”.

Our consciences have been numbed by a choice of movies from a variety of sources watched on 42” Plasma/ LCD television screens while reclining on chairs made from the finest materials. Our worldview is therefore shaped by Supersport, Movie Magic and other entertaining foreign channels while theirs are shaped by the deprivations they go through and the “big men” who drive past them in glorified ambulances. We don’t feel moved whenever we past these hapless kids, moving between vehicles with their torn pants, licking fingers made dirty from the remnants of a Mr. Biggs takeaway thrown from the window of a moving car driven by one of us. We do not feel any pang of guilt in buying motorcycles for the children of the poor during campaigns and unleashing them on a society lacking any form of public transportation, to operate as commercial motorcyclists while our kids, their age mates, are in schools in Ghana, Togo, United Kingdom and the United States. We do not experience any feeling of discomfort when we park by the roadside to buy telephone recharge cards from their calloused hands while our kids, again their age mates, are sitting behind big desks as executives in the major companies and government agencies. What sort of animals have we become? We do not feel any remorse turning these kids into political thugs, street vendors, porters, shoe shiners, itinerant manicurists while our kids are trained from birth to be their patrons.

Even if for our selfish reasons, have we thought what future holds in store for us and those kids who in the next five to ten years will become grown men with needs like ours – craving to own whatever we own – the women, the cars, the travelling to far off places like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Dubai and the USA, places they only hear while eavesdropping on the conversations of “big men”, the shopping, the clubbing, etc. Have we ever thought that when the deprivations continue while as they attain the age of maturity with nothing to their names, and therefore nothing to protect, they may turn against us to wreck what we have amassed over the years through crookery, theft, corruption and denial of their fundamental rights to be well educated and provide jobs? When their collective anger boils over, are we certain it would not turn into a volcano that will rain its ashes on all of us? Can we be positive that we have not started seeing this in the violence rocking the country from Lagos to Maiduguri, Port Harcourt to Sokoto?

We should look around our GRAs and other highbrow areas and see God’s work on our own kids. Most junkies and drug addicts are found in our closets. This is God’s on way of telling us we are on the wrong path, yet we don’t see the irony. Let’s please search our rusted consciences and see if it is possible for us to retrace our steps from this route to perdition that we have taken. Let’s rejig our educational and employment system to incorporate those unfortunates. Remember, most of us were no better than them but we were given the opportunity to go to school and be gainfully employed thereafter not because of who we were, but because of what we were.

Either we quickly defuse this ticking time bomb, or it will blow up in our faces. The choice is ours.

"THE “NEW POLITICAL REALITY”

 

Critics of the Goodluck Jonathan administration are dismissed as those who fail to appreciate the “new political reality” unfolding in the country.  Every Jonathan apologists now uses this line of condemnation on anyone who disagrees with the way and manner the president is running the country.  It is an easy way out for them, or so they think.  No one has the right to hold contrary opinion to the all-knowing president and his team.  I think I have seen the “new political reality” as espoused by these modern day “progressives” whose concept of progressivism is the total exclusion of certain parts of the country even if the heavens will fall.  If you don’t see it their way, then you need to be re-educated for you to fit-in into a “transformed Nigeria”.  If those promoting this line of thinking, can have the courage of their conviction, then they could have dubbed it the “total exclusion of northern Nigeria’” from political power.  Let’s call a spade a spade and stop pretending all is well.

A subtle but dangerous scenario is emerging within the governmental setup with the way appointments are being made, manifestly favouring a section of the country over and above the rest.  This was started during the Obasanjo locust years when he ensured the pauperisation of the north with the active connivance of northerners in his government.  The consolidation of banks by Charles Soludo weeded out northerners from the financial sector and the systematic dismantling of manufacturing concerns in the region, particularly the textile industries that used to provide over 50% employment to the people of the region either directly or indirectly, followed this.  Since time the balance of power in the country was distributed in such a way that the southwest controlled the financial sector, the southeast was in control of commerce while the North’s forte was political power.  With the election of Obasanjo in 1999, the banks consolidation of 2005, the north completely lost out.  Orosanye ensured that the few remaining northerners in the civil service were shown the door.  This was the state of affairs when Azikiwe Jonathan took over.

To guarantee no part of the country feels marginalised from governance, the principle of Federal Character was enshrined in the country’s constitution and an agency, the Federal Character Commission, was established to specifically ensure compliance with the constitutional provision.  Whatever the deficiencies of the Federal Character principle, it has served its purpose, before now.  At the risk of being insulted as someone who hasn’t yet grasped the “new political reality”, I will still say my piece.  Much as it may sound unpalatable to the ears of some I will say it as I see it.  I quiet understand the “new political reality” – that is some people are not wanted in Nigeria as presently constituted.

A cursory look into public and civil service appointments by the Azikiwe Goodluck government will give one goose pimples and a window into the mind-set of those who run our country today.  The emerging pattern is of a cabal bent on making sure that the Nigeria of the future will be cleansed of a large segment of its population.  Few of such appointments include the Chief Executive of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), who celebrated his birthday on the same day that over thirty souls lost their lives in an avoidable accident in Abuja, the Chief Executive of Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON), the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), the Debt Management Office (DMO), the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE), Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), Immigration, Prisons, Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Revenue Mobilisation & Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMFAC), Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Directorate of Petroleum Resources, Nigerian Civil Aviation College, Zaria, National Air safety Management Agency (NAMA), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), and all agencies under the Ministry of Aviation are headed by people from one part of the country.  If such a situation should favour the north, the whole media will be awash with cries of the violation of the Federal Character principle, and therefore a violation of the constitution.

It is still fresh in our memory when Earnest Ndukwe retired as head of the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) earlier in the year and a certain Dr. Bashir Gwandu, an eminently qualified Electrical/ Electronics engineer and the most senior director in the Commission was acting, the Igbos raised hell that since an Igbo man retired from the place, an Igbo man must be appointed to replace him, merit, seniority and decorum be damned.  The government granted the demand of the Igbos.  In the life of this administration, I am yet to see where a northerner left office by whatever means and is replaced by someone else from the region or that a northern leader – traditional, religious or political - ever came out with guns blazing demanding that a northerner be appointed or hell will freeze.

When offices were “zoned” after the “no zoning” submission served its purpose, the Igbos got Secretary to the Federal Government, the Deputy Senate President and the Deputy Speaker while the entire three zones in the north got the Vice Presidency, the Senate President and grudgingly, the Speaker of the House of Representatives.  The last one was achieved through the stubbornness of the House members, though Obasanjo called for the resignation of the Speaker because he failed to see the “new political reality”.  No one as yet has complained of marginalisation in the north, though I suspect such complaints will be dismissed with a wave of the hand.

It is more and more becoming clear to me that we are living in Orwellian times in Nigeria of today.  How then does one explain or justify a situation where the Rector, Registrar, Chief Legal Adviser and the Chief Medical Officer of the College of Aviation Zaria all come from the South Eastern part of Nigeria while the College is located in the north west.  New political reality indeed.

Since the 2011 elections, several southern commentators, especially on the Internet, have become bolder in calling for the separation of the Nigerian state between the two poles.  Are the brazen actions of this government against one section of the country a prelude to such endeavour? And is the north really preparing for such eventuality?  The writing is clear on the wall for those with the eyes to see.

IS OUR UNITY WORTH THE INSULTS?

An article, which appeared on the back page of Daily Trust of Friday October 28th, 2011 by one Ifeanyichukwu Udibe titled Re: Boko Haram’s and Chukwumerije’s Doctrine, made very interesting, revealing and educative reading.  It was interesting because while accusing Al Gazali, the writer of the original article that was the subject of his response, of biases and hatred towards the Igbos, he only succeeded in spewing more hate than Al Gazali – that is if his accusation is true – which, in my opinion was false because I read Al Gazali’s article.  It was my understanding that Al Gazali was only expressing his disappointment on how Chukwumetije descended from being a nationalist in the 70s to an ethnic champion this late in his life.  Revealing in the sense that the writer only succeeded in letting the cat out of the bag (prematurely) by letting us in to the fact that come what may, the Igbos will take over the presidency of the country irrespective of how other parts of the country or other ethnic groups may feel about it.  If I understand the writer correctly, then the Igbos don’t need any other part of the country to realise their objective, no matter whose ox is gored, so long as Goodluck can concentrate on empowering the south east and south southern parts of the country to the exclusion of all others.  Udibe’s piece was also educative because it has succeeded in laying bare the lack of unity of purpose among the peoples and politicians of particularly the northern region.  May be such articles from the likes of Udibe and exhortations from the likes of Chukwumerije will at least serve as a wake up call to our selfish leadership who are content to genuflect and grovel before Obasanjo and Goodluck for a morsel of dog meat by selling their people to servitude and insults.

Another thing I find fascinating is Chukwumerije’s thesis and elucidated by Udibe that the both Shonekan and Obasanjo got the presidency not because they merited it but because of the vicious campaign that was unleashed on the country by the OPC.  And Goodluck Jonathan got a bite of the pie not because he is fit to but because of the atrocious activities of the brigands of the Niger delta, who we all know started out as political thugs, graduated to oil theft and later glamorised by the likes of Udibe in the media as environmental agitators.  To further justify this pedestrian thesis, the Udibes of Nigeria are to hang their worldview on every criminal activity committed in the country on the Boko Haram, a group that is more a media creation than reality.  The realisation of the political goals of the Yorubas and the people of the Niger delta through violent means (according to Chukwumerije and Udibe) will be the means to be used by the Igbos in 2015 to realise theirs.  I hope the National Security Adviser and other relevant security outfits are listening, though I strongly believe no one will act for obvious reasons.

Now to the leadership of the north – traditional, religious and the business leadership.  During the campaigns for the 2011 elections, they were at the forefront of selling the Goodluck candidacy to the northern electorate, lying to us with straight faces that this man who wasn’t born rish will only serve for a term and then the presidency will revert to this part of the country to complete the second term truncated by the death of ‘Yar Adu’a.  They rejected three of their own and rigged massively for Goodluck, who later told a delegation of Igbo leaders that all the votes he got in the north was from the Igbo communities living in the north.  With the benefit of hindsight may be this was just an indication that if he couldn’t get his seven-year tenure kite off the ground then he will back an Igbo candidate in 2015.  Am yet to hear as much as a whimper from those who swore on their parent’s grave that Goodluck is a man to be trusted and will keep his word, not minding that he had earlier rejected an agreement that he appended his signature to.

After the destruction of the commercial, industrial, financial and even that most feared northern asset - unity - by Obasanjo thereby reducing northerners to beggars in their own country – or so we all thought – we now have to contend with foul-mouthed commentators calling us names and insults like confetti.  Whatever the likes of Udibe may say or write about the north, I don’t blame them but our leadership that sold us for twelve shillings or less in the name of national unity.  Northerners are today known as parasites and bloodsuckers that want to reap where they did not sow, forgetting that the oil found beneath the ground in the Niger delta was sown by the indigenes of that area.  To the Udibes of this world, northerners have no business being anywhere near Aso Villa till kingdom come.  I agree with him.  After all, it was the blood sucking northerners who sprang Obasanjo from the comforts of his cell in Yola prison, gave him an expedited state pardon, funded his campaign and made him a president; it was this parasitic indolent people from the north who stood by and watched with feigned helplessness while the same Obasanjo picked a sick man (may his soul rest in peace) and made him the president of the country; the same group hounded the man to his grave shamelessly while he was on his last days; the same leaches who worked tirelessly to scuttle Atiku’s ambition to be the PDP’s presidential candidate and ensured the emergence of Goodluck through means fair and foul; the same north who called Buhari a dictator, Shekarau provincial and Ribadu young and inexperienced.  All in the name of national unity.

If the leadership of the north found it expedient to hand over power without struggle, then they certainly do not deserve another chance again.  Power has never, ever been transferred like MTN units anywhere.  But taking the rest of us for granted, this macabre dance that we are locked in began with the northern power blocs coming together in 1999 to ensure the emergence of two Yoruba presidential candidates with the misinformed believe that a section of the country must be pacified for peace to reign in the country.  Thus the basis of Chukwumereji’s thesis.  If the north is serious of thinking of getting a shot again in our lifetime then may be Chukwumereji is certainly worth listening to.  Let’s also empower the Boko Haram to serve the same purpose that he called on MASSOB to serve the Igbos.  Else we should forget it and go back to our primary business of goat herding.

But I couldn’t find the stomach to swallow the insults of Udibe and his ilk.  I don’t believe I have the civility or finesse of the Al Gazali and those who think national unity is worth taking such nonsense lying low.  I would rather denounce my citizenship of Nigeria and find accommodation elsewhere as a second-class citizen.  If some people believe demagoguery is a political tool that could be deployed with abundance, I should be excused from such union because I am simple goat herder who can live off my land.