Opinion
Arisekola: A half of Ibadan mistaken for a single person | By Adeolu Akande
It is six years today that the Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland, Alhaji Abdulazeez Arisekola Alao passed on. On February 14 , 2018, a political scientist and public administrator, Professor Adeolu Akande did a tribute on him to celebrate his 73rd posthumous birthday. Akande now chairs the Nigeria Communications Commission, (NCC).
Interestingly, Aare Arisekola Alao would have been 75 years old today. The tribute is re-presented by Mega Icon Magazine in memory of one of the most celebrated men to pass through this clime.
Alhaji Abdul Azeez Arisekola Alao would have been 75 years old today. All roads would have led to his palatial residence at Oluwo Nla,Ibadan, for the big event. It would have been a celebration in the city because Arisekola was at the epicentre of the politics and social life of Ibadan. Arisekola qualifies, to adopt the words of that Yoruba wordsmith , Alhaji Odolaye Aremu, in parody, to be described as “Idameji Ibadan ti won pe lenikan” ( “a half of Ibadan mistaken for a single person”).
My consciousness of the man Arisekola dated back to the mid-70s when he was a regular feature in the long playing records of the reigning musicians of that era – Chief Ebenezer Obey, King Sunny Ade, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister and Alhaji Odolaye Aremu, to mention a few. The trio of Alhaji Arisekola Alao, Chief Akanni Aluko and Chief Adeseun Ogundoyin dominated the social scene like the roaring lions dominate the jungle.
That was before he exited the social circuit for the Islamic world. Arisekola became the Aare Musulumi of Yoruba land in 1980 and devoted the vigour and energy with which he dominated the social scene as the celebrated Oyinbo oni Datsun to the service of Islam.
Only few men in these parts had “romanticised” wealth like the way Arisekola did. The very few men in this privileged tribe included Chief M.K.O Abiola and much earlier, Candido Joao DaRocha, the Ijesha man whose name became a synonym for wealth.
I met him for the first time about 1992. My celebrated and heavily decorated editor at the Sunday Tribune, Folu Olamiti took two of his reporters, Wale Adebanwi, now Rhodes Professor of Race Studies at the prestigious Oxford University, United Kingdom and myself on a visit to the Aare Musulumi. He had reportedly requested to meet these two reporters whose stories had become permanent features on the front pages of Sunday Tribune. We met him at his residence on the exclusive Rotimi Williams Street in Bodija, Ibadan. It looked uncompleted from the outside, but the interior was classic luxury.
“O ni temi”, he enthusiastically thumped our palms in turn to welcome us to his presence. Nothing prepared me for the experience. He was in a white T-shirt and white shorts. Very small in stature and very much younger than the man one imagined under the big turban and very expansive and heavily embroidered babariga that was his trademark.
He was a very friendly and chatty man. He moved from one topic to another, emotionally expressing strong views on each one. I cannot recall the subjects of discussion that evening but I still recall how his face brightened up as he marshalled his arguments in Ibadan dialect in the chat with our editor. There was no pretext. He took it upon himself to serve us drinks, moving from one person to the other. He intermittently sat on the floor as he enjoyed his conversation with Olamiti.
Arisekola sent Christians on pilgrimage to Jerusalem
In later encounters, I marvelled at the congruence of the Christian and Islamic faith in the residence of the Aare Musulumi. He was an Islamic leader but was actively involved in the determination of the leadership of many Christian groups and associations. He was involved in nominating members into boards of christian organisations and was yearly sending hundreds of christians on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. He didn’t need to go in search of such role. They brought such roles to him. So was it with Islamic groups, student unions, labour groups, the traditional institutions, musicians, artists, artisans. Name it.
Arisekola was Philanthropist of all times
There are very few men in this clime who are as generous like Arisekola. No wonder his house was the melting point of Ibadan. If there is a prominent personality in Ibadan you have not seen for a considerable length of time, you are most likely to meet him during a casual visit to Arisekola’s residence. His residence was a magnet of sorts.
His generosity is as legendary as that of Mansa Kanka Musa of the Mali Empire fame. Sen. Abiola Ajimobi, the governor of Oyo State, is never tired of recalling his first encounter with Arisekola after his (Ajimobi’s) sojourn in the United States of America. According to him, he had attended a party in Ibadan where a guest dominated the entire scene by spraying musicians and guests alike with crisp new Naira notes. Just coming from a clime not conversant with such display of wealth, he enquired who the person was and everyone around chorused, “Oyinbo o ni Datsun” (“The Datsun merchant”).
That was one leg of the story. The second leg which Arisekola always enjoyed, as the governor – known for his gift of the garb – often tells the story, was that Arisekola spent so much money that night that those of them who came to the party with girls could not get all the girls to go back home with them. “No one knew how the girls vamoosed”, he would assert to Arisekola’s loud guffaw.
“We sprayed Sunny Ade and borrowed the money to spray again, using our wristwatches as collateral”
But that was before he became the Aare Musulumi of Yoruba land. Arisekola was to say in one of our encounters that it was his appointment as Aare Musulumi that rescued him from the social circuit. “We were reckless with money”, he said on one other occasion as he relived with nostalgia, his youthful exploits with another comrade in the social circuit in the 1970s, Chief Abiola Ogundokun. “We would spray all the money we took to a party on Sunny Ade, then remove our wristwatches and use them as collateral to borrow extra money from Sunny Ade and spray him with the money all over again. We only retrieved our wristwatches after visiting the bank on Monday to collect more money, again for Sunny Ade.
Arisekola belonged to no party but all parties..
Arisekola was not a politician if defined by membership of a political party. He didn’t need one because he belonged to all political parties. In the Second Republic when he strongly identified with the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Arisekola was a major financier of the personal lifestyles and political aspirations of many leaders of the rival Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). Until his death, he sponsored the aspirations of politicians of different and indeed rival political parties. He financed all parties in all elections. You only know his preference by identifying who received the highest financial support from him. In one instance, Arisekola, in support of a gubernatorial candidate, set up his own campaign team and handed over to them N30 million each day of the 40 days preceding the election. In another election, he procured 25 new vehicles for the campaign train of a gubernatorial candidate even when his associates claimed that he was the biggest financier of the rival candidate.
He was one of the priviledged few that wash Kabbah, Islam’s holiest mosque, every year
Arisekola’s uncommon generosity did not miss the attention of the Islamic world. He was one of the very few personalities from across the world granted the privilege of partaking in the washing of the Kabbah by the King of Saudi Arabia and custodian of Islam’s holiest mosque. It couldn’t have been different for a man who in one of his last years reportedly took about 500 pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, paying for their transportation, accommodation and providing them other sundry allowances.
Arisekola kneels to speak with mother on phone
Though a great man, he gave a lie to the saying that “looking at the kings mouth, you will think he never sucked his mother’s breasts”. Arisekola virtually worshipped his mother. He kneels down when he speaks with the mother, even on phone. He said it was not excessive because a mother who bore the pains of birth deserved to be worshipped. He said the only person whose love never waivers for a man is the mother.
Arisekola and Adedibu
There is no arguing the fact that Arisekola’s greatest ally in politics and in the affairs of Ibadan was the strongman of Ibadan politics, Alhaji Lamidi Ariyibi Adedibu. Between the two men are stories that will easily stroll into the pages of World’s Hilarious Stories.
Adedibu suspends prayer to welcome Arisekola and explains…
One of the most celebrated is Arisekola’s visit to the Molete residence of Adedibu. Adedibu was in the middle of his Sallah prayer when Arisekola walked in. He promptly suspended his Sallah to attend to his visitor. When he was asked why he did so, he responded that his prayer point was for God to give him money. Arisekola’s coming was the evidence that the prayer had been answered because Arisekola never walks alone; he was always heavily laden with money. “If Arisekola should leave, God will punish me that he had answered my prayer but I refused to accept it!” He said he has been thought that any prayer observed when your mind is diverted is a waste of time. He said his mind could not be in the prayer fearing that Arisekola might leave.
Adedibu and Arisekola’s Zoo
There is a more hilarious story of Adedibu and Arisekola’s Zoo. Arisekola had decided to set up a zoo in his new palatial residence at Oluwa Nla. Adedibu volunteered to get the lions from Senegal. When after a long wait and several entreaties it appeared no lion was going to be delivered, Arisekola became agitated. Informed of Arisekola’s worries, Adedibu walked into Arisekola’s residence and volunteered; “Aare, ati na owo awon kiniun re o, bo ba ju awa na sinu zoo k’awon ara Ibadan o ma wa wowa mbe” (Aare, we have spent the money you gave us to buy lions from Senegal. You may wish to throw us into the cage so that the people of Ibadan can come to watch us as they would have come to watch the lions). Both old men had a very hearty laughter. Their friendship continued.
Arisekola believed Ibadan is God’s own city
Arisekola’s greatest passion was for Islam and Ibadan. I have not met any Ibadan man who has as much pride in his Ibadan ancestry as Arisekola. His world revolved around Ibadan and everything that symbolised the great city. He celebrated Amala and never shied away from telling anyone who cared to listen that he never ate rice but could eat Amala, the staple food of Ibadan, three times a day. He gave up the social circuit on becoming the Aare Musulumi in 1980 but until he breathed his last in 2014, he never resisted gesticulating on his seat anytime he heard his favourite song devoted to the glory of Ibadan by his friend, Ebenezar Obey ; “ Oluyole o lanlo,nile Azeez Arisekola…Arisekola dahun si se, yeeeeee dahunsi o, Oke’badan dahunsi o…”
Arisekola’s 73rd birthday celebration would have provided the platform for Ibadan to discuss and possibly amicably resolve the fledging Olubadan Chieftaincy dispute. But as the Yoruba say, ina dile lehin asun isu je (The fire place is left in silence as the roaster of yam is away from home).
Arisekola, Abacha and Abiola
Like every mortal, Arisekola had his weaknesses and trials. The most threatening to his white garland was his uncompromising support for the government of his friend, General Sani Abacha, in defiance of the popular Yoruba support for the sanctity of the June 12 election won by another friend of his, Chief M.K.O Abiola. Alhaji Adedibu once opined that Arisekola survived his trials because he lived a life of prayers and generosity. “Bi abere Aare ba mo so’mi okun, Olorun a ma ba mu ntori aadua ati itore aanu re po…” (“If Arisekola’s needle drops in the middle of the ocean, God retrieves it for him because he lives a life of prayers and charity”).Such efficacy of prayers is open to conjectures. But as for the power of generosity, a former Deputy Senate President of Nigeria shares Adedibu’s belief when, in another context, he propounded what he jocularly calls one of the theories of Nigerian politics; “Any problem money cannot solve, more money will solve it”.
Arisekola and Ibadan generosity
Arisekola’s unequalled generosity is one reason Ibadan will not forget him in a very long time to come. He touched so many lives probably in a way no other person has ever done in the ancient city. Yet, Ibadan itself is a city of cheerful givers, whose people pride themselves by saying, “b’owo ba ku kobo kan l’owo mi, ma a fi s’omo Ibadan lalejo, omo ‘badan o je baun”. (“I will not spare my last kobo to entertain an Ibadan man because Ibadan people themselves are cheerful givers”).
Arisekola was more than “first among equals” in the matter of generosity. In the words of Odolaye Aremu, Arisekola was “the big umbrella that provided shade for the people of Ibadan” (and beyond).
May God forgive his shortcomings.
Professor Adeolu Akande is a Professor of Political Science and Public Administration
On Monday and Tuesday last week, workers and political operatives within the precincts of the new Senate building in the National Assembly complex, Abuja, were treated to a replica of the Theatre of the Absurd. This type of drama originated in Europe and later spread to America in the 1950s. It was influenced by existential philosophy and Albert Camus’s essay The Myth of Sisyphus.
In that work, Camus captured the fundamental human needs and compared the absurdity of man’s life with the situation a figure of Greek mythology, Sisyphus found himself, where he was condemned to repeat forever the task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, and repeatedly sees the same roll down the hill as he approaches the top.
He, thereafter, juxtaposed life’s absurdities with what he called the “unreasonable silence” of the universe to human needs and concluded that rather than adopt suicide, in frustration, “revolt” was required.
82-year-old Dr. Muhammed Adamu Fika, former Clerk to the National Assembly and former Chairman, of the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), who calls himself the “smaller Adamu Fika,” must have come across the Camus essay in deciding to lead an emergency meeting of the Council of Retired Clerks and Secretaries of the National Assembly on November 18. The emergency meeting, which was jointly held with members of the Association of Retired Staff of the National Assembly was meant to salvage the pathetic plights of the National Assembly retirees.
Eighty-two-year-old Fika can hardly gather the pace to navigate round the corners of the National Assembly, but he insisted on making the trip to enable him to preside over the meeting as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Council of Retired Clerks and Secretaries. As his retiree colleagues, many of whom are far younger, saw him struggling to walk the required distance from the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Library, originally fixed as venue to the new Senate building, they had to provide some shoulders to lean on. At one stage, an office chair was converted to a wheelchair to ensure the elderly Fika got to certain locations. It was a sad tale, especially if you look at the essence of Fika’s trip to the National Assembly. He was there to preside over a meeting to press home the need for the payment of the entitlements of National Assembly retirees. An alarm had earlier been sounded on the different Whatsapp platforms of the retired workers of the National Assembly to the effect their members were dying in numbers. It was revealed that no fewer than 20 retired workers had died awaiting the payment of their entitlements in the recent past. Another set of retirees numbering 12 were said to have been bedridden in different hospitals across the land. That alarm was more than enough to prompt Fika and his retiree colleagues to an emergency meeting. But the sight of an elderly man, fighting a just cause on an improvised wheelchair was more than absurd.
Payment of the entitlements got stalled after former President Muhammadu Buhari assented to the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act, 2023, which mandated the National Pensions Commission (PENCOM) to hand over assets of the staff of the National Assembly in its custody after the passage of the National Assembly pension law.
In the beginning, there were no signs that things would go south on the implementation of the Act. Three months after the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act came into effect, PENCOM had written the management to convey its decision to hand off the pension assets of the staff of the National Assembly, while requesting the National Assembly management to provide it with account details to remit the accrued funds. The 10th Senate and the House of Representatives also provided hope for the retirees by providing a take-off grant to the tune of N2.5 billion in the 2024 budget. However, the NASS management could not comply with the request from PENCOM because the Pensions Board had not been inaugurated. Months after months, the retirees waited. Those who were already enjoying their benefits when PENCOM was administering had the payments terminated, while the waiting game ensued.
In trying to fast-track the implementation of the Act, Fika, as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Council of Retired Clerks and Secretaries had forwarded a letter to the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, intimating them of the council’s recommendations for positions in the National Assembly Service Pensions Board.
Fika said in the letter, dated February 27, 2024, that “Considering the pathetic health conditions of our retired colleagues, Your Excellency will agree with me that the establishment of the National Assembly Pensions Board is overdue five (5) months after Mr. President’s assent.” He said that his letter was premised on the provisions of Sections 2 and 17(3) of the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act, 2023, which indicate that the presiding officers of the National Assembly shall make the appointments subject to recommendations of the Council of Clerks and Secretaries. But some persons are insinuating that the undue delay might have been instigated by two strange bedfellows-politics and money. Where the two are involved, simply things hardly follow a straight course. However, nothing justifies the nearly 20-month delay in inaugurating the Pensions Board.
At the end of the emergency meeting on Monday, further meetings were said to have been scheduled at the instance of the Senate President, Akpabio, his deputy, Jibril Barau and others but there were no conclusive steps, yet.
A communique released after the meeting indicated that the retirees observed that the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act, 2023 went through full legislative process in the 9th National Assembly and was assented to by President Muhammad Buhari. It further noted that the delay in implementing the Act has caused undue and untold hardship to the retirees who are unable to access their retirement benefits, adding that while a number of the retired Staff have died, many others are bedridden due to sufferings occasioned by the non-payment of their entitlements.
According to the communique, the meeting decried the pains the retired staff have been subjected to and recalled that appropriate recommendations as per the composition of the Pensions Board have been made to the Presiding Officers of the National Assembly, in line with the enabling Act.
Like every lover of Yoruba traditional music, language and culture, I have of recent been inundated with requests to lend a voice to the newest raging fire in the Fuji music genre. Since the passage of Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Balogun, popularly known as Ayinde Barrister or Agbajelola Barusati, there have been longstanding tiffs on whom of the trio of Ayinde Omogbolahan Anifowose, KWAM 1; self-named King Saheed Osupa (K.S.O.) and Wasiu Alabi Pasuma, was the “King.”
These musicians’ recent quest for supremacy is not new. From time immemorial, supremacy battles have been part and parcel of Yoruba music. Apparently now tempered by modernity, in the olden days, the battles were fought with traditional spells, incantations and talisman aimed at deconstructing and liquidating their rivals. Mostly fought on genre basis, I submit that pre and post-independence entertainment scene would have been livelier, far more robust than it was but for the acrimonious liquidating fights of those eras.
In the Sakara music, Abibu Oluwa, a revered early precursor of this Yoruba musical genre, who reigned in the late 1920s and 1930s, had Salami Alabi Balogun, popularly known as Lefty Salami, Baba Mukaila and Yusuff Olatunji as members of his band. Oluwa praise-sang many Lagos elites of his time, especially Herbert Macaulay to whom he sang his praise in the famous track named “Macaulay Macaulay.” In it, he sang the foremost Nigerian nationalist’s alias of Ejonigboro – Snake on the Street and prayed that he would not come to shame.
Sakara also produced the likes of S. Aka Baba Wahidi, Kelani Yesufu (alias Kelly). It was sung with traditional Yoruba instruments like the solemn-sounding goje violin whose history is traced to the north, and the roundish Sakara drum, beaten with stick and whose appearance is like that of a tambourine. Sakara music is often called the Yoruba variant of western blues music because of its brooding rhythm though laced with a high dosage of philosophy.
When Oluwa died in 1964, he literally handed over to Lefty who, born on October 1913, died December 29, 1981. Lefty, a talking drummer under Oluwa, churned out over 35 records before his demise, one of which was a tribute to Lagos monarch, Oba Adele (Adele l’awa nfe – Oba Adele is the king we want) and another to the Elegushi family. I dwelt considerably on Sakara because it is believed to have had considerable influence on other genres of traditional African Yoruba music, especially Apala and Fuji, with the former sometimes indistinguishable from Sakara.
Apala music, whose exponent is said to be Haruna Ishola, originated in the late 1930s Nigeria. Delivered with musical instruments like a rattle (Sekere) thumb piano, (agidigbo) drums called Iya Ilu and Omele, a bell (agogo) and two or three talking drums, Apala and Sakara are the most complex of these genres of traditional Yoruba music, due to their infusion of philosophy, incantations and dense Yoruba language into their mix. Distinct, older and more difficult in mastery than Fuji music which is considered to be comparatively easy to sing, Ayinla Omowura, Ligali Mukaiba, Kasumu Adio, and many others were Apala leading lights of the time. The three genres have very dense Islamic background.
The latest entrant of all the three genres is Fuji. Pioneered by Ayinde Barrister no doubt, for an Apala musician biographer like me, I am confused that Omowura, as far back as early 1970s, asked listeners in need of good Fuji music to come learn from him – “Fuji t’o dara, e wa ko l’owo egbe wa…” Sorry, I digressed.
While KWAM 1 emerged with his Talazo music from the ashes of his being a music instrument arranger for Barrister’s musical organization in the early 1980s, the feud in the house after Barrister’s death erupted when narratives allegedly oozed unto the musical scene that KWAM 1 referred to himself as the creator of Fuji music. He however promptly denied the claim. For decades, Osupa and Pasuma were locked in horns over supremacy of the Fuji music genre. In August 2023, the two however seemed to have decided to thaw their feud as they shared stage with Wasiu Ayinde, at Ahmad Alawiye Folawiyo, an Islamic singer’s 50th birthday celebration in Lagos. KWAM 1 glibly acted as their senior colleague at the event.
As an indication that they are no bastards of the teething and recurrent supremacy battles that emblemize traditional Yoruba music, the three Fuji music icons seem to have gone into the trenches again. It first started with Taiye Currency, an Ibadan-based alter-ego of Pasuma picking a fight with the musician who self-styled himself Son of Anobi Muhammed’s Wife. In a viral video, Currency had disclaimed reference to Pasuma as his “father” in the music industry. In another video not long after, KWAM 1, like some kind of father figure, was shown asking Currency to apologize to Pasuma.
A few days ago, a video of Osupa went viral. Therein, he was chastising a particular hypocrite he called “Onirikimo” and “alabosi”, who is “stingy and is ready to shamelessly collect money from those under him.” Osupa also claimed that this “shameless elder” had strung a ring of corn round his waist and should be ready to be made fun of by hens. Watchers of the endless tiffs among these Fuji icons swear that KWAM 1 was the unnamed Fuji musician Osupa was casting aspersion on.
The trio of Sakara, Apala and Fuji music also witnessed such petty squabbles. While many claim that the fights were promotional gambits aimed at having their fans salivate for their hate-laced musical attacks against one another, some others claim that the rivalries were genuine. In the Apala music scene, Haruna Ishola and Kasumu Adio fought each other to the nadir, with Adio, who sang almost in the same voice and cadence as Ishola, suddenly vamoosing from the musical scene. Rumours and speculations had it then that a mysterious goat bit Adio and rendered him useless. While Ayinla Omowura also fought Fatai Olowonyo, Fatai Ayilara, among others in the Apala genre, the duo of Yusuff Olatunji and S. Aka also feuded till their last days. This is not to mention the interminable fight between Kollington Ayinla and Barrister.
If the tiff between the trio of KWAM 1, Osupa and Pasuma is about age and Yoruba traditional respect for elders, KWAM 1 would easily go away with the trophy of the best of the three. However, if philosophical depth, musical elan, research of lyrics and deployment of Yoruba language are at issue, none of the other two musicians can unbuckle Osupa’s sandals. Osupa began his musical career in 1983 as a teenager and has gone through the mills, his late father being a musician, too and Awurebe music lord, Dauda Epo Akara’s musical contemporary.
Unlike their predecessors, the three Fuji musicians are literate and should thus address their musical issues in more mature manner. Osupa even recently bagged a degree from the department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. One thing they should know is that, whether one is supreme to the other or not, their fans will readily queue behind the brand that delights them.
Two incidents happened during the 1994/95 NYSC service year, which I was part of in Birnin-Kebbi, Kebbi State, and they gave me profound culture shocks that I still remember till today. I would equally say that those incidents probably justified the Federal Government’s decision to float the scheme.
We were told that part of the reasons General Yakubu Gowon floated the NYSC was to ensure national integration, cohesion and exposure of young Nigerians to cultures of other parts of the country other than where they were born.
First was the shock of seeing a director that I was attached to in the then Government House, who had just taken a new wife, and sat among drivers, gate men and other junior staff to dine. I saw them seated round a huge iron pot of Koko, a local delicacy, exchanging one big spoon made of calabash, as each took turns to use the spoon to eat the delicacy. It was as if I was witnessing a scene where children of a big family were struggling to catch a portion of food or where people were eating Saara, as they say it in Yorubaland.
As I walked past the noisy crowd, I was transfixed seeing the newly-wedded director among the lot. He saw me standing still, as I couldn’t comprehend what he was doing there, and he got the message. ‘Taiyo, (as he used to call me) you won’t understand,’ he said as he waved to me to keep going. When we later saw, he explained that what he just did was a way of assuring the commoners that ‘we are all one,’ as they felicitated him on the new bride. But I could not fathom how the occupant of a ‘huge office’ as that of a director in a Government House , would sit among “commoners” on a tattered mat to share a single spoon and eat in public.
The other incident was quite pathetic. My friend, Tunde Omobuwa, was posted to a school in Yauri, in the southern part of the state, for his primary assignment. But he found the place boring on weekends. So, he arranged to always be with me on weekends.
One such weekend, we decided to take a stroll round the streets near the Government House. We took off from the place of my primary assignment, the Federal Information Centre; bought corn beside the office, and started ‘blowing’ the ‘mouth organ’ as we strolled. We were too engrossed in our gist and the sweetness of the corn to note that some young boys were trailing us, praying that some leftovers of the corn would drop for them to scavenge. Somehow, the two of us dropped the corn cob almost simultaneously. We were more than taken aback by a commotion that erupted at our back. Four eight or nine year-olds had descended on the supposed leftovers and broken the corn cobs into pieces. I was again transfixed as if one was hit by an electric shock. Remember that feeling when you play with electric fish?
I was moved to tears as I had never ever seen a group of children scavenging on nothing as it were. I beckoned to the kids and offered them N20, which was the highest denomination at the time, and with some smattering Hausa words told them to go buy their own corn from the same place we got ours. As they left, heading to the corn seller, I couldn’t erase that ugly sight from my mind. Was it really possible that some people scavenge on nothing this way? I was later to see incidents of children swarming around restaurants and pouncing on near empty plates.
These incidents told me clearly that the North was a different place and that the life of the boy child is not only risky and endangered but sold to stagnation and deprivation, unless you are one of the lucky few.
Having benefited from the free education policy of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) between 1979 and 1983, when the Second Republic was terminated, I knew that there is a lot the government can do in educating the children. In my secondary school days, I was the Library Prefect at one point, and so I saw an excess of books supplied by the government to our school. So, I was an example of the feasibility of free education. It was the same way the Action Group government had handled education in the years preceding Nigeria’s independence and the First Republic.
So why can’t the state governments in the North declare free and compulsory education for the young ones out there? Why should children be made to scavenge on empty corn cobs just to see if they can find pieces of seeds left over?
And why was my director giving drivers and gate men in the Government House false hope that they were all the same, instead of him to challenge them to seek to lift themselves up the social ladder?
I think there was no excuse for the North not to have adopted a free education policy, just as Chief Obafemi Awolowo did in the South-West. And if we say the North needs to look itself in the mirror, you again remember the efforts by President Goodluck Jonathan to educate the multitude of Northern children through the Almajiri Schools. That government built more than 400 of such schools, which were abandoned because it could upset the oligarchy. The oligarchs forgot the truism that the children of the poor they refuse to train today won’t let their children sleep peacefully.
But the governor of Borno State, Prof Babagana Zulum, appears to have got the message. Last week, I was thrilled to see him organise a summit to reform the Almajiri system.
The Almajiri education system is a traditional Islamic method of learning widely obtained across states in northern Nigeria. Through that system, which is tied to Islamic teaching, youths, especially boys are kept out of the formal western education system. I don’t know why the teachings by Islamic scholars cannot go alongside that of Western education as it obtains in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and other Islamic countries that are doing well economically and in the world of science, technology.
While addressing the summit, Zulum had mentioned the need to address the root causes of insecurity through the provision of education for citizens of Borno, adding that improper teaching of Islamic studies has contributed to the emergence of Boko Haram insurgents in the state.
According to him, to curtail whatever is the adverse effect of Almajiri education; the Borno State Government has established the Arabic and Sangaya Education Board to introduce a unified curriculum for Sangaya and Islamic schools. He said that the reform would include establishing Higher Islamic Colleges to cater for Almajiri children and blending the religious teachings with the secular curricula as well as skills.
He said: “The Sangaya Reform is a great development. It will give Almajiri a better chance in life, particularly the introduction of integrating western education, vocational, numeracy, and literacy skills into the centres, which are also described as Almajiri and Islamic schools.
“Distinguished guests and esteemed educationists, government’s intention was to streamline the informal and formal education systems to quality integrated Sangaya School for admission into colleges and universities.”
One would have thought that governors with radical postures like Nasir el-Rufai and others before him would have proposed this type of reform, but it is better late than never. Zulum should be supported to get something out of this.
