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Lagos collapsed building: That this house may not fall

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Many atimes, Providence speaks to human beings in anecdotes. Unfortunately, man is too blind to even behold the foot of his nose; too lost in pursuit of earthly existential scrambles that the lessons of these stories are most times lost on him. Traditional Africa located the power in relating life experiences, as well as the experiences of living and non-living beings, especially those of animals, to the life of existing man. For centuries, not only did humanity learn to live by minding the landmines that consumed its recent and ancient ancestors, it also fashioned its life therefrom.

The holy writs are filled with anecdotal examples of lives lived that ended in perdition and ones lived in exemplary manner that are worthy of being copied. This is the power behind folktales, dreams and historical renditions. Relation of life experiences to occurrences that have happened could even be said to be the philosophy behind the doctrine of stare decisis in law. This doctrine arose out of the need for legal continuity, for the sake of certainty. Inherited from the English common law, in the early 18th century, English courts gave qualified obligation to judges to abide by past decisions and established rules made by former precedents whenever same points and same issues came forth for adjudications.

For a whole one week now, Nigeria has been thrown into mourning. Calamities have befallen Nigeria from all fronts before now but the calamity this time around came from the western flank; from the sudden collapse of a 21-storey Gerrard, Ikoyi, Lagos terrace building belonging to Femi Osibona, owner of Fourscore Limited. As at the time of writing this, 40 people had been pulled out of the debris of the collapse, including the remains of the Property Developer Osibona himself, his friends and workers on site.

Recriminations, blame trading and tar-brushings that bear imprimatur of politics are being spurned. The calamity has been dimensioned severally, from the architectural, engineering, spiritual to the human angles, The question to ask in all these is, could the Lagos 21-stoey terrace building collapse be speaking to a greater rot within, and a greater calamity to come that bespatter our country, which could happen unless Nigeria takes heed?

Put differently, could the collapse actually be a metaphor for understanding a collapse or a likely collapse of Nigeria unless we remedy our national structure? Can we dimension the cracks in Nigeria, taking into consideration the dimensioned fractures that eventually led to the collapse of the 21-storey Ikoyi building, with a view to averting her fall?

Osibona, from all that have so far been said about him, had a good intention for himself as an entrepreneur and a projected, even if ostensible, good intention for the property development world as at the time he conceived of the idea of the Ikoyi terrace building. While many have spoken of how Osibona transitioned from being a shoe, clothes seller in the United Kingdom, into establishing Fourscore Limited, his capacity to be able to build the high rise building cannot be questioned. Is it the same for his capability?

It may be a throwback to that maxim that says the road to hell is paved with a swathe of good intentions. There have been so many good-intentioned projects and projections that have ended in calamitous ruins. While metaphysicists talk about the unseen dimensions of human engagements, as Africans, we will be engaging in a barren venture if we take the route trodden by the Austrian British philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who maintained that metaphysical matters are nonsensical. For us as Africans, the unseen dictates the template of the seen. In our world, the fly dancing on the river has a drummer hidden from vision, the metaphysics of its being. So, could the crash and collapse of that edifice have had an eidetic significance, far more than the physical lacuna that scientists and professionals have identified as the likely cause of the collapse?

Whatever is the foundational, structural or super-structural errors that led to the collapse of the Ikoyi building can be metaphorized as Nigeria. The 1914 structural and foundational error behind virtually all ills plaguing Nigeria has been underscored severally. While the foundational colonial error of bumping together like and unlike entities into a questionable whole has been identified as a major cause of the debilitating instability in Nigeria today, over a century after, super-structural errors that came thereafter have compounded the ills that plague her.

German jurist, Friedrich Karl von Savigny of the Historical school of thought in jurisprudence, had espoused what he called the volkgeist, the national spirit, as the glue that cements and binds a people together, the absence of which can mar a jurisprudential understanding of a people’s law. In the colonial shell bequeathed to a post-colonial Nigeria, there is a clear absence of the Savigny volkgeist and manifesting in a Nigeria that is an alien and strange contraption that the people have to encounter as a vague reality. This has led to so many crises, ranging from the military putschs of 1966, the pogrom in the north, a fratricidal war, the incidence of military rule, the monumental heists that have been inflicted on Nigeria ever since and the economic stasis, as well as the security challenges that the country is facing today.

There have been so many posthumous accounts of the person of Osibona, the Fourscore property owner. Each of the accounts claimed that he never cut corners and was merely ambitious. However, there have also been other claims to the effect that the initial design of the building was eight floors and that the foundation was not designed to shoulder an edifice of that magnitude.

There was also a viral video of men of the Lagos structural enforcement outfit which stormed the Ikoyi property to bring him to book but from whose hooks he freed himself after pressing the usual Nigerian button. This is a euphemism for graft, bribery and the typical Nigerian big-man-ism. Those who claim that in the button pressed by Osibona which secured him freedom from this harassment could be found a nexus between him and those who he allegedly fronted for didn’t get the dice right. In Nigeria, you do not need to be a surrogate of a super big man to be able to secure freedom from the law. You only need to possess the right stack of cash that can drive the greed of the system and law.

The Nigerian postcolonial burden has ensured that Nigeria is a land of cutting corners. Drugs are fake, human beings are fake, promises are dross, mosques are fake and the pulpit is suffering from a fakery of cataclysmic proportion. When a man approaches you and announces that he is Pastor or Imam, flee. Did you listen to a viral video of Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo sacralizing Osibona and his pursuits? With this, it becomes very difficult to draw a line between devilish, fast-tempoed aspirations and Godly aspirations. By the way, how come that in those moments of laying hands on Osibona to “conquer territories,” Ashimolowo didn’t decipher that a man running at such supersonic speed to conquer property developments in continents could be short-changing the system? Did Ashimolowo caution against speedy sprint of this protégé of his?

Because the putting together of Nigeria lacks the metaphysical or the spiritual element, it then goes without saying that she lacks a major cohesive ingredient that holds a people together in their time of travails. There is no common goal that the people of Nigeria are pursuing as they lack what in German is called Wéltanschauung, a worldview. It symptomizes the collection of values, attitudes, narratives and expectations of the world in which a people are born and which shape them, their thoughts and actions. It is reason why there are variations in the ethos, ethics, religion, philosophy and beliefs of the people of Nigeria.

Many structural engineers have queried the substructure of the land that the 21-storey building was erected. When narratives from the top, especially from those who hold the rein of power today, claim that Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable, they sound extremely ridiculous like a sub-structural wrong that perhaps the builders of the Ikoyi property noticed but which they believed was immaterial and that a magnificent structure erected on it will cure the wrongs.

Trust Nigerians with their multifaceted prognoses at death, we have been variously told that there was a compromise of quality and standard in the building of that fallen edifice. For instance, a Prowess Engineering Limited, a company that allegedly began the construction of the collapsed building, reportedly warned the late Osibona of the inherent dangers in circumventing process and standard in its construction. In a letter that instantly went viral, the company was said to have withdrawn its services on grounds that there was variation, both in the vision of the company, the late owner’s and the building project.

Likewise in Nigeria. Nation-building is a product of shared vision and is a collective enterprise. The moment there is no Fe of ownership of a national project and there is an absence of a consensus of ideas, cracks begin to appear. In a Nigeria where some people are perceived as lords while others are serfs, where some nationalities are kings and others their servants, the end product is always a disaster.

The administration of Nigeria, especially from 1966 till date, has yielded so many contradictions and ambiguities. Largely due to the selfish interests of the colonizers which were projected in the foundational administration of Nigeria, ethnic groups were thus balkanized as ethnicities and not as nations. This has made issues to be viewed from their ethnic prism and ethnicity used as a negative construct. Any policy, projects, appointments, infrastructure and dividends of governance is perceived and apprehended from the vantage point of ethnicity. This crack has further become more noticeable since 2015 when Mephistopheles gifted Nigeria a president who has offhandedly escalated the importance of where one comes from in Nigeria, higher than what one has to contribute to Nigeria.

Today, apart from all the challenges of making Nigeria a nation-state, Nigeria has become a recipient of dross structural padding that cannot endure. No one administers Nigeria from the position of wishing Nigeria to be great but as a honey-pot from where they could take a lick and bite. There is no synchronization in the expectations, contributions and manifestations of all the ethnic groups of Nigeria. Everybody is merely dancing to the rhythm of their own tunes and beats. The absence of unanimity of purpose has hugely stalled the possibility of nation building.

Thus, impunity is ten a dime on Nigerian streets. From the roads, offices, government, individuals and everybody in Nigeria, impunity has become the necklace we fiendishly advertise. If you come in contact with the disorder on the streets of Nigeria, you do not need to read Karl Maier’s This House Has Fallen to be able to decipher that Nigeria is going the Ikoyi 21-storey building way gradually.

Ostensibly, the fallen Ikoyi building didn’t acquire the liability of a fall overnight. It began to crack within unnoticeably a long time ago. As they say, that Rome was not built in a day, it is obvious that Rome was also not destroyed in a day. That great empire began to stink from within and the crumble began gradually. It is same with a Nigeria that we are cobbling together with great efforts and brinkmanship, without bothering to repair the wonky foundation upon which she was erected.

There are several lessons Nigeria can learn from the Ikoyi fallen high rise building. Nigeria big but fragile and its fragility has prodded many theorists to point at its probable fall. Nigeria’s collapse may not be as structural as we saw in the Ikoyi building’s collapse but the country is getting to a point where its existence is hugely threatened.

If Osibona was told of the fragility of the structure he was putting together yet stewed dangerously in his own broth of self-delusion of the strength of his magnificent structure, he would be in the same parlour with the rulers of Nigeria who believe that some metaphysical glue that has kept Nigeria from falling, right from the civil war period, would always be available to make Nigeria withstand whatever push and shove she gets from as a result of her wonky foundation. It is not too late for Nigerian rulers to avoid a calamity of the hue of Ikoyi if they come down from their high horses, accept that there are structural errors that needed to be corrected urgently about Nigeria and do that immediately.

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NASS Pensioners: How Akpabio, Abbas Should Not Treat The Elderly

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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.

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The Fuji Music House Of Commotion

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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.

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Almajiri: Why Northern Leaders Must Look Themselves in the Mirror

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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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