Opinion
El-Rufai, Malami, Ayade: Nigeria’s three troublers in one troubling week
Perhaps if Alois Hitler, father of a man who would later be the albatross of the whole human race, had performed a ritual which the Yoruba call the Ẹsẹ̀ntáyé – a traditional earthly journey investigation – on his son Adolf, six million Jews who were exterminated in excruciating circumstances decades later by same man who grew to become the most notorious troubler of the world, would probably have had their lives spared. Alois’ Austrian-German society of the 19th century ostensibly didn’t believe in Ẹsẹ̀ntáyé and would have thought it to be craps.
Not doing this, it constituted itself to be, for the world, the proverbial offspring of the cobra that is always the harbinger of its death. Adolf Hitler later grew up to become one of the most infernal dictators in human history. With the benefit of hindsight, a spiritual divination of his dastardly mission on earth at his birth on April 20, 1889 would have spared the world of Hitler’s sadism.
With the Ẹsẹ̀ntáyé – literally meaning, touching the earth with the feet – traditional African Yoruba society sought not to be ambushed by an insidious human destiny that could bring society or an individual to ruins. Their belief is reinforced by a worldview that each human being is born to fulfill a purpose or destiny in life, positive or negative. They held that society isn’t only complicit in the way an individual turns later in life, it could also be a bearer of the pall if the individual’s later life turns destructive. To guard against this, the Yoruba society attempted to seek insight into the tomorrow of its children so that it could help redirect the sail of a disaster-prone destiny or help nourish any destiny that was on the right course.
So on the third day after the birth of a child, its parents, grandparents and the Ifa priest, are gathered in a short restricted ceremony to divine what purpose the child had come to fulfill on earth. Chants, rituals and sacrifices were made to the gods and the particular Ifa corpus’ message which reveals the child’s name, destiny and the dos and don’ts of his life, is administered. This was the same ritual administered in Professor Ola Rotimi’s The gods are not to blame on baby Odewale, given birth to by King Adetusa and Queen Ojuola in the land of Kutuje. The Ifa priest, Baba Fakunle, on divining the baby’s Ẹsẹ̀ntáyé, proclaimed that “this child would kill his father and marry his own mother!” It came to pass.
Like the Austrian-German society at Hitler’s birth, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai’s Daudawa Fulani family, at his birth on February 16, 1960, probably also considered the Ẹsẹ̀ntáyé rituals as some heathen crap. But when I first met him for the very first time in Lagos, sometime in the year 2000, my mind did a psychological and psychoanalytic Ẹsẹ̀ntáyé on the diminutive, brilliant and self-defined man called El-Rufai and my submission was as scary as Baba Fakunle’s spiritual prognosis and projection.
Without any Ifa corpus but armed with logic and perspicacity, I concluded that Nasir, with his Fulani blood, the brilliance, depth and huge appreciation of the contours of Nigeria which he displayed at that forum, would soar very high. Regrettably, I concluded, he would run a leadership that is sans blood flowing in its veins. Like Hitler’s.
It was at the Akodo Resort on the Lagos’ Lekki Peninsula and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) which the young El-Rufai headed as Director General, had invited journalists to interrogate and appreciate what the newly established BPE was about. At the opening session addressed by the DG, he swept everyone off their feet with his suavity and depth. However, on multi-billion Naira investments of the Nigerian state that had begun to be sold off, El-Rufai spoke like a cold-hearted mortician who had come to embalm the dead. My picture of him, aftermath that encounter, was a man totally drained of blood and human feelings. I left Akodo persuaded that young Nasir was a budding Nigerian German Chancellor and Fuhrer, Adolf reincarnate. So when, years after, he began to exhibit that cold-heartedness, first as Minister of the FCT during which he bulldozed billions of Naira-worth properties, in the name of the law, as if man was made for law and not vice versa; and later, as the Kaduna governor which he administered both as a suzerain and it, his fiefdom, I gloated at having reincarnated as Baba Fakunle.
El-Rufai is brilliant and most likely very accountable in government. A friend who worked with an NGO told me that of all states in Nigeria, his Kaduna is like a Mecca for foreign development partners because his governance of the state approximates and manifests key indices of performance and accountability. These partners underscore those as the KPIs associated with a developing country. That is why, if infrastructure and development were the gauge of governmental success, it is not likely that any state in Nigeria will surpass the miniature-statured Nasir’s Kaduna, just like Adolf conquered the whole world for his Aryan race. However, when it comes to the human elements of governance, the blood touch, El-Rufai scores less than zero. His lack of regards for the other person is huge and his magisterial belief in himself, at the detriment of others’, verges on the arrogant.
When Nasir speaks, he waxes epigrammatic and profound. He does not engage in herd mentality and does not care whose ox gets gored on account of his decision to paddle his canoe alone. For him, a middle of the road in any equation is effeminate. Some people claim that El-Rufai seeks superlatives in all he does due to his scant physical quantity. When Sheik Gumi became the new face of negotiation with bloodsucking bandits in the North and governors were in a stampede to touch the nape of his compromised robe so that the blood flow in their land would cease, due to his atypical reasoning, the Kaduna chief executive told Gumi and all others to go jump inside the river. Bandits should be serially killed and not negotiated with, he proclaimed.
Most certainly as retaliation for his verbal artillery-shelling of their base, kidnappers convoked on his Kaduna for a vengeful retaliation. A few weeks ago, he was asked to react to the killing of three of the kidnapped students of Greenfield University and what further steps his government would take to rescue them. El-Rufai, who had vowed that while other governors were paying multi-million Naira ransom, Kaduna wouldn’t pay a dime, said his government was in amity with the military to flush bandits out and rescue the remaining 17 students. “I was assured by the Air Force and Army that they know where the students are and have encircled them. We are going to attack them. We will lose a few students but we will attack the bandits and recover some,” he had said, (emphasis mine).
The two phrases in the above statement, “lose a few students” and “recover some,” though very honest reality of such military engagements, show who Nasir really is. He does not dress shibboleths that he disbelieves in with any worthy apparel. The question people ask is, those “few students who would be lost,” are they chickens or goats? If he was their parent, would he speak as cold-mindedly as this?
Those who begrudge Nasir’s cold analyses and submissions lose an essential element of his persona.
So when he sacked 5,000 civil servants on a very realistic, pure economic calculation that Kaduna could not continue to bear the burden of a workforce that constitutes just a few percent of its citizens and residents, proceeding last week to unilaterally and magisterially declare the NLC President, Ayuba Philibus Wabba wanted, he was merely manifesting a frozen heart whose arteries are impermeable to human feeling.
To say the truth however, Kaduna had always been that unlucky with its governors. In October, 1997, as Kaduna State military governor under General Sani Abacha, current Customs Controller, Hameed Ali, sacked about 30,000 striking civil servants. He then proceeded to detain 18 local government chairmen and arrested a journalist who reported his Hitleric gangsterism. The poor folk was severely beaten by Ali’s goons and tortured at the Government House.
In that same last week, aside the troublous irritancy of El-Rufai, Nigeria was to contend with another infected mind that oozes putrid odour. Abubakar Malami, Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, starred shamelessly in that drama. While impugning the decision to ban open grazing by southern governors made in Asaba, Delta State, Malami last week said on a Channels Television programme that the governors’ call was unconstitutional as it violated and denies the rights of Hausa/Fulani herders. Then he made an asinine comparison, for which Nigerians have hoisted him on a well deserved crucifix ever since. “It is as good as saying, perhaps, maybe, the northern governors coming together to say they prohibit spare parts trading in the north,” he had said.
Malami has since got a quantum of deserved ripostes from across Nigeria since he made that mental slip, parceled as verbal shelling of his base. He does not need more from me. The most heroic response he got came from Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, the governor of Ondo State. What made Akeredolu’s response heroic was that it was against-method, something in the mould of philosopher Paul Feyerabend’s argument while canvassing the scientific method of examination of Karl Popper. Like Feyerabend’s, Akeredolu’s intervention was unusual because it upset political mores and governmental behavior that had been the norm in Nigeria overtime. It was sparsely exampled and very unhypocritical. The norm was for governors to nest their views in support of status-quo and hide behind a finger. This they did in the name of political correctness and kowtowing before the almighty Federal Government. Akeredolu chose to repudiate all that and stood behind his people. History will record appropriately that when Nigerian high places became jam-packed with political vultures and fawners, despite the fact that the land is filled with blood of innocent citizens spilled by invading Fulani herdsmen, a governor chose to bond with his people, no matter the systemic frown at it.
As if the menace of El-Rufai and Malami was not enough for a week filled with dispiriting views from Nigerian high places, the Governor of Cross River State, Ben Ayade chose to pollute the already troubled waters. This is not just because he decided to tread the shameless, self-serving path that has become famous with Nigerian politicians. The fad among them is to breakfast with one political party at dawn, have lunch with another by mid-day and dine with yet another by sunset. What however rankles with Ayade is his deployment of the usual brainless justification of such political act, in the service of his political adultery. Hear him: He left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) so as to buoy President Muhammadu Buhari’s “commitment to this country, his nationalistic disposition and all the efforts he has made to bring Nigeria to where we are today, it’s obvious that we should join hands with him to build a Nigeria that we can be proud of.”
From his first word to the last, you could see that Ayade, a former lecturer in the Department of Microbiology, University of Ibadan, merely needed a nationalistic hyperbole to dress his despicable, maggots-oozing sore. This, he did excellently. When politicians, especially governors, take this kind of unpopular, anti-people detour, two issues are likely to be responsible. First is the possibility that the federal eye had sighted cockroaches brimming in their wardrobes and wanted to make an example of them. A party jump is thus quickly resorted to as self bailout. Second is the likelihood that some political scammers had succeeded in fooling the governor that he had been found worthy to step into Buhari’s shoes in 2023. Like they did to Ebonyi’s Dave Umahi.
If not, why would Ayade assault Nigerians with those less-than-sensible reasons for his political adultery? What commitment to country, what nationalism, what effort has Buhari made towards sustenance of Nigeria that needed Ayade’s dalliance? When former colleagues of Ayade’s in UI said they were not surprised at his latter serpentine manifestations in political office as his Ẹsẹ̀ntáyé – judging by his actions while he was a teacher in the university – showed such tendencies, I promptly rested my case.
If you realize that the El-Rufais, Malamis and Ayades constitute the bulk of the cold-blooded sharks that populate the Nigerian political and governmental rivers, why then do we still marvel that Nigeria is neither progressing nor standing still, but regressing fast into unmitigated anomie?
Dr. Festus Adedayo, a Scholar, Author and Journalist; writes from Ibadan
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.
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