By Femi Abbas

This article is not appearing in this column, today, for the first time. It had been published before as a presentation of naked facts against the incessant falsehood with which Nigerians have been perennially fed through untenable propaganda shamelessly mounted by certain Nigerian media irritants who are well known for exhibiting gullible bigotry.

Facts are as much constant as they are sacred.

Points to Note

Four major and fundamental points should be well noted in this article for historical records as well as for posterity. And, the four points are quite verifiable.

The Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) was established in 1969 with Nigeria as a foundation member.

Contrary to the wide spread misinformation in Nigeria, it was General Yakubu Gowon, a Christian Head of State, and not General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, a Muslim Head of State, that took Nigeria into OIC.

Four Nigerian Presidents have attended OIC Summits so far. They are Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo (Christian), Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (Muslim), Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (Christian) and Muhammadu Buhari (Muslim).

About 30 African countries, none of which can claim to be an Islamic State, are, like Nigeria, members of OIC and their citizens are not in any frivolous noise of Islamization.

Preamble

This is Nigeria’s time of digital facts. And to reveal those facts as succinctly as they are and not as they are deceptively and mischievously presented in Nigeria media, is to appropriately create an indelible archive of digital facts for posterity sake. Falsehood of any form, in any place and at any time, is like a blind horse which may run berserk in its hurried bid to convey its rider to his/her presumed destination. Should that horse, in its blindness, mistake a dungeon for its rider’s destination, the trip in question may become ‘a journey of no return’.

Reminiscence

Time flies. It has been 34 years already since Nigeria’s membership of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) sparked off a wild, national brouhaha in Nigeria’s local communication den of rental criers called Nigerian media.

That unwarranted brouhaha over this country’s membership of OIC was an open evidence, either of the blatant ignorance with which most Nigerian journalists practice journalism as a profession or as a deliberate mischief of some political/business charlatans who have been perennially masquerading in the cloak of religion or both. For such charlatans, religion is a silhouette through which they can call a dog a bad name in order to hang it.

Background Information

The Organization of Islamic Conference popularly known as OIC was established in  September 1969 when General Yakubu Gowon, a Christian from today’s Plateau State, was Nigeria’s Head of State. Nigeria was then embroiled in a civil war that raged fiercely from 1967 to 1970. In his desperation to win that war, General Gowon, as Commander-in-Chief of Nigerian Armed Forces, took certain steps that later turned out to be generators of unbridled controversies in Nigerian history. One of such steps was to take Nigeria into the then newly established international Organization called OIC. Another was the ceding of Bakasi area of  today’s Cross River State to Cameroon in exchange for the latter’s support in a bid to win the civil war and to prevent the emergence of a rebellious region named Biafra as a separate country. But our immediate concern here is more about Nigeria’s membership of OIC which led to the coinage of the word ‘Islamization’ as a religious blackmail in Nigeria by certain business Christian charlatans who are parading themselves as clerics.

Gowon’s Role in OIC

While the brouhaha in Nigerian media continued to reverberate ceaselessly over the country’s regularization of her membership of OIC in 1986, only a few, well educated and civilized Nigerians, knew the role played by General Yakubu Gowon in the historical episode that ushered Nigeria into that Organization. And, as a charismatic statesman that he is perceived to be in certain quarters, one would have expected General Gowon to openly come out to tell Nigerians about his role in that controversial venture.

How It Happened

It was during Nigeria’s civil war years (1967-1970) that Yakubu Gowon, a Northern Christian General in the Nigerian Army and the country’s Head of State, approached the then Egyptian military Head of State, General Gamal Abdul Nasir, who later transformed himself into a civilian President in that country for help. General Gowon asked that Egyptian President for assistance in winning the then ongoing Nigerian civil war in the spirit of Pan Africanism which President Nasir championed along with the then President Kwami Nkruma of Ghana at that time. And, in addition to helping General Gowon with some sophisticated military wares, President Nasir also introduced him to OIC, which was established in September 1969, in the belief that Gowon could get further help from other member States of the Organization. After all, seeking foreign help internationally was not peculiar to Gowon or Nigeria as a country. The leader of the then rebellious Eastern region, Lt. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, also sought and got military and financial assistance from some countries like France, Germany, Portugal, Israel and others in his bid to succeed in pulling his region out of Nigeria by all means.

Thus, by participating in the very first meeting of of that Organization in 1969, Nigeria became a member of OIC from its inception.

Nigeria’s Observer Status in OIC

For 17 years (1969-1986) after joining OIC at its inception, Nigeria remained an observer member of that Organization until 1986 when her membership was regularized.

As a Deputy Foreign Editor in the now defunct Concord newspaper, at that time, yours sincerely was one of the only two Nigerian journalists that covered that event in Fez, Morocco in January 1986. The other Nigerian Journalist that was in attendacne to cover the conference was Alhaji Liad Tella, the then News Editor of the same Concord newspaper.

Process of Regularisation

Before 1986, Nigeria had been severally pressurized, by the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), to regularize her observer membership status. That observer status had embarrassingly become a matter of suspicion to other members of the Organization. And in 1985, Nigeria was given an ultimatum of one year (1986) to either regularize her membership of that Organization or pull out of it. At that point, if Nigeria had failed to regularize her membership of OIC in the following year (1986),  she would have been disgraced out of the body and that would have amounted to a public diplomatic ridicule in the comity of nations.

The Cry of Owl

One of the loudest allegations of ‘Islamization’ of Nigeria in recent times is from a dubious, self-appointed   Christian body that names itself National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF). Besides OIC membership, that mischievous body has also severally referred to another Muslim Conference called ‘Islam in Africa Conference’ which was hosted by Nigerian Muslims in the city of Abuja in 1989. That was the year that the Nigerian National Mosque, in Abuja, was officially commissioned. Many African Muslim leaders who attended the commissioning of that Mosque were so impressed that they fortuitously proposed an annual conference under that name, which could unite African Muslims in the practice of their religion as a way of checkmating any act of fanaticism that could breed terrorism. Perhaps if that proposal had materialized, the mence of terrorism that is rampant in Africa today would have been minimized.

Christian Participation

The 1989 Islam in Africa Conference (IAC), held in Abuja was not exclusive to Muslims. Many African Christian leaders including some members of the now so called NCEF were invited and they participated in it with the expression of their opinions and advice on various religious issues in Africa. If the conference was truly aimed at ‘Islamizing’ Nigeria as mischievously alleged by NCEF and CAN, would Christian leaders have been invited? And knowing very well that Nigerian media was heavily dominated by Christian journalists, at that time, would those journalists have been allowed to cover the event?

In its solo or chorus voice, the song of ‘Islamization’ of Nigeria can be heard only from mischievous brigands who are parading themselves as religious clerics or Priests.

The 1953 West African Synod

About 16 years before General Gowon took Nigeria into OIC, a Christian West Africa Synod was held in Ghana. Many Nigerian Christian clerics who attended that Synod did not participate in it as ordinary members but as vocal leaders. Yet, Nigerian Muslims did not raise any senseless noise that could engender unwarranted religious rivalry on it by tagging that Synod as a venture of Christianizing Nigeria. Nevertheless, Nigerian Muslims are not oblivious of the problem with NCEF, CAN and some other Christian bigots in who are constantly and monotonously shouting the sour song of ‘Islamization’ of Nigeria as if they have the monopoly of such provoking noise. That the trumpeters of that owlish noise do not see it as a dangerous phantasm, which may cause un-foretold consequences, is a conspicuous  evidence of blatantly dangerous ignorance on the part of the so-called NCEF and even CAN.

Genesis of the Noise

Seven years before Nigeria’s independence, a West African Christian Synod was held in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) with active participation of certain Nigerian Christian leaders, some of whom are still alive today. No Muslim was invited to that Synod.

Synod is a conference of Bishops and other Christian topmost Priests at which fundamental decisions are taken which would become the basis of Church operations in evangelism. It was at that 1953 Synod in Ghana that a resolution to use Western education as an instrument of Christian evangelization in the West African sub-region was adopted. By that resolution, any Muslim child that wanted to acquire Western education in a Christian Missionary school must be converted into Christianity in spite of his or her payment of any charged fees. The fear of the Christian conferees at that Synod was that despite all efforts made by the then available Churches to stop the spread of Islam, that divine religion kept spreading spirally to the greatest amazement of the Christian evangelists in the sub-region. And, to curb such a trend, only an evangelization policy through the use of Western education as a magnet could work like magic. Thus, incorporation of educational system into African Continental evangelism became a fundamental policy through which the trend of religious preaching in Africa could favour the growth of Christianity.

It was by that policy, which had the tacit backing of the Colonial masters, that the use of Western education as an instrument of evangelism became possible. Through that policy, Muslim youths whose parents were eager to see their children educated in the Western way had to adopt Christianity as their religion.

Objectives of the Policy

One of the objectives of the policy formulated at the 1953 West African Synod  was to indoctrinate all converted school children in a way to sow in their hearts the seed of hatred towards their parents for sticking to the religion of Islam and thereby force those parents to psychologically jettison their religion and embrace Christianity or to renounce their children who would then become the foot soldiers of Christian evangelism.

Evangelical Resolution

With such a resolution, as mentioned above, that was backed up with a White Paper which became a permanent policy of the Christian Mission in Africa, Christianity, according to the Synod’s plan, would become such a formidable rival of Islam that within just one half of a century, Islam would have been completely effaced from the surface of African continent and thereby relegated to a second class religion especially in Nigeria. Thus, most of the vocal antagonists of Islam in Nigeria today are men and women with Islamic background who fell into the dragnet of that tendentious plot of the 1953 Synod.

It is the seeming failure of that plot that is now pushing the sour song of ‘Islamization’ of Nigeria into the mouths of the Christian archers.

Their Clandestine Thought

The front line advocates of that plot are thinking that like their Synod, Muslims too might take a decision which could be devastating to Christian evangelism in Africa.

Conclusion

Now, from all indications, the era of falsehood in religious sphere may be fast approaching its end in Nigeria as it once happened in Europe, since Nigeria’s lifestyle, as a colonial country, is based on the template of that of Britain that colonized her. And, when that happens, the monotonous sour song of ‘islamization’ being echoed almost daily with irritating reverberation will become a faint solo without any chorus.

• ERRATA

In the article entitled ‘Whenever the Sultan Speaks’ published in this column last Friday, August 30, 2020, some errors were inadvertently made which need to be corrected here, for records purpose.

The appointment of Brigadier-General Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar as Sultan of Sokoto was announced on November 3, 2006 and not his installation as stated here last Friday.  His Eminence’s installation as Sultan and his assumption of office was in March 2007.

Please, let these facts be noted for record purposes. God bless you all!

FEMI ABBAS 

Monologue 

Readers, like customers, are Kings and Queens. They are not only entitled to a right of response to any publication they might have read in the print or social media, they also deserve due respect for reading them. No serious-minded writers, including newspaper or magazine columnists, can claim any value for their writings without carrying their readers along.  It is a fact, universally acknowledged, that every writer is first and foremost a reader. Thus, as a journalist/columnist, I doff my hat for readers.

Preamble

The original intention of ‘The Message’ columnist, today, was not to publish any reactions, (from readers of this column)

to the article entitled ‘How Gowon took Nigeria into OIC’, which was published in this column last Friday (September 4, 2020).

The reason for that intention was to give a chance to address many other urgent issues, already lined up for necessary attention.

However, that original intention suddenly changed, not only because of the usual

Deluge of reactions with which ‘The Message’ column is weekly bombarded, but also because of the rigour of going through many reaction before selecting the publishable ones.

It will be recalled that the article in question was published last Friday, September 4, 2020. But by last Monday morning, September 7, 2020, (less than 72 hours after its publication),  more than 1341 reactions had reached yours sincerely through various means, thereby plunging this columnist into a deep dilemma. Even by last Wednesday, September 9, when today’s article, in this column, was being written, reactions kept coming torrentially until I lost the count.

In that melee, yours sincerely had to take a decision on whether to endeavour to publish some readers’ reactions to last Friday’s historic article or to completely ignore all reactions. At that moment  a particular reaction came to alter my choice.

It was from a religious group of some elderly Nigerians, called ‘National Christian Elders Forum’ (NCEF).

The reaction of that group, which came in form of a rejoinder, was signed by Elder Solomon Asemota, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). It was published in some national daily newspapers, on Tuesday, September 8, 2020.

As a professional mark of fairness in journalism, therefore, yours sincerely decided to publish the rejoinder especially since it was critical of the article to which it is reacting. Here it goes:

‘How Gowon Took Nigeria Into OIC – Rejoinder By National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF)

“We are compelled to issue this rejoinder in the interest of truth and the need to educate coming generations on the source of the insurgency and destruction that currently bedevils Nigeria.

On Friday 4th September, 2020, Mr. Femi Abbas, a well known publicist for the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, wrote an article in the Nation Newspaper titled “How Gowon took Nigeria into OIC”.

In the said article, Mr. Abbas attempted unabashed revisionism of history and unhidden distortion of facts.

Three disturbing issues stand out in the article under reference:

The deliberate denigration National Elders Forum (NCEF). Mr. Abbas did not hide his dislike NCEF.He described NCEF as “a dubious delf-appointed Christian body” and went further to call NCEF a “mischievous body” because the Christian Ellders alerted the nation that there is (sic) an Islamization agenda going on in Nigeria. For the information of Mr. Abbas, and his sponsors,

NCEF was established by the Christian Social Movement of Nigeria and inaugurated by the former President of CAN…”

“We are of opinion that the Ethics Committee of the NUJ need (sic) to have a private chat with Mr. Abbas”.

In the attempt to dissimulate and absolve any Muslim of complicity in the membership of Nigeria in OIC, Mr. Abbas displayed high level “Taqiyya” which is Islamic doctrine of approved deception. It is for the purpose of correcting the dissimulation employed in the article under reference that this ‘rejoinder is written.

Who Took Nigeria To OIC?

The author misrepresented historical facts when he claimed that Gen. Gowon took Nigeria to OIC in order to obtain support for Nigeria during the Civil War. This is deliberate distortion of history because nothing of the sort happened. As we shall see later in this rejoinder, it was General Ibrahim Babangida who took Nigeria into OIC. If it was Gen. Gowon that took Nigeria into OIC as claimed by Mr. Femi Abbas, then, why and when was Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe removed from office? And, who was it that removed him? Commodore Ukiwe was removed by General Babangida, a former Military President of Nigeria, for querying the full membership of Nigeria in the OIC. It is curious that throughout his discourse, Mr. Abbas did not mention the name of Commodore Ukiwe. How could anyone talk about the membership of Nigeria in OIC without mentioning the name of Commodore Ukiwe who protested the unilateral decision of General Babangida and consequently lost his position in the Military? This incident occurred in 1986, was General Gowon in power in 1986?

The True Story: How Nigeria Joined OIC

In its February 24, 1986 edition,

Newswatch ran a story on how Nigeria joined OIC. The investigative report 34 years ago proves conclusively that Mr. Femi Abbas deliberately set out to deceive Nigerians by telling a convoluted story of how Gen. Gowon took Nigeria to the Islamic body. Gowon did not take Nigeria into OIC at all. On the contrary, Gowon opposed it. Newswatch wrote as follows:  “In September, 1969, Arab countries met in Rabat, a preeminent Centre of Islamic theology since the days of early Prophets?, to put finishing touches on the proposed Organization of Islamic Conference. Nigerian Muslims were anxious to be part of the historic gathering. With the support and encouragement of the Sultan of Sokoto, Abubakar III, a delegation led by Abubakar Mahmood Gumi, a prominent Islamic Priest flew to Morocco to register Nigeria’s presence. Gumi was later to become a fixture in the OIC issue for the next 17 years.

At that time, Nigeria was in the last leg of the civil war. Yakubu Gowon, ‘as head of state’ (sic)

at the time, was worried that attendance of Gumi’s delegation might be misconstrued as a declaration of intent of Nigeria’s membership of the Organization. He therefore sent an urgent message to King Hassan of Morocco clarifying the status of the delegation. The team was on its own, Gowon reportedly informed King Hassan, and they were not representatives of Nigerian Government (sic).

That move threw a spanner in the works. The delegation led by Gumi was denied accreditation, but was meerly allowed to observe the proceedings.

Less than two years later, when OIC was formally inaugurated, it was clear that Nigeria had no intention of becoming a full fledged member of the Organization”.

This account was written 34 years ago. Where then did Mr. Femi Abbas get his version of history that Gowon took Nigeria into OIC? There should be a limit to Taqiyya shouldn’t there be?

The Newswatch account continued that “the Muhammadu Buhari government decided to pursue the matter with deliberate speed. Newswatch has been reliably informed that ex-Spreme Headquarters Chief of Staff, Tunde Idiagbon’s pilgrimage last year, just before the Buhari regime was swept away, was connected, in part, with the decision of Nigeria to enroll as a bona fide member of the OIC. Buhari was to have paid a trip (sic) to Saudi Arabia subsequent to Idiagbon’s, but the coup made that plan academic”.

In December 1985, the OIC sent an invitation to Nigeria to attend the OIC Ministerial Conference for January 6-10 in Vez, Morocco….”

On new year Day, Dodan Barracks instructed the Ministry of External Affairs, for the first time in the history of the efforts to get Nigeria to join the OIC, to give diplomatic cover to the ‘Nigerian delegation’. The all Moslem delegation was led by Rilwanu Lukman…”

The demand for diplomatic cover for the delegation effectively meant that the represenntatives were from the Nigerian government…What is clear, however, is that the Minister, (Professor Bolaji Akinyemi) did not give diplomatic cover to the delegation by the time he left on his diplomatic shuttle to Europe and North America…”

“While Akinyemi was away, the official delegation left for Morocco under diplomatic cover, presented an application for Nigeria’s membership and was immediately admitted as a member, after being a spectator for 17 years. General Gowon did not take Nigeria into OIC; General Ibrahim Babangida did. The narrative of Femi Abbas is falsehood.

Islamization

The Caliphate apologist sought to impress the readers that the claim of Islamization agenda in Nigeria is false. Again, this is nothing but “Taqiyya”. The first person to prove Mr. Abbas wrong is Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram who said in a video in 2012,

“… This war is not political. It is religious. It is between Muslims and unbelievers (arna). It will stop when Islamic religion is the determinant in governance in Nigeria or, in the alternative, when all fighters are annihilated and no one is left to continue the fight. I warn all Muslims at this juncture that any Muslim who assists an unbeliever in this war should consider himself an unbeliever and should consider himself dead.”

If the statement of Shekau is not confirmation of an Islamization agenda, Mr. Abbas should kindly tell us what it means.

There are two factors that confirm that a country is an Islamic state and both were accomplished in Nigeria by the past Muslim Military leaders. The two factors are as follows:

1. Membership of OIC
2. Inclusion of Islamic law and jurisprudence in the Constitution.

While Gen. Bagangida unilaterally and surreptitiously took Nigeria into OIC in 1986, Gen. Abdulsalaam Abubakar unilaterally inserted Sharia legal code into the 1999 Constitution in violation of Section 10 and Section 1 of the same Constitution. Any country that has these two factors is an Islamic state.

That Nigeria has been Islamized is no longer debatable. The Muslim Military heads of State plunged Nigeria into the crisis of Islamization. What the Islamists are now fighting for is to transmute Nigeria into a Sultanate, with Sultan of Sokoto as Supreme Sovereign, and institute Sharia as source of legislation, over and above the Constitution. This is the crisis that is currently playing out leading to the collapse of every infrastructure and institution in Nigeria, by the deliberate design of the Islamists, who seek to plunge Nigeria into chaos and from the rubble build their Islamic theocratic state.

This is why we advice that Nigeria should, as a matter of urgency, discard the conflict ridden 1999 Constitution and constitute a Conference of Ethnic Nationalities to re-negotiate Nigeria as prerequisite for a new Constitution. In the meantime, the 1963 Republican Constitution should be amended and adopted as a matter of urgency to stabilize the country. So long as Nigeria continues to operate the sectional and discriminatory 1999 Constitution, the country shall neither have peace nor progress because insurgency has root in the dual conflicting ideologies in the 1999 Constitution.

Islam in Africa Organization

Mr. Abbas sought to sugar coat (sic) the Islam in Africa Organization Conference (IAO) as an innocuous meeting that meant no harm. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Communiqué issued after the meeting of the IAO, titled “Abuja Declarations 1989” proved that something sinister was in the offing for Nigeria. Today, we are all witnesses of the Islamist conspiracy against Nigeria, courtesy of the Buhari Administration and APC political party, which has finally confirmed that it was not a slander to have called it an Islamic Party in 2014. It is evident that the presence of a Pastor as Vice-President was simply to procure Christian votes and beguile unsuspecting Christians as it has in no way mitigated the rabid Islamic Agenda of the APC Party.

Salient points in the “Abuja Declarations 1989” of the IAO are as follows:

o To ensure the appointment of only Muslims into strategic national and international posts of member nations;

o To eradicate in all its forms and ramifications all non-Muslim religions in member nations (such religions shall include Christianity, Ahmadiyya and other tribal modes of worship unacceptable to Muslims).

o To ensure that only Muslims are elected to all political posts of member nations.

o To ensure the declaration of Nigeria (the 24th African and 48th World member of the OIC) a Federal Islamic Sultanate at a convenient date any time from 28th March, 1990, with the Sultan of Sokoto enthroned as the Sultan Supreme Sovereign of Nigeria.

o To ensure the ultimate replacement of all Western forms of legal and judicial systems with the Sharia in all member nations before the next Islam in African Conference.

Anyone who could not see the “Abuja Declarations 1989″ in the policies of the Buhari Administration should be considered a victim of Taqiyya….”

COLUMNIST’S NOTE

Anybody who read the article entitled ‘How Gowon took Nigeria into OIC’ published by yours sincerely in this column last Friday, and compares it with NCEF’s rejoinder published above should be able to clearly distinguish between naked TRUTH and cloaked FALSEHOOD.

Personal Comment

As a disciplined Muslim and cultured professional, I, Femi Abbas, will not engage in obnoxious arguments with people who have no reign with which to check the recklessness of their speed in times of rage. And, I am very sure that His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa a’d Abubakar, CFR, mni, the Sultan of Sokoto and permanent (not rotatory) President General of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), will not, in any way be ruffled by the familiar language of mud slinging in which that rejoinder is bitterly coated against decorum.

As an exemplarily dignified Royal/Religious Father whose glass house is distinct, he knows that people who live in mud houses are unlikely to know the cost and the value of a glass house. After all, any blind person may be free to deny the existence of the Sun, but that cannot stop the Sun from performing its God-endowed duty. As for calling me the publicist for the Sultan, that is a matter of pride. How many journalists in Nigeria have a similar opportunity?

As far as this OIC issue is concerned, I shall, face the substance and leave the shadow for those who are known to be its chasers. And that is because I was one of the only two Nigerian journalists that covered Nigeria’s regularization of membership in OIC, in Vez, Morocco, in January 1986. I, therefore, do not speak or write from rumours flying around through hearsay.

Truth VS Falsehood

Truth is light. Wherever it appears, darkness and its agents must vamoose into oblivion. On the contrary, falsehood is like an ostrich which often tries to hide by burying its head in the sand when its entire huge body is conspicuously exposed for all to see.

Claim of Gowon’s Opposition to Nigeria’s membership of OIC

Is it not laughable, for anybody, to claim that General Yakubu Gowon, a Military Head of State, with all the political and military powers, opposed Nigeria’s membership of OIC? To whom did he express such opposition when he was the main decision maker? And for the extra six years (1969-1975) that he spent in office as Head of State, were Nigerians not attending OIC summits in the name of Nigeria? In what capacity were they attending it? And, after Gen. Gowon’s exit from office, were there no other Heads of State or President until 1986 when Nigeria’s membership of OIC was regularized? The fact is that one black lie will always need 10 white others to cover it up.

The Bakasi Saga

It was during Nigeria’s civil war, in the same 1969, that a juicy part of today’s Cross River State called Bakasi was ceded to Cameroon for the same purpose of wanting to win that war. And today, that part of Nigeria is a  bona fide part of Cameroon. If we may ask the senior trumpeters of ‘Islamization’ in Nigeria, who ceded Bakasi to Cameroon? And, for what reason? Was the ceding of Bakasi to Cameroon also done by General Ibrahim Babangida?

Islam In Africa Conference

Yours sincerely was not just a participant in the referred ‘Islam in Africa Conference’ (not Organization of Islam in Africa as ignorantly it is in the rejoinder above) which was held in Abuja in 1989, I was also in the team that wrote the quoted (or rather, misquoted) communiqué in reference and I still have a copy of it. I now challenge NCEF or its spokesperson, Mr. Sam Eyoboka, to publish that communiqué verbatim to enable us compare notes on it with a view to delineating between the original and the fabricated version.

OIC Summits

Four Nigerian Presidents have, so far, attended the Presidential Forum of OIC summits. They are Chief Mathew Olusegun Okikiolakan Aremu Obasanjo; the late Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua; Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and President Muhammadu Buhari. Two of those Presidents are Christians while the other two are Muslims. If OIC, with about 36 African countries as members, is for Islamization as often claimed by certain bigots in Nigeria, would those two Christian Presidents attend its summits in which most European and American countries are regularly present even if as observers?

In their usual shadow chasing, as reflected in the above rejoinder, the anti-Islam megaphones of Nigeria would rather resort to mud slinging than enbrace the substance.

Those trumpeters are by far carried away by their cheating euphoria of the past which gave them the false sense of monopoly of the use of English language as a means of exploiting the Muslim through media propaganda. Time has changed. The realistic situation now is that of brain for brain and pen for pen. We are all Nigerians and we shall all dwell in Nigeria generationally to perpetuity. GOD BLESS OUR COUNTRY!

By Femi Abbas

It may not be strange to say that the similitude of Islam and Muslims is like that of a snail and its shell. They share a common destiny and remain as inseparable as the sun and its beaming rays. None of them can afford to part with the other without dire consequences for mankind. Today, as the world’s fastest growing religion, Islam has a population of about 1.8 billion adherents. This means that one in every five human beings on earth is a Muslim. But in concrete terms, where are those Muslims?

Islam totally personifies the divine legal substance that sustains the magnificent grandeur of the universe. That substance is fully embodied in the sacred Book called Qur’an which took 22 years (610-632) to be divinely revealed. Muslims, on the other hand, stand as the earthly agents that are supposed to showcase the norms of Islam through their intentions,  utterances and conducts. Without Islam, there would have been no Muslims. And, without Muslims, Islam would have been consigned to permanent abstraction randomly tapping the imagination of mankind. But in the absence of playing their role as expected, can the Muslims be classified as worthy agents of that divine Message? This curious question has a tendency to  provoke another vital question thus: Where are the Muslims?

Preamble

Long before the Almighty Allah informed the Angels of His intention to create man and put him in charge of a terrestrial  planet to be called the earth, Islam had been in existence. Thus, contrary to the misconception of many uninformed people, Islam (meaning peace) had been in place before the creation of all elements that came to form the components of that planet. As a matter of fact, Islam was the harmony that held all the pre-Adam creatures together in a perfectly harmonious existence. Without that harmony, the primogenitor of mankind (Adam) would not have found a peaceful partnership, with his spouse (Hawa’u), in their worldly journey of destiny. Thus, it was with that harmony that made the unification of peace and man a promise for the continuity of the universe.

The Irony of Events

It is an irony that the world of Islam, especially in contemporary times, has turned a new phase at the instance of its adherents called Muslims. And, with that new phase, the falconer seems to have become estranged by the falcons. Muslims, like the shell of a snail are found everywhere but without Islam while the latter, as once prophesied by the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad (SAW), is rapidly becoming a stranded orphan.

Now, Islam is like a snail without its protective shell. If that nonsuch religion is vividly and effectively present in any part of the world today, it is in the West. And, that confirms the fact that, in any situation, effective quality rather than idle quantity is what Islam needs to thrive as a divine religion. Muslims in the West are not merely facing a day to day war from the antagonists of Islam, they are actually living with the furnace of that war on a permanent battle ground. All the raging wars against Islam today, as in the past few centuries, are from the West and their colonial dormies in Africa. And, the provision of the arsenal used by the West to execute those wars is funded directly or indirectly by the so-called Muslim countries, especially those of the Middle East. And the bearers of the brunt of those wars are the non-Arab Muslims. In that case, where are the real Muslims?

The Muslim/Arab Countries

There are about 23 Muslim Arab countries in the world with a population of about 400 million people. Most of those countries are situated in the Middle East and North Africa. Together, those countries control one fifth of the entire wealth in the world because of the enormous natural resources with which they are endowed. But in the quest for security other than that of Allah, the leaders of those countries prefer to entrust the security of virtually all the human and material  resources in that region to the Western countries where the furnace with which to wage war against Allah is incessantly prepared. Today, more than 90% of the Muslim Arab wealth is insured by the West in the name of foreign reserves. A major chunk of those resources is not only used to fight Muslims in various parts of the world, it is also dished out deceptively as loans to poor African countries at  throat-cutting interest rates in the name of London and Paris Clubs.

Manipulation

When the Western oppressors who keep custody of the Muslim/Arab wealth, want to manipulate African mentality to their own advantage, they bring to Africa some pittance as grants, foundations and scholarship out of the robust profits they are making from Muslim Arab money kept in their banks. This is to create the impression that they are friends of Africans. Yet, when the beneficiaries of such largess, who are mostly non-Muslims, try to show gratitude, they (the oppressors) come out in their true colours by dictating certain terms and conditions which may fetter those beneficiaries to the stake of perpetual indebtedness.

It should be noticed that Western largess flows to Africa only when military attacks on Muslims in some other parts of the world are raging or about to rage. The largess is a sort of Greek gift with which to gag the innocent Africans and thereby prevent them from joining the other parts of the world in condemning such attacks. Thus, the Westerners clandestinely serve as proxy agents of the Middle East Muslim philanthropy to the detriment of Islam and the Muslims. In such a situation where most non-Arab Muslims are wallowing in abject poverty while the Arab wealth is used to tighten the noose of penury on their necks, where are the Muslims?

Causes of Disunity

Today, Muslim Arabs are so disunited, disorganized and Islamically   disorientated that they cannot even cooperate among themselves to confront a common problem and jointly find solution for it. Rather than solving a common problem with unity, some of them prefer to team up with the antagonists of Islam to fight their fellow Muslim brothers.

That is what happened during the Iranian revolution in 1979 when the people of that country were seeking to liberate themselves from the claw of Western imperialism which was mamified in the personality of a maximum ruler called Shah Pahlavi on behalf of the United States. Rather than cooperating with Iran to rid the region of Western imperialism, what the  Arab countries in the Persian Gulf did was to take advantage of the then prevailing situation to support Iraq in attacking Iran, on behalf of America. The devastating war which ensued from that attack lasted for eight sorrowful years before the aggressor was forced to call for peace having realized the impossibility of winning that precipitate war.

Not long after that, the same Iraq was instigated by America to invade Kuwait as a compensation for her military losses in the war with Iran, an incident that caused the 1991 Gulf war which was waged by some American led Western allied forces with the full cooperation of many Middle East Muslim/Arab countries against Iraq. If Muslims should face fellow Muslims in an unwarranted war of attrition, where are the Muslims?

The Role of Egypt

In the 1991 Gulf war, Egypt, a so-called Muslim Arab country, was found on the side of the imperialist Western allies that descended on Iraq and killed thousands of armless Muslim women and children. Egypt’s gain in that war was a debt relief from America to the tune of $20 billion. What else is called blood money at macro level? And, where is anything called Muslim brotherhood in that?

Arabs against Arabs

For a long time, there was no love lost between Egypt and Libya while Presidents Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi held sway as Heads of State in those two North African countries respectivelly. Also, the neighbourhood of Algeria and Morocco has, for decades, been unnecessarily hotter than a battle ground between two sworn enemies. Same is the case with the perennial cold war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, following the establishment of Saudi Arabia as a country in the early 1933s. That silent but dangerous war continues with implacable intensity, unabatedly till date. Not only that,

in their own axis of the Gulf Region, Syria and Iraq continue a see-saw game that has, for long, prevented them to see eye to eye, realistically, despite their so-called ‘Baathist’ ideological common ground to which they both belong.

When six oil producing States of the Arab  Gulf (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirate, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar) formed a union in in the 1970s, the rest of the Muslim world thougt it was another strategy for strengthening Islam. But with time, it became apparent that the motive was far from strengthening Islam. The understanding gap among them became so wide that it would have been better for them not to form such a Union. All the countries in that Union were predominantly Muslim. They all speak only one language:Arabic. All their rulers were monarchs. And the proximity among them was a great advantage for the Union. Yet, they ended up becoming antagonists. And, last year (2019), three of them, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain decided to strangulate Qatar economically by ostrsizing her. And just last week, two of those ostrasizing countries, (United Arab Emirates and Bahrain) sealed the extinction destiny of their fellow Arab nation (Palestine) by reestablishing diplomatic relation with Israel and by recognizing Jerusalem as the Capital of that Zionist country.

In such a brutal relationship among sister Arab countries that claim to belong to Islam, where are the Muslims?

Iran as a Lone Ranger

Iran, the only Persian (non-Arab) country, in the Gulf sub-region of the Middle East, is constantly suspicious of her neighbouring Arab countries because those neighbouring countries  have tacitly ostracized her on the basis of racial discrimination and ‘Shiite’ denominational ideology. Yet, they all subscribe to Islam and claim to be Muslim countries. In all these, where are the Muslims?

Turkey for Instance

In her own bid to imbibe the so-called Western civilization, Turkey, an Armenian Islamic but non-Arab country, decided to voluntarily enslave herself to secularism, a notion imposed on her in the 1920s by her one time maximum ruler, Mustapha Kamal Ataturk, who entrenched that newly imbibed orientation in the country’s constitution and tagged it ‘Modern Civilization’.

It must be recalled that Turkey, with over 89% Muslim population, was the last seat of Islamic Caliphate which ended in 1924 at the instance of Ataturk who ordered his countrymen and women to discard their Turkish culture completely and adopt Western culture as a sign of ‘Modern Civilization’. It was Ataturk’s indelible damage to Islam in Turky that ended the Caliphate leadership of Islam in the modern world. In all these, where are the Muslims?

Here in Nigeria

Here in Nigeria, the situation is by far worse than analysed above. Mosques, which Prophet Muhammad (SAW) established as the permanent axis around which all Muslim activities should rotate, have been totally reduced to the level of meeting for Salat alone. Only very few Mosques have the necessary facilities useful for the Ummah. Even bank accounts are hardly considered necessary as the Imams and some members of the Mission Boards of most Mosques act as unofficial treasurers in which capacity they pocket any money collected daily or weekly for for the development of the Mosque. Against the Prophet’s prescription, most of our Mosques are without libraries or study rooms where the young ones can take advantage of spiritual serenity to be thoroughly educated. It does not bother those Imams that only few Muslim youths come to worship in the Mosques. What bothers them is the absence of moneybags among the Muslims who can donate remarkable sums of money to the Mosques for them to pocket. Also, against Islamic prescription, those Imams are the collectors, the distributors and the recipients of Zakah to the detriment of the Ummah even when most of them lack the knowledge with which to educate their congregations about that pillar of Islam. Yet, what is by far worse about most of those charlatans who call themselves Imams is the partition of Islam for the purpose of possible local or foreign largess. Today, Most Nigerian Muslims do not think of any progress for Islam any more. Rather, they think of the pecuniary benefits that will accrue to the fringe denominations to which they belong. Thus, you can only hear of names like ‘Tariqah’, ‘Izalah’ ‘Ahlus-Sunnah’, Ansar-Ud-Deen, Nawairud-Deen, Ahmadiyyah, NASFAT, Fathu Quareeb and many others with emphasis instead of ISLAM which is the main unifying factor among Muslims. Thus, with that kind of method of partitioning Islam, where are the Muslims?

Personal Experience

On the way back to Nigeria from Hajj in 2007, yours sincerely was asked to pray for a Nigerian Christian who spent a lot of money to renovate the Mosque at the Hajj camp of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja. The man felt irritated by the nonchalant attitude of Muslim moneybags to the ramshackle state of that Mosque and decided to spend his personal money to renovate it. Shortly thereafter, in the same year, I also observed Jum’at prayer at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, where the Imam told the congregation that the renovation of that Mosque had just been completed by a concerned Christian. Yes, it is true that some Muslims also build or renovate Churches but the fact remains that there is no much negligence on the part of Christians towards their Churches as there is on the part of Muslims towards their Mosques. Where then are the Muslims?

Brief History

Islam preceded Christianity in reaching the shores of Nigeria by about 400 years. The one came in the 11th century. The other came in the 15th century. Yet the gap between them , in terms of education and development today, is as wide as that between the rise and the set of the sun. If this is blamed on colonial rule, on what should failure of Islamic education be blamed? The Qur’an which embodies the language of Islamic worship is known to have been translated into only three or four Nigerian languages, and this is the best that has been done so far, in about 1000 years, to make that sacred book understandable to millions of Nigerian Muslims. Neither Arabic nor English is a Nigerian language. Most Muslims do memorize some contents of the Qur’an and recite them when observing Salat without comprehending what they are reciting. If majority of the adherents of a religion are tied to illiteracy and ignorance, how can such a religion be understood? The Bible which came to Nigeria  almost 500 years after the arrival of the Qur’an has been translated into more than 25 Nigerian languages if not more and, further efforts are being made to do more. Where are the Muslims?

Incidental Reminiscence

In the 1960s and 1970s, most of the praise-singing records especially in the Southwest of Nigeria were produced by Yoruba Musicians for wealthy Muslims who hardly saw any need in training their children. And, that was the time when non-Muslims would rather starve and wear rags than see their children out of schools. Today, the result speaks clearly for itself. Currently, it is said that over 13 million Nigerian children of school age are out of school. There are no readily available figures to delineate their percentages on the basis of religion. But one can be sure that over 80% of them will be Muslims. If this is the case in the age of internet, why won’t Muslims form majority of the touts in motor parks as well as hooligans working for politicians? And there is a glaring evidence for this especially in Ibadan, the political Headquarters of Yoruba nation, where hooliganism was taken for a profession until recently when the grand-godfather of those touts their parted with the world. In all these, where are the Muslims?

Power of the Media

After many years of struggle to get economic and political rights for their people failed, the leaders of the South-south of Nigeria discovered the enormous power of the media to win wars without weapons. They quickly invested heavily in it (the media). And, today, they are not only getting their rights on demand, they are also compelling the entire world to listen to them as they now control the Nigerian media which they use to command the attention of all and sundry. Where are the Muslim media after the demise of Bashorun MKO Abiola and Aare Arisekola Alao, the dysfunction of Concord and the Monitor newspapers? Rather than investing in the future, an average Nigerian Muslim moneybag prefers to eat his cake now with the hope of having it again later. Rather than fighting a just course, an average Nigerian Muslim pitches his tent with the wrong camp just to gain a momentary benefit. Or how does one place a situation like that of Abiola who, as a matter of right, contested Presidential election and won only for his fellow Muslims to gang up and annul the election unjustifiably and thereafter clamped him into prison as a transit towards the final termination of his life? That ugly episode was the seed of the bitter political fruit that Nigerians are now being forced to eat and swallow.

Islam in the West

If there is any hope for the future of Islam in the contempoaray world, the focus must be on the West. And, that is in confirmation of Prophet Muhammad’s prophecy of over 1,400 years ago when he said that one of the signs of the ‘Last Day’ was for the sun to start rising from the West where it normally used to set. The sun which the Prophet meant was not the physical one. That sun is ISLAM. And we have started to see its rays coming from the West where the divine religion is growing geometrically and recognized as the fastest growing religion in the world today. It could not have been otherwise. Islam is a religion of knowledge. It takes only the knowledgeable ones to recognize it as such. The West today is the home of knowledge and not a mere region of literacy. That is why it takes a religion of knowledge to be fast spreading among knowledgeable people.

However, for those of us who are so much concerned about the situation of Islam vis a vis the Muslims especially in Nigeria today, there is consolation. That consolation is from Allah who says in Qur’an 15 Verse 9 thus: “It was ‘We’ (Allah) who revealed the Qur’an and, it is ‘We’ (Allah), who will certainly preserve it”. We pray the Almighty pray Allah to wake up Nigerian Muslims from their slumber so that in the near and far future, our grand children will have no cause to repeat the question: “Where are the Muslims?

FEMI ABBAS

“Let there become of you a nation that shall call for righteousness, enjoin justice and forbid evil. Such are men that shall surely triumph”.                                                                                 Q. 3: 104.

Monologue 

In a few days’ time, precisely on October 1, 2020, Nigeria, the presumed Africa’s main hope for Blackman’s growth and development, will be 60 years old as an ‘independent’ Country. Thus, traditionally, a few privileged beneficiaries of the woes that have come to envelope the mystery called ‘Nigeria’s Independence’ will joyously troop out, that day, to celebrate their largess, with fanfare, at the expense of national growth and development while millions of the underprivileged Nigerians will spend the same day mourning the same ‘Independence’ with hunger and sorrow in the corners of their various prisons called

houses.

Preamble

Coming as a sermon from the pulpit of ‘The Message’ column, this article is supposed to be a letter to Nigerian politicians of today, as a reminder of the past political experience that wrecked our dear country. It is also meant to serve as a warning against the danger awaiting our country’s future generations.

Similar letters had been written randomly, in this column, to some other Nigerian politicians who preceded the current ones in office. But so far, nothing has changed for the better. Wrting a similar letter here is, therefore, an unambiguous clarification in support of what may become posterity,

when tomorrow comes.

The Letter

Dear Nigerian politicians,

This is an open letter being addressed to you with the intention of drawing you back from the path of stray which most of you have consistently and unrepentantly been plying since two decades ago when you mounted the hill of political ruins in the name of politics.

Although letters of this type seldom come to politicians like most of you who have banished your consciences and, whose political lifestyle seem to be inherently dependent on whim with impunity even as self- aggrandizement insensitively remains your ultimate goal.

Coming up at this precarious period of political labyrinth in Nigeria, this letter is necessitated by the current frightening political tension that is fast becoming a bubble which may burst anytime from now, at your instance, unless the Almighty Allah decides to save our country, by His special Grace, from becoming another ‘Warsaw that once saw War’ far away in Poland of yore.

If you, Nigerian  politicians of today, think that you can escape any calamitous consequence of your ongoing political machinations which you are tendentiously weaving around Nigeria’s political vestige, you may be day-dreaming. Those who engaged in similar machinations before you in the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s never survived its consequences. And yours is very unlikely to be different when tomorrow comes.

The Function of Conscience

“Conscience”, according to Sheikh Uthman Dan Fodio, “is an open wound which only the truth can heal”. But one can talk of healing a wounded conscience only where and when it has not become cancerous like it is with you now.

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) once gave a vivid description of the signs by which hypocrites can be identified.

He said “hypocrites are known by three signs: When they talk they lie; when they promise they renege on it and when they are trusted they betray”.

Most of you (Nigerian politicians of today) so much typify this definition that one wonders if the great Prophet of Islam actually had you in mind when he was expressing that axiom. Unfortunately, this may be meaningless to you today, in the presence of ‘flowing naira’, but you will surely get its meaning in full when tomorrow comes.

Deceptive Motive

It will be recalled that when most of you started agitating for a return to democracy in the late 1990s while a despotic military demagogue held sway, your seeming focus was on liberation of Nigerian citizenry from the crushing claw of the then military despotism. And you did that in the name of freedom fighters and human rights advocates. But hardly had you succeeded in rallying the masses to drive away the military boys than most of you began to quest for your selfish interest by claiming to want ‘to serve your people’.

That claim, which turned out to be the bait with which you deceptively lured ordinary Nigerians into the struggle that culminated in raising your own political platforms to the height upon which you stand today, was a covenant. And, that covenant was not just between you and the people you claimed to want to serve but much more between you and the Almighty Allah who knows every manifest and hidden agenda. And, He (Allah) will surely hold you accountable for it when tomorrow comes.

In Retrospect

Please, be reminded that as some of you once shamelessly graded figure 16 higher than figure 19, on a political platform, some years back, in the glare of your children and grandchildren, and, as you audaciously classified looting the national treasury as a lesser crime than corruption, all in the name of politics, you must remember that God’s judgment can neither be manipulated nor be appealed. And no matter how long it may take, Allah’s justice will come to prevail upon you, perhaps when you least expect. As fathers and mothers who politically arrogate the nation’s leadership and wealth to yourselves without thinking of the lessons that the younger ones can learn from your example on their way to the top, you have evidently demonstrated that you are grossly unqualified to bequeath any sensible legacy to the future generations of Nigeria.

If anything, your thoughtless public utterances, your shameless public actions and counter actions as well as your devilish body language often arrogantly displayed, are the real causes of the misfortune bedevilling our dear country today in the names of insurgency, banditry, yahoo yahoo fraud and robbery as a culture across the land. All of these, which you audaciously top with reckless looting, have been the cause of woes for Nigeria.

As a matter of fact, you, Nigerian politicians of today, can be called anything but gentlemen or women of honour which you call yourselves even as you have become, unprecedentedly, a disgrace not only to Nigeria as a country but also to Africa as a continent.

And, now that you seem to have permanently enlisted immorality, especially corruption, as a vital instrument of politics without thinking of its consequences, how can you be seen as gentlemen or women? And, based on the above facts, you are now behaving like intoxicated horses without reins. But, mind you, what you are reading in this letter is the very true picture of you, which history will present to the world when tomorrow comes.

Life without Justice

In Islam, two issues are fundamentally sacrosanct both of which Allah does not take lightly. These are sacredness of life and dispensation of justice. It is a great iniquity for any human being to engage in murder and injustice under any guise. Thus, anybody who kills fellow human beings extra-judicially in the name of politics or economy or religion or ethnicity or religion is nothing but a human vampire of sadistic nature. In Islam, such a grievous sacrilege cannot be perpetrated without commensurate penalty, if not here on earth, definitely in the hereafter.

Actually, nothing draws the wrath of Allah as fast as those two crimes, a fact which Satan may continue to ask you to ignore at your own peril. Murder is physical termination of the life of a fellow human being directly or indirectly. Injustice, on the hand, is killing a person mentally, psychologically, politically, economically or spiritually by denying him his legitimate right. Now, which of these has not occurred severally at your instance, in the course of your political journey towards power grabbing and illegal wealth? How will you explain this in defence of yourselves against un-appealable judgment of Allah when tomorrow comes?

Legislative Duty 

In Islam, rule of law is the foundation of justice but legislation is the material with which that foundation is invariably built. Those of you who manipulated your ways into legislating for the rest of us hardly see yourselves as the foundation layers of justice who should not betray the course of justice. But, are you not doing that with audacity? As legislators, you are expected by most Nigerians to behave like honourable leaders. But the oppose is the case.

You cannot deny the fact that you inherited a dignified fortune from the Legislators of the First Republic, who limited themselves to sitting allowances in their various chambers. But you have turned that fortune into a disgraceful misfortune by allotting full salaries and unimaginable allowances, in to yourselves at the expense of over 95% of poverty stricken Nigerians. That you are Legislators today

is due to sheer expediency arising from queer inadequacies sadly fostered by our so-called political system which gives room for audacious gerrymandering and manipulation of political gear with impunity. If such opportunity comes your way, let it not be mistaken for good luck. It may rather be a calamity waiting to strike at the right time in future.

And when it strikes, no one except Allah can tell the extent of its effect. You are, therefore, advised to readjust that gear for for a good name when tomorrow comes.

The June 12, 1993 Saga

As politicians, at least you can see how the consequences of the heartless annulment of June 12, 1993 Presidential election have become a draconian spectre chasing the ghost of all Nigerians even after almost three decades of licking our political wounds. And, yet, the scale of judgment is awaiting all the participants in that misfortune, which history will reveal with full exposition when tomorrow comes.

Subversion

Due to lack of conscience, most of you, today’s politicians, may have forgotten, but you need to be reminded that shortly after you took oath of office either in 1999 or 2003 or 2007 or in 2011 or in2015 or in 2019, you started subverting the covenant into which you voluntarily entered with the people who elected or nominated you directly or indirectly. That covenant is to serve them (the people). And, those who serve are nothing but servants. But no sooner had you been sworn into office than you started calling yourselves leaders and not servants again. By implication, you have so dangerously promoted desperation and impunity to the front burner of Nigerian politics that whoever thinks of serving the country, today, through any public office, is seen as a devil that must be kept at an arm’s length. From your public conduct, any right-thinking person can vividly see the types of families you are breeding for the nation. People like you, who do not care about their family names, will surely not care about the country’s name anywhere, anytime. But whether you care or not, your befitting judgment will be pronounced when tomorrow comes.

Executive Duty  

As members of the Executive arm when you travel abroad officially, at people’s expense, you are never alarmed by the way the systems work in those countries. You never bother to ask questions about the effective functions of electricity, the smoothness of roads, the flow of portable water even on the 50th floor of a sky scraper and the excellent educational system that promotes patriotism with probity and decorum in those countries. Rather, your primary concerns are the personal, ephemeral gains accruable to you at the expense of the present and the future generations. For the past 20 years of Nigeria’s fourth republic you have been at the saddle of government without any ability to show in concrete terms what value has that length of time added to the lives of ordinary Nigerians. Your emphasis is on wielding ‘power’ rather than governance and you often go about it in such a ridiculous manner that gives the impression that government is much more about destruction than construction. And with this kind of conduct, where will your name be in the history of Nigeria when tomorrow comes?

Nigeria as OPEC Member

You, today’s Nigerian politicians, do not even feel ashamed that Nigeria is the only OPEC country that imports refined petroleum products for domestic consumption simply because you are beneficiaries of the corrupt device which you deliberately put in place in the name of subsidy. Nothing exhibits Nigeria’s level of corruption than exportation of crude oil for the purpose of importing refined fuel for local consumption. It is like exporting raw yam and importing pounded yam for consumption. How can that be explained to Nigerians of the future when tomorrow comes?

Electricity

Even if Nigeria never had electricity before and she wanted to start one to boost her economy, is a period of 20 years not enough to provide a functional electricy especially given the enormous amount of wealth with which this country is endowed? What can be more ridiculously shameful for a country, in the 21st century, than to be without electricity? With what can such a country think of mass employment and development? What can be more primitive than a situation whereby people are forced to pay for unavailable electricity? Does Nigeria really belong to the modern world?

Is it necessary to start preaching here and now, at this age of of internet, that in modern time, no technological device provides as much opportunity for jobs and economic growth as electricity? Yet, it is that major device that you, today’s Nigerian politicians deliberately hold down to deprive the populace of the wherewithal with which to rise mentally and intellectually so that you can turn them into perpetual slaves to be ruled forever. In such a situation, should anybody be surprised that corruption has been unconscientiously legislated into legitimacy and executed as such? Now, Nigeria is held to a standstill because every one of you, politicians, must personally have a chip of any juicy future, today, without caring about what may become of your own children tomorrow.

Most of you, Nigerian politicians of today, are fathers and mothers who will want your children to grow up as responsible men and women, yet, you there is nothing in you that can serve as good examples for those children. You tell lies with relish. Yet you want your children to be truthful. From where do you expect them to inherit truthfulness? You steal public funds with unbridled audacity. Yet you do not want your children to called thieves. What other names should the children of thieves bear other than thieves?

Duties of public Servants

Ordinarily, your duty as government officials, whether in the executive, legislative or judiciary arm of government, is to serve your country in such a way that you can create a historical window for yourselves through which the future generations can retrospectively peep into your lives with reverence. But since everything in Nigeria has been peculiarly monetized (courtesy of former          President Obasanjo regime), it has become a rule that those who hold sway in government, in whatever capacity, must take the lion’s share of our national cake through our lean annual budget. That is why you randomly but embarrassingly throw some damaging pebbles into our political brook to cause unnecessary ripples in the serenity of that brook to the total disadvantage of today and that of tomorrow.

Ironically, some of you think or talk of impeachment of a President only when your salaries, allowances or extra budgetary largess suffers a reduction or a delay. It does not matter to you whether or not the serving or retired workforce in Nigeria remains unpaid for years. Once you are able to amass whatever comes your way legally or illegally the rest of the populace can go on hunger strike forever. It is rather shameful and disappointing that even some of you who claim to be Muslims are participating in such an evil charade despite your proclamation of Islam.

Conscience, though invisible, has a mirror which only a few people know about. That mirror is shame. A person without shame is a person without conscience. And, a person without conscience is like a wild horse without rein. That is the main distinction between a genuine Muslim and a nominal one.

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) admonished the Muslims thus in respect of shame: “once you are bereft of shame, you can go ahead to do whatever you like”. This means that without shame you are a nonentity who can even strip naked in the market place in readiness for a brawl. That is how most of you, Nigerian politicians are viewed today, if you did not know.  We can all see the example of this in a former President of this country who is regularly menstruating through his mouth at any public place and notoriously writing laughable letters to his successors who are are perceived as antagonists, through the media. Where will that put him in history when tomorrow comes?

Now, which of the issues mentioned above is worth celebrating in the name of ‘Independence’ by a civilized nation?

 Sermon

As a relevant sermon, ‘The Message’ column hereby implores you Nigerian politicians of today, to look back once  again, and draw from the experience of the past heroes to  readjust your workings and re-equip yourselves in preparation for  God’s judgment when tomorrow comes.

Nothing is Permanent

Remember that some people had governed this country in the past. Among them were those who combined the roles of the executive, the legislative and the judiciary arms of government  together, in the name of military rule that was  made possible by military coup d’état. Where are they today?

Governance has its tenure. Four years may look endless for parochial, power drunk elements who can’t see public office as a momentary fool’s paradise. But for the wise, it is not more than a flash of lightening  which only a fool will rely upon to walk his way through the darkness of the night. You are in government today. But remember that you will soon become former this or former that just like those before you. And, the only reminding record of your former tenure is history that will be read by the future generations when tomorrow comes.

Tajudeen Adebanjo

THE Muslim Congress (TMC) Lagos State chapter has commenced the Annual State Week, with a theme: Balancing between Atheism & Science in a World ravaged by pandemic diseases.

The weeklong event started last Friday with a special Juma’ah Service held at the Lagos Central Mosque, Idumota and Dawah Centre, Ijeshatedo, Surulere, Lagos.

Speaking at a virtual briefing on Tuesday, Chairman, TASW 2020 Organising Committee, Alhaji Kofoworola Yekini said the event was part of the various advocacy programmes undertaken by the congress to address socio-political crisis.

“By design, the event was headlined by an Independence Day lecture preceded by other activities such as free medical and humanitarian support services among other programmes.

Read Also: Ex-Lagos Commissioner resigns from APC

“However, in the face of the prevailing circumstances, the 2020 edition of TASW will be reimagined to have global audience appeal as the programmes lined up are, largely, to be undertaken online as virtual events using the popular cloud-based video conferencing platform, Zoom,” he noted.

Speaking on the relevance of the theme, Alhaji Animashaun, a chartered accountant, said the society observed that the pandemic has made atheists to challenge the existence of God.

Animashaun said: “Those who do not believe in God are now asking questions, why has your God allowed people to be killed by pandemic? Why didn’t He save mankind? Why allowing close to a million worldwide to be infected? Must hundreds of thousands people have to die because of pandemic that started in one village in China? Why all these challenges here and there if truly there is God? Why didn’t He save the world? That is why we have invited two experts who will be doing justice to the theme.

“There is a perceived logical argument against God when looking at a crisis, you have atheists saying that if really God really exists, why did He not prevent the pandemic, why are we having all this challenges all around the world when there is God, Why has He not saved the world?

“What we are saying in actual sense is that the way Almighty Allah works is different. He gives you ‘dos and don’ts’, free hand but not total freedom. And the truth of the matter is trouble sat somewhere, you ignited it. Allah told us to be wary of a tribulation, when it comes is not going to affect only the people who are responsible for it. Everyone around is going to have their own share of the tribulation and that is what we have witnessed, “he said.

FEMI ABBAS 

TODAY’S article was originally scheduled for publication in this column,  last Friday, September 25, 2020. That would have marked the 14th year of the commencement of ‘The Message’ column in ‘The Nation’ newspaper in 2006. But because of the well known instability of the circumstances of life, the publication of this article had to be delayed till today as developments keep propelling the column to wax stronger. The regular readers of ‘The Message’ are, thus, welcome on board of this   yacht of enlightenment as it cruises ahead on its familiar voyage of advertency.

Preamble

Ability to speak or write is a special gift from the Almighty Allah, which   may become a hobby and then grow into a skill. Speaking, no matter how eloquently, cannot be as important as getting audience. So is the case with writing.

A speaker can be classified as an orator only by his audience. Radio and television broadcasters, as well as public motivational speakers, can attest to this assertion.

Similarly, an author or a columnist can be celebrated or denigrated only by his readers. Any writer who takes his readers for granted, therefore, can only do so at his/her own peril. Such a writer may not be qualified as an author or a columnist. And with time, his writings may fizzle out into a permanent oblivion.

Reminiscence

Ever since yours sincerely started writing the column called ‘The Message’ in The Nation newspaper, in September, 2006, no week has passed by without a barrage of reactions coming to this columnist, in torrents, from its readers. Even on some occasions, when the column was not published, for one reason or another, readers’ comments and observations kept coming torrentially either in form of questions or that of probation. This is not just because I called the column a participatory one in its maiden edition but mostly because some readers who had long been familiar with the writings of yours sincerely, in Concord newspaper, since 1982, are not tired of the method with which the column is presented to showcase Islam to the world, in its true colour, every Friday.

After I left Concord newspaper in 1989, most readers of this column followed it to other Nigerian newspapers like Vanguard, The Monitor and The Nation. Some of them even followed it to some foreign magazines such as The Inquiry, Al-Afkar, Africa Now and a host of others including some academic journals. Thus, questions, observations and comments kept coming consistently into this column from various parts of the world in form of reactions. And, that trend continues till date.

First Meeting With The Sultan

On an unsuspected day, a telephone call came through my GSM handset with an undreamt surprise at exactly 11.50 am on the first Sunday of February, 2007. My first reaction, after picking the call, was: “please, who is on the line?” I enquired cautiously because the call came without an identity. And, in response, the caller simply identified himself as SA’AD ABUBAKAR! I immediately started to search my brain for a possible, previous familiarization with that name. But while doing that, I did not know that I was repeating the name Sa’ad Abubakar, in an inadvertent soliloquy, until His Eminence retorted: “Ah! Femi! Don’t you know anybody bearing that name?” Pronto! In my reaction, I said well, “the only person I can think of, that bears that name, is the new Sultan”. It was then that His Eminence said: “alright, this is the Sultan”. At that moment I became completely dumfounded. The only clear words that I could utter, thereafter, were “Your Eminence!” before I went stammering. I was so much overwhelmed by the ecstasy of that moment that I thought I was in a dream.

Then, with a tone of commendation, in that telephone conversation, His Eminence expressed profound appreciation for my modest contribution to Islamic propagation in Nigeria and said that he had been reading my column since the now defunct Concord days. He counselled me never to relent, especially, in calling a spade a spade as I had been doing, without minding whose ox could be gored. And, as the Commander of the Muslim faithful, (Amirul Muminin) in Nigeria, and the only Sultan in the entire continent of Africa, he showered me with special royal prayers and promised to be calling again in future.

That was one call that made, not just my day, but even my year. It was one reaction that confirmed an observation I once expressed in an article published in this column, about this Sultan, shortly after his installation.

By that surprise call alone, the Sultan added another feather to the wings of “FIRSTS’ which I had attributed to his royal personality in the mentioned article.

Looking Back

In my 25 years of experience in journalism, as at that 2007, I could not remember when any public figure of Sultan’s status ever made a similar call to me or any ‘common’ journalist of my calibre, except when seeking a media favour. And, here was a continental Sultan finding time to call a ‘bloody’ columnist on telephone to express his appreciation of the latter’s Islamic propagation efforts.

A Lunch with His Eminence

About two weeks after the above narrated encounter with him, on the telephone, His Eminence called again to invite yours sincerely to Kaduna, from Ibadan, for a familiarization lunch with him. And, at his temporary palace, in Kaduna, at that time, this great Sultan humbly sat down, with me, on a bare carpet, where we took a special lunch together. That was my first experience of magnificent royal conduct in Nigeria’s contemporary Sultanate.

Thus, by his personal conduct and public actions so far, since he mounted the exalted royal throne, Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, mni, has shown, by all means, an exemplary leadership for other Nigerian leaders, or aspiring leaders, to emulate.

Reminder

With this Sultan, many Nigerian Muslims are reminded of the Caliphate time of Umar Bn Khattab and that of Umar Bn Abdul Aziz, both of who, with impeccable humility, entrenched unprecedented magnanimity in governance as a norm, thereby  indicating that leadership was neither by vicious display of force nor by crude bully and animalistic brutality.

May the Almighty Allah be merciful with Nigerian Muslim Ummah by preserving the life of this Sultan with formidable protection and continued divine guidance for the good of this life and that of the Hereafter. We also pray that his glowing crescent of hope may never experience an eclipse. Amin.

Personal Comment

Now, 14 years after the column named ‘The Message’ debut in The Nation newspaper, I consider it fair to refresh the memories of its original readers by recalling some spectacular reactions in retrospect if only to further confirm that readers, like customers, are kings and queens in their own rights. After all, it is only a novice, who claims to be a writer that will close his /her ears or eyes to readers’ comments even if such comments are incongruent to the writer’s thought and posture.

Ordinarily, as a columnist, I often feel psychologically elated whenever reactions to my articles from different conceivable angles, based on different interpretations and perceptions.

Some Relevant Past Reactions

It is a pity that lack of space will not allow the publication of as many reactions as possible. But the very few that can be accommodated here will suffice as of the qualities of those that cannot be published. Please, read on:

 “Dear Mr. Abbas”,

“Good Morning! Your piece which appeared on page 42 of the Friday, May 9 edition of The Nation is timely, cogent and poignant. I always relish perusing your articles despite the fact that I am not a Moslem (sic). But the salient issues raised in your piece are worrisome and symptomatic of the magnitude of degeneration, loss of focus, lasciviousness and all sorts characterising Nigerian youths these days. Given the penchant of our media for the burlesque, outlandishness and the inanity, I am not surprised that your very salient issue didn’t generate the kind of attention it should have generated.

I am really worried at the state of the nation and the future of this country (i.e when you have youths that have discountenanced the essence of scholarship, tenacity, hard work, progression and decency). Look around you everywhere and all you see is gloom and comatose (sic). All we see are young musicians and comedians singing and talking gibberish and nonsense, winning fake awards and we are clapping that all is well. No! Nothing is well. The future of Nigeria lies not in these folks! We want youths that can stand up for the nation; youths that can be counted on to move the nation forward; youths that have socio-economic, scientific, intellectual, moral, conscientious, technological and political edge and strides!

This has been the object of my focus for some years now as I have tried to highlight some of these issues to Nigerian youths, but the message is just not sinking. I am highly demoralised when you see youth graduates who can’t read, who don’t even know what is happening anywhere, who can’t analyse simple issues and don’t even have any iota of ideals, ideas and ideology! When majority of youths start to venerate musicians, idolise scammers, revere corruption and celebrate men of questionable characters and opprobrious antecedents, then something is fundamentally and critically wrong. When majority of our youths readily accept what is morally questionable, socially wrong, economically immoral and politically aberrant (sic), then what hope is there for the nation? In those days, we used to look up to people like Obafemi Awolowo, Tai Solarin, Sekou Toure, Bala Usman, Balarabe Musa, Julius Nyerere, Adekunle Ajasin, Ayodele Awojobi, Mokwugo Okoye, Nguyen Gyap, Marcus Garvey, Agustino Neto, Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara etc as role models. But now, its so disturbing and distressing that youths of today view footballers, Hollywood actors and actresses and political fraudsters as role models.

It just reaffirms what a popular Professor of Sociology espoused about 20 years ago that ‘Nigeria is dying gradually, because if youths are really the future of the country, I am telling you that Nigeria is virtually on life support. Just what is the way out of this impending morass? What is the solution to this abyss or nadir that we have inexplicably found ourselves today? The other day I was speaking to some youths on the essence of hard work and industry and some of these boys were openly deriding and jeering at me! I just shook my head in pity not at them but their future and the future of the nation. I need answers, what can be done? We need something practical, something pragmatic lest we are doomed!

Once again, thank you and God bless”.

Adekunle Theophilus

Hello Mr. Abbas!

I do not miss your weekly column (The Message) because of its unique quality. There is always something new to learn from it. And, your language competently carries the weight of your thoughts. It is only through your column that I became a strong Muslim that I am today. Most of the well researched issues you discuss in your column weekly are never addressed in Friday sermons in our Mosques. Your vast knowledge of the West, the East as well as global current affairs has enriched my understanding of Islam tremendously. It has also confirmed that Islam is truly a complete way of life rather than a mere dogmatic religion. Please, train some younger ones who will continue the good work and do not relent in your efforts. God bless you.

The case of today’s Nigerian youths is like that of a plant. You can only reap the fruit of any seed you plant and not your wish. No nation wants to degenerate but the factors of degeneration always dictate the extent of a nation’s retrogression.

Any nation that deifies money is surely on the road to perdition. That is the plight of Nigeria where the emphasis is overwhelmingly on money. Everything including mere greetings is tied to money. The role of politicians in this does not help the matter. They publicly give the impression that money, and only money, is the issue in the country.

This has forced the youths to become desperate especially when there are no available jobs for most of them. It is rather pathetic that we expect our youth to be cultured when those who are supposed to be their role models are uncultured. By not serving as good examples for the youths we are ruining the future of our country. These youths are already wild. They need to be tamed. But the instruments with which to tame them are not there. All of us and not government alone must do something urgently. Otherwise, we are doomed as a nation. Thank you.

Sefinat B. Owoseni (Mrs.), Sango Otta.

FEMI ABBAS

Monologue 

It should not be strange to readers of ‘The Message’ that this column is coming up, today, with such a memorable title as presented here. A newspaper columnist, who is also a veteran Journalist, is like a human octopus that deals with issues and occurrences from different conceivable angles just as he relates to those issues according to his perception. Thus, sharing any experience garnered from such perception, with the readers of this column, is, essentially, one of the fundamental indices of the profession called journalism. It is also a major ingredient of the beauty of that profession.

Chief Richard Osuolale Abimbola Akinjide, who died early this year, was a Nigerian frontline lawyer and a politician of prominence. He was also one of the most ardent readers of ‘The Message’ column when alive.

The Encounter

On a particular Saturday in 2010, the iconic political juggernaut and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) called me by telephone and requested me to please see him at his Idi Isin residence, near NIHORT in Ibadan. On entering his living room, a ‘hill’ of newspaper cuttings sitting on one of the stools by his side, caught my attention. The sight of that ‘hill’ was a confirmation of the fact that the man was truly an ardent newspaper reader. After exchange of pleasantries with me and offer of drink, Chief Akinjide asked me to formally introduce myself to him, which I promptly did. He then decided to play the role of a journalist by interrogating me in a cross-examination manner with which lawyers are typically renowned in a law court. And, when he started quoting copiously from the various articles in my  column, and picking out copies of those articles from the ‘hill’ of newspaper cuttings by his side, It became clear to me that the ‘hill’ was deliberately placed on that stool in readiness for my coming.

Impression

By Chief Akinjide’s disposition in the course of our conversation, I noted a double edged impression which he created. One of those impressions was for me while the other was for him. On my side, I noticed a very sharp, juvenile brain with a uniquely active memory in him despite his octogenarian age.

This man, who had become a Federal Minister when I was in the elementary school, so much dazed me with his analysis of my writings that I felt he would have been one of the best newspaper columnists in Nigerian history if he had chosen journalism as a profession. He vividly reminded me of the quality of Western education which his generation acquired during the colonial rule in Nigeria. In fact, Chief Richard Akinjide was Allah’s special gift to Nigeria even if Nigeria did not appreciate that gift as much as expected. One of the pungent questions he threw to me, which warranted the writing of this article, was about my educational background. He said: “which secondary school did you attend?” And, in answering that question, I simply told him that it was MARKAZ. He asked me to repeat the answer and I proudly told him once again that it was MARKAZ. And, from his inquisitively agitated visage, I could see that he never heard that name before. There and then, he asked me to tell him the language by which that name was coined, its meaning as well as the location of the school.

It was during my explanation that he discovered that I could speak, write and comprehend Arabic language very well.

Akinjide’s Surprise

I told him that MARKAZ was the name of an Arabic school (madrasah) established by the late Sheikh Adam Abdullah Al-Ilory, in Agege, Lagos State. And when I also told him that I was not privileged to attend a conventional secondary school because my father could not afford it, he was highly surprised. His next question was: “then, how did you come about the high standard English language with which you are writing your column?”. My explanation on how I learnt English language privately, after I left the Arabic school, sounded so much unbelievable to him that he confessed that he had thought that I attended either Oxford or Cambridge University in UK, for my degree course, perhaps after completing my secondary school education at King’s College, or St. Gregory’s College in Lagos. However, in response to that guess, I told him that I attended King’s University, Jeddah, for my degree and I read English. But he was still surprised that I obtained my first degree in English Language and Literature in the Arab World. He did not know that virtually all my lecturers at King’s University were Britons and Americans. There and then, he tactically left that angle and asked me to tell him something about Arabic language and its usefulness. But to my amazement, Chief Akinjide’s surprise became heightened when I told him that all science subjects that brought about technology and the modern civilization originated from Arabic language. For instance, I told him that such subjects like Chemistry (Kaymiyau), Physics (Fisiyau), Algebra (Aljibrau), mathematics (Ar-Riyadiyat) and several others in sciences were originally Arabic. I also told him that the very first University ever established in human history was University of Cordoba which was established by the Muslim Arabs of the second Umayyad dynasty in Spain, in the 9th century. I did not stop there. I added that it was the Muslim Arabs that invented figure zero (0) which paved way for digital system in mathematics made technology possible. That conversation lasted about three hours but from his body language, Chief Akinjide needed more information about Islam’s contribution to human civilization. He then told me that he would continue to invite me for further discussions on that subject whenever the need arose for it.

Another Meeting

About four weeks after that first encounter, Chief Akinjide called me again, by telephone, to his residence. I then thought of getting a witness to that intellectual conversation because of the future. I asked my brother, Dr. Wole Abbas (now a Professor and Head of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Ibadan, to accompany me to Chief Akinjide’s residence. I narrated to him what had transpired between us in our previous meeting. And, being an intellectual rendezvous, my brother was ready to be a witness.

On reaching the place, the conversation began again. And for another period of over three hours, the conversation continued with the active participation of Professor Wole Abbas. At the end of that second conversation, the man asked a puzzling question thus: “where were people like you when we were rigmarolling in search of religious right path? Or don’t you know that I was born a Muslim and I was given the name Rasheed at birth? It was because I did not understand the meanings of the Arabic recitations to which I was subjected that I later decided to become a Christian”. “And, now, is it possible to combine? And, is it not too late to change? That last question clearly showed the confused situation of Chief Akinjide’s mind on religious matter. But the opportunity of another meeting with him, thereafter, did not come. From that conversation, I discovered that, unlike molst Nigerian politicians, Chief Akinjide was a serious-minded realist whose lifestyle was a template of emulation by today’s Nigerian politicians.

Reminiscence

The above related episode came to throw a challenge to Nigerian Muslim clerics over two conspicuous issues that jointly put a question mark on the practice of Islam in Nigeria today.  One is about the Qur’anic schools in Nigeria. The other is the Mosque affair. The two are closely interrelated.

Informed Muslims will recall that Islam first reached some parts of what is now called Nigeria in the 11th century CE. That was over 1000 years ago when no one could have dreamt of a country to be called Nigeria. Even the colonialists who caused the emergence of Nigeria as a country were, at that time, still wallowing in total ignorance as they foraged wildly and aimlessly in the darkness of life. It took about 500 years after the arrival of Islam before Christianity came to Nigeria in the 16th century. Today, if the two religions are compared in terms of education and material progress in this country, one will be found obviously ahead of the other by far. As a matter of fact, it will seem as if Christianity preceded Islam in Nigeria by 500 years. There is a fundamental question here not yet asked let alone answered. Where did things begin to go wrong for the Muslims?

It is only logical that a question like this is asked at this stage before any answer can be provided. From a Yoruba adage we learn that “when a kid suddenly slips and falls down he looks forward to someone who can lift him up. But when an adult slips and falls down, he looks backwards to see the cause of his fall”. After over 1000 years in Nigeria, Islam is eminently qualified to be called an adult. Thus we can jointly look back to see where things started going wrong for Islam to remain a crawling adult?

If the past generations of Nigerian Muslims did not ask the above question, it wasn’t because they lacked intellect or foresight that could ginger them into asking such a question. Even if they asked a similar question, their political and economic hindrances would have posed as lack of wherewithal to answer it effectively. They could therefore be pardoned. The circumstances in which they embraced Islam and practiced it were quite different from those of today. That they even stood firmly by Islam in those days at all, despite the implacable persecutions they faced, was an impeccable testimony to their steadfastness in faith.

The Difference

Unlike Christianity which was escorted down to Nigeria by its European propagators and was strengthened by the colonialists after assuming power, Islam only migrated to Nigeria unaccompanied. That it emerged as a force to be reckoned with was only due to the grace of Allah. Nothing beyond education encouraged certain great scholars like Usman Dan Fodio and his brother, Abdullah Dan Fodio and Sultan Bello to rise up and embark on vigorous propagation of Islam which enabled that divine religion to retain its vitality till today. It should be remembered that both Usman Dan Fodio and his son (Muhammad Bello) made such complex linguistic, theological, scientific and legal studies that the one wrote 93 books while the other wrote 97 books.

Clapperton’s Encounter with Sultan Bello

It is on record that Hugh Clapperton, a British colonial agent, once had an interesting intellectual encounter with Sultan Muhammad Bello in 1824. After the historic intellectual encounter that took both of them through a compex web of knowledge display, Clapperton had to admit thus: “He (Muhammad Bello) continued to ask me several other theological questions, until I was obliged to confess myself not sufficiently versed in religious subtleties to resolve those knotty points”.

And when Clapperton returned to Sokoto two years later (1826) and presented Sultan Bello with a complete copy of Arabic Euclid he (Clapperton) was shocked to learn that his host already possessed one. (Euclid is an ancient geometry book of 13 volumes named after its Greek originator).

Literacy in Northern Nigeria

When the Europeans first came to the territory now called Nigeria in the 16th century, the north was the only part that was literate. And, that was because Islam had reached that part of the country since the 11th century, with its Arabic literacy. The English colonialists confirmed this on their arrival in Nigeria for colonization in the 19th century. And that was why they were much more cautious in their dealings with the northerners than they were with the southerners.

That the colonialists did not retain Arabic literacy in the north was due to the fact that they could not communicate in that sophisticated language. If they (the Europeans) had not ignored Arabic literacy, the north would not have been perceived as backward literarily today by the southerners. At least by 1919 when the South was just beginning to embrace literacy, in the Western way, the North already had about 25000 schools where students were taught various subjects through Arabic language.

Today, however, over 80% of Nigerian Christians are conveniently lettered either in English which is the official language of Christianity in this country or in their vernacular languages through the Roman alphabets.  That has enabled them to translate the Bible into about 21 Nigerian languages.

But on the contrary, less than 5% of Nigerian Muslims can be said to be realistically familiar with Islam through literacy in Arabic. And, without adequate literacy in Arabic language, there can be no thorough understanding of Islam which is the total way of life for any serious Muslim.

Today, despite the age of Islam in Nigeria and the population of the Muslims, the Qur’an has just been translated into about than five Nigerian languages. Even that was only possible because the two initiators of those translations (the late Sheikh Abubakar Mahmud Gumi and Sheikh Adam Abdullah Al-Ilory) were well educated in the language of the Qur’an. They were later emulated by some scholars from tribes other than  Hausa and Yoruba.

Problems of Qura’anic Schools

Many Nigerian Muslims who passed through the Qur’anic schools in Nigeria and care now claiming to have graduated (through celebration of Walimah) have ended up being serious embarrassments to Islam because of the shallow depth of knowledge they possess.

The problem of Qur’anic schools in Nigeria is not just about faulty curriculum but also about anachronistic teaching methodology still being used.

Arabic Language

Language is the prima facie of any culture. A culture that is not entrenched in a language is only bidding its time of oblivion. Islam is a foremost culture with a foremost language. But with due apology, the attitude of some of Nigerian clerics who are teaching in Qur’anic schools has virtually changed the colour and the taste of Islam, as a culture, in Nigeria for the worse. Rather than being an attractive place of learning, most Qur’anic schools have been turned into scaring centres for our children. And, only a very few of those children are now willing to attend Qur’anic schools. The result is that no seriousness is attached to those schools in our society any longer.

Qur’an is the encyclopedia of Islam. It is not meant for recitation alone. It is the final source of all researches in all fields of learning for those who know its value. Anybody who wants to claim authority in Islamic knowledge must, of necessity, be able to read, write and comprehend Arabic language very well.

In Islam, Qur’an is the house in which the Muslims’ minds reside. The foundation of that house is Arabic language. Without understanding Arabic language, it is impossible to comprehend any literature written in Arabic, be it the Qur’an or Hadith. Only modernization of Arabic schools can change the situation of Al-majirai in Nigeria.

FEMI ABBAS

Monologue 

Today’s article is a follow up to that of last Friday as demanded by many dignified readers of this column   around the world. Yours sincerely could not resist such a demand since it is, only through the readers’ recognition that a writer can become a signpost of meaningful hope for the world of today and that of tomorrow.

Chain of Events

Perhaps, no platform provides a better opportunity for the explanation demanded by readers, in today’s article, than a historic publication of an edition of ‘The News’ magazine in 1999.

The Publication

At the twilight of the 20th century, in 1999, the management of ‘The News’ magazine, , thought of putting together, in a centenary compendium, the most prominent 100 Nigerian men and women of the 20th century. The publication was entitled ‘PEOPLE IN THE NEWS 1900-1999: A Survey of Nigerians of The 20th Century’.

Contributors

Like an encyclopedia, that compendium attracted some prominent writers in the country, who were approached by the publishers of ‘The News’ Magazine, to contribute to its publication from different perspectives.

Most of those approached were famous Nigerian newspaper editors, seasoned columnists and versatile (non-journalist) writers. They were selected for the historic assignment, based on their impeccable experiences and professional credibility.

As a columnist and Deputy Chairman of the Editorial Board of Vanguard newspaper at that time, yours sincerely was one of those selected as contributors. And, the two personalities assigned to me to write about, were the late Shaykh Adam Abdullah Al-Ilory and the late Shaykh Abubakar Mahmud Gumi. The latter was the former Grand Qadi of Northern Nigeria. What qualified Shaykh Adam Abdullah Al-Ilory as one of the most prominent 100 Nigerians of the 20th century was his revolutionary reformation of the primordial Arabic schools (Madrasahs) in the South West of Nigeria.

The Compendium

The 498 page historic compendium was publicly presented by ‘The News’ publishers with pump and pageantry at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, in Lagos, in the same year of 1999. That compendium can be called Nigeria’s 20th century ‘Hall of Fame.

Who is Shaykh Adam Abdullah Al-Ilory?

To know who this colossal personality was, please, read below, what I wrote about him and his established Institution of learning, as published in the mentioned centenary compendium. The writing went thus: “To Muslim communities of West Africa, two names: (Shaykh Adam Abdullah Al-Ilory and Markaz) have always been synonymous and often used interchangeably. For a long time, only a few people knew that Markaz was a name of an Institution while Shaykh Adam Abdullah Al-Ilory was the name of its founder. Both names jointly symbolized revolution, not only in the method of propagating Islam in West African sub-region but also in entrenching Arabic, as the divine language of the Qur’an, in the hearts and brains of those Muslims.

His Profile

Before his demise in 1992, Shaykh Adam Abdullah Al-Ilory was both an Islamic scholar of international repute and a revolutionary teacher of teachers. The quality of over 60 internationally recognized books he authored and published continues to speak of him posthumously today.

The Citadel called Markaz

With the famous Centre for Arabic and Islamic Studies, (Markaz) in Agege, Lagos State, still waxing stronger, today, there is a vivid testimony to the indelible legacy which the ingenuously cerebral personality of Shaykh Adam left behind.

Reminiscence

The great Institute of learning called Markaz was established in  Abeokuta, the capital city of today’s Ogun State, in 1952, by Shaykh Adam Abdullah A[-Ilory. It was through that Institution that he introduced an unprecedented modernity and standardization into the study of Arabic and Islamic learning in West African sub-region, starting from Nigeria.

Scholarship

Perhaps no 20th century Muslim scholar, dead or alive, has had such a profound impact on West African Muslim communities in terms of Arabic scholarship and Islamic propagation as Shaykh Adam. Before he established Markaz, there were clerics and there were Madrasahs, no doubt. But such clerics and their Madrasahs only operated within a very narrow scope as the teaching methodology used for the students under their pupilage was very crude, archaic and anachronistic.

His Reformation

Shaykh Adam, who also passed through that pseudo servitude system, under certain Qur’anic teachers, at his early life, noticed with concern, the anomaly in that archaic system and resolved to change it by the grace of Allah when he grew up and possessed the wherewithal. However, to succeed in that seemingly queer venture, he realized that he needed to equip himself adequately with necessary education and not mere literacy. Therefore, after moving from scholar to scholar, in Nigeria, in search of relevant  knowledge that could assist him in fulfilling his dream, he decided to travel abroad for acquisition of deeper knowledge.

Academic Sojourn

On his arrival in  Cairo, in the early 1940s, Sheikh Adam saw with admiration, a thorough administration of Madrasahs and he began to dream of establishing one of the like, on his return to Nigeria. He, therefore, studied the Egyptian curricula of education and teaching    methodology at the elementary and secondary school levels in preparation for the realization of his dream.

Back in Nigeria

On returning home at about the age of 30 years, in 1947, Shaykh Adam worked briefly as a missionary under Ansar-ud-Deen Society of Nigeria to enable him settle down financially in preparation for the realization of his long term dream. In a short while, his burning desire to reform Madrasah system in Nigeria spurred him to start planning for the establishment of a model Madrasah that would serve as a model for other. That Madrasah was named Markaz.

Thus, with just meager financial resources but relentless determination, the great scholar started his dreamt Madarasah in Abeokuta, now Ogun State, on April 16, 1952, with just 19 pupils and four teachers including Shaykh Adam himself. However, the founder’s foresight would not allow Markaz to remain in Abeokuta for long. He moved the Institution to Agege in 1955.

The Uniqueness of Markaz

The uniqueness of Markaz is not to be seen only in the quality of education taught to the   students therein. The modern teaching methodology and reformation with which the Institution is characterized confirm that uniqueness. For instance, the use of chalk and blackboard for teaching Arabic and Islamic education; the use of standard education curriculum; classification of studies into subjects; distribution of pupils into classrooms according to their levels; introduction of school uniform to Madrasah students; enabling Madrasah pupils to sit on chairs rather than bare floor; writing with pencils and pens in  notebooks of class lessons and other innovations were first introduced in Markaz.

Not only those, it was also in Markaz that written examination was first conducted as a means of assessing and promoting pupils from class to class while certificates were issued to successful Madrasah graduates as a measure of their level of education. Besides, Markaz was also the first Madrasah to provide social facilities like dormitories, library, printing press and clinic.

The intended effect of all these was to  wipe off, from the foreheads of those students, any sweat of inferiority complex that could discourage them from attending the Madrasah. It was also meant to serve as an impetus of hope for them in respect of the future. Given the circumstance of that time, how else could the Madrasah system have been reformed in Nigeria?

Antagonism

Incidentally, as characteristic of black Africans, Shaykh Adam was confronted with implacable hostility by some parochially envious local clerics, who thought that teaching students such ‘strange’ subjects like syntax, morphology, logic, semantics, philosophy, geography, History, mathematics, and literature, with which they (local clerics) were not familiar, could put them at a disadvantage. And, since they saw that  revolution as a cultural affront, they resolved to resist it, by all means. Their adopted instruments of resistance were intimidation and frustration. That hostility became aggravated when Shaykh Adam added a Jum’at Mosque to Markaz and started delivering weekly sermons in Arabic and translating them into Yoruba language for thorough understanding by his congregation. But then, relying on a formidable protection of Allah, the courageous scholar remained undaunted even as he was indifferent to the unwarranted hostility of those clerics.

First Graduation Ceremony

With the first graduation ceremony of the primary section of Markaz in 1957, however, which many people watched with admiration and encomiums, Sheikh Adam won a landmark victory for his extraordinary revolution that eventually turned Markaz into a Citadel of knowledge. Following that graduation, some hitherto malicious local Alfas had to swallow their pride by shelving their envy and by enrolling in Markaz, as students, to also improve their knowledge by undergoing a new, modern tutelage in a scientific teaching methodology that could qualify them to become as famous as Shaykh Adam.

Some of those local Alfas came from various parts of Nigeria as well as neighbouring countries like Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana, Cote de Voire, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Cameroon as well as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Senegal.

After graduation, all of them went back to their home countries to establish similar Institutions in their domains under the supervisory umbrella of Markaz. That may explain the reason why Almajiri menace is not as rampant in the South West of Nigeria as it is in the North.

Products of Markaz

Today, thousands of products of Markaz and those of the affiliate Institutes are University graduates in various fields of discipline. Scores of them are highly placed in their professional callings.

Today, Markaz can proudly regale in the galaxy of its alumni who are holding sway in virtually all fields of human endeavour. Among those who graduated from Markaz with exemplary laurels are  Professors like Ishaq Olanrewaju Oloyede, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin and now the Registrar of JAMB; Professor Abdur-Razak Deremi Abubakr, a former Vice Chancellor of Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Kwara State; the late Professor Shuaib Uthman, a former Deputy Vice Chancellor of Usman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto; Professor Murtada Aderemi Bidmus, a former Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Lagos, to mention, just a few. There are many other Markaz alumni with tertiary degrees in various academic and non-academic lines, who are playing leadership roles in various sectors of Nigeria today. Also among them are professionals like Medical Doctors; Lawyers; Engineers; Ambassadors;  Journalists (including yours sincerely), Architects; Accountants; Bankers; Pharmacists; Surveyors; Civil Servants; Business men and women as well as Secondary School Principals and teachers of high repute. Today, they are all proud of Markaz as much as Markaz is proud of them. Alhamdu Lillah!

League of Imams and Alfas

As a way of advancing the course of Muslim unity and elevating the status of the Muslim clerics in the South West of Nigeria, Shaykh Adam initiated the formation of the League of Imams and Alfas to serve as a common forum of unification for the Imams and Alfas in the South West of Nigeria. Following the establishment of that League, in 1963, he was unanimously nominated by consensus to be the President-General, but he turned it down and rather preferred to serve as Seretary-General, the position he held in that League, till his demise in 1992.

Translation of the Qur’an

Shaykh Adam was the initiator and leader of the ten man team that translated the Qur’an from Arabic into Yoruba language. Some of the graduates of Markaz were part of that team. And, the circulation of the copies of that translated Qur’an was personally supervised by him.

Publications

As an author of scores of scholarly books and booklets, Shaykh Adam was internationally acknowledged as a towering Islamic scholar whose contribution to Islamic scholarship and propagation in West Africa was unequalled in the 20th century. Some of his books were used in some Universities in the Arab world. And in writing all those books, he used no language other than Arabic.

Awards

Shaykh Adam was the first black African to win the coveted Egyptian intellectual Gold Medal Award in Arabic Literature, which was presented to him by President  Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in 1989. He had earlier, in 1975, won the Mauritanian International Award for Islamic Scholarship, which was presented to him by the then President Moukhtar Ould Dada of that country.

Conclusion

Now, given the above historical analysis, which parent will not be proud to see his children passing through a Madrasah like Markaz? God bless the readers of this column!

Femi Abbas

Monologue

THIS   is one of the periods in which newspaper or newsmagazine columnists find themselves in a dilemma. Such dilemma is not on whether to write or not. Rather, it is on the right issue that can be the subject of writing at a particular time. Ordinarily, the problem of a worthy columnist is not a dearth of ideas but a deluge of them.

For an average columnist, thinking of a subject to write about is like placing a magnet at a strategic centre to attract many iron elements around. As a columnist thinks of a subject to write about, many other subjects get magnetised, and throw themselves torrentially to him for choice. And, in his search for a choice to be given priority, he becomes entangled in a proverbial cobweb of dilemma.  That is the situation in which yours sincerely is now ensnared psychologically.

Today, the original issue planned to be addressed in this column is the recent ‘ENDSARS’ national mass protest and Nigerian governing style.

But while ruminating and researching on the presentation of  that issue, the global media waves reverberatingly throbbed with breaking news on another equally crucial issue which promptly diverted my attention from the protest and its aftermath implications.

That new issue is about a satanic cartoon that sparked off a new religious brouhaha, in France, last weekend. The cartoon, as usual, was meant to denigrate Islam and malign the personality of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), the greatest man that ever lived.

 Preamble

Time flies. The year 2002 was like yesterday. That was the year in which wild religious riots broke out fortuitously in Kaduna State. The immediate precipitate of those riots was an event of Miss World beauty pageant which was scheduled to take place in Nigeria in November/December that year. Incidentally, the time earmarked for that event coincided with that year’s sacred month of Ramadan in which all Muslims around the world were heartily engaged in statutory fast. The event was the 52nd edition of that global beauty contest. And, it was to be held, for the first time, in Nigeria.

Sensing the possible clash of that event with spiritual interest of Islam, the Muslims hinted the organizers of Miss World pageant, as well as the government, about the insensitivity of holding that event in the sacred month. But, characteristic of Nigerian government’s attitude to anything Islam, and the pathological audacity of certain Nigerian non-Muslims to ride roughshod over the divine religion of Allah, the precautionary hint was ignored with its entailed security implications and warning. At that time, Chief Olusugun Obasanjo (a Chritian) was the President of Nigeria and, the grand finale of the event was scheduled to take place in Abuja, the country’s federal capital.

Although, it was not the government that organized that event, nevertheless, the Muslims expected the government to play an unbiased role by cautioning those organizers if only for security reason.

However, the warning was not heeded in the usual irrational belief that freedom of speech and actions was guaranteed in Nigerian constitution.

It took a violent riot to break out which unnecessarily consumed scores of lives before they all realized that elasticity, especially in matters of freedom, has its limit. By the time the dust of those riots settled, the die had been cast regrettably as over 100 human lives had become human corpses.

Two particular incidents helped tremendously to ignite that carnage. One was the insistence of the organizers which included Silverbird Communication as a partner, ongoing ahead with the event despite the warning. The other was an article written in ThisDay newspaper by a female columnist, Isioma Daniel, who wrote in the blasphemous article that “if Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was alive, he would not only approve the Nigeria’s hosting of the event, but also choose one of those beauty contestants as a wife”.

Eventually, that event did not hold in Nigeria. It was taken to the United Kingdom where it rightly belonged.

Also, about eight years ago, 2012, an amateurish film of sarcasm was acted in the United of States of America to ridicule Islam and, to characteristically, mock Prophet Muhammad (SAW). That was in November that year. By the time the noice over that devilish film was dying down, two weeks later, a satanic cartoon emerged in France to ridicule the same Prophet Muhammad.

That was a confirmation of the existence of a lunatic market in the West, where all delirious people go to strip naked in order to engage in a brawl of incurable insanity.

The West’s Capitalist Orientation

From time immemorial, denigration of the personality of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and Islam has been a peculiar hobby, a lunatic terrain with which the Muslim world has become well familiar. Therefore, that President Emmanuel Macron of France renewed that lunacy last weekend did not come as a surprise. After all, a dog that would die in perdition would never heed the warning a hunter. Right now, many Muslims countries have announced the boycott of products from France.

For many centuries, the so-called Orientalists had adopted defamation of the Prophet’s character and denigration of Islam as a strategy with which to gain cheap fame and to make easy money. And, since their main objective, according to their capitalist orientation, was only to make money for the acquisition of the vanity of this ephemeral world. But, if we view the matter from another angle, the obnoxious action of those infidels can become understandable.

For instance, who else in the history of mankind, could have provided the type of elastic market that those lotus eaters manipulate to get the money they need for their vainglorious lives? Thus, for centuries, they had written all sorts of blasphemous fables in books, pamphlets, magazines and newspapers as a way of making illegal money from those writings without thinking of the feelings of billions of Muslims in the world.

That was how many Westerners emerged as Professors of Islamic History or Theology or Jurisprudence in the London School of Oriental Studies (SOAS). In reality, if the name of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is removed from the literary projects of the West today what else will remain for them to make cheap fame and make cheap money?

Unique discipline

The discipline imparted by Islam in its adherents is such that no Muslim of worth would ever go to the extent of writing any rubbish about any other religion and audaciously claim authority on it. As a matter of fact, no true Muslim will ever malign the personality of Jesus verbally let alone in writing and go scot free. He/she would immediately be reprimanded or sanctioned by fellow Muslims, not only because Jesus, like Muhammad (SAW), was a Prophet of Allah, but also because Islam, as a divine religion abhors indiscipline in all its ramifications. Besides, both the Qur’an and the Bible strongly admonish against such blasphemous utterances and writings even as they treat them as sacrilegious acts against any Prophet of Allah. Qur’an 61 Verse 7-8 says:   “Who does greater wrong than one who invents falsehood against Allah, even while being invited to Islam? Allah does not guide those who deliberately do wrong. Their intention is to extinguish Allah´s Light with the wind of their mouths: But (unknown to them) Allah has perfected His Light, even if the Unbelievers detest it”.

And, in the Bible, the following can be found: “Whoever speaks a word against the son of man will be forgiven. But whoever speaks a word against the Holly Spirit will not be forgiven in this age or in the one to come”. Mathew 12: 32

Islamic Norm

In Islam, the general norm is that people who live in glass house do not throw stones. But despite the blasphemous books of yesteryears and the nefarious films and cartoons of today, Muslims should rather remain calm and emulate the equanimity of the noble Prophet who Allah described as a unique exemplar for mankind. After all, most of the same Western Orientalists whose major hobby is to malign Prophet M uhammad (SAW), have had cause to reverse themselves in many of their publications after being confronted with impeccable facts.

Michael Hart’s Book

At a time in the 1970s when the Western Orientalists were busy basking in the euphoria of vanity and vainglory, as the echoes of their hostility to Islam was reverberating to all parts of the world, a Jewish American Astrophysicist suddenly came up with a book that shook the Western world to the marrows. The man’s name is Michael H. Hart. He was born on April 28, 1932 at a time when Adolf Hitler was just beginning to cook his Nazi party which eventually catapulted him onto the chair of dictatorship in Germany.

Until Michael Hart’s book entitled ‘The 100: A Ranking of the most Influential Persons in History’ stormed the market in 1978, it was

unimaginable that such a book could ever come from the West. Within weeks of its publication, over 500000 copies of the book were sold mostly in Europe and America.

Some people bought the book out of curiosity. Others bought it to know the other side of the story which the West had touted viciously for centuries about Islam and its great Prophet.

The most spectacular point in that book was the naming of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), out of the 100 personalities listed in the book, as the greatest man that ever lived. If the book had been written by an Arab or an African or an Asian it would not have come as a surprise to an average European or American. But the fact that such a book was written by a Jewish American and marketed in the West, immediately removed any toga of doubt about its authenticity even as it lifted the veil of blatant ignorance from the face of the antagonists of Islam.

What prompted Michael Hart to write the book at that time remains a puzzle. But, ever since its publication, Europe and America have not been the same again especially in their attitude towards Islam. After reading the book, most Westerners came to realize how ignorant they had been not just about the person of Muhammad (SAW) as a Prophet, but also about Islam as a divine religion. Their further search for knowledge in religious sphere has since altered their old perception of Islam considerably. And, that was why they stopped calling Islam ‘Muhammedanism’ in the contemporary time.

Although, the book attracted some particles of criticism from some diehard Christian bigots who disagreed with Michael Hart’s choice, (especially his ranking of Muhammad vis a vis Jesus), no one of them has genuinely been able to fault that choice on the basis of any facts superior to those of the author. And, from thence, Islam has confidently carved out a special niche for itself in the West. The rest is left to history.

In a nutshell, Michael Hart’s book has succeeded in achieving two main objectives hitherto undreamt of in those dark worlds.

One of those objectives is the exposure of many Westerners to Islam. The other is the rapid growth of that religion in Europe and America despite the suffocating environment forged for its adherents. Today, Washington and London officially champion the adoption of the tradition of hosting the Muslims at fast-breaking (Iftar) in the month of Ramadan while the call to prayer (Adhan) now sounds much louder through the minarets in European and American cities and towns.

Reason for Writing the Book

As to ‘why Michael Hart wrote that book, it is better to hear from the horse’s mouth. Here is what he said about the listed personalities and the choice of Prophet Muhammad as the greatest man that ever lived:

“My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world’s most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels. Of humble origins, Muhammad founded and promulgated one of the world’s great religions, and became an immensely effective political leader”.

Reminiscence

“Today, thirteen centuries after his death, his influence is still powerful and pervasive. The majority of the persons in this book had the advantage of being born and raised in centres of civilization, highly cultured or politically pivotal nations. Muhammad, however, was born in the year 570, in the city of Mecca, in southern Arabia, at that time, a backward area of the world, far from the centres of trade, art, and learning. Orphaned at age six, he was reared in modest surroundings. Islamic tradition tells us that he was an illiterate…

His economic position improved when, at age twenty-five, he married a wealthy widow. Nevertheless, as he approached forty, there was little outward indication that he was a remarkable person……”

Arab Situation

“Most Arabs at that time were pagans, who believed in many gods. There were, however, in Mecca, a small number of Jews and Christians; it was from them, no doubt, that Muhammad first learned of a single, omnipotent God who ruled the entire universe. When he was forty years old, Muhammad became convinced that this one true God (Allah) was speaking to him, and had chosen him to spread the true faith. For three years, Muhammad preached only to close friends and associates. Then, about 613, he began preaching in public. As he slowly gained converts, the Meccan authorities came to consider him a dangerous nuisance”.

Emigration

“In 622 CE, fearing for his safety, Muhammad fled to Medina (a city some 200 miles north of Mecca), where he had been offered a position of considerable political power. This flight, called the Hegira, was the turning point of the Prophet’s life. In Mecca, he had had few followers. In Medina, he had many more, and he soon acquired an influence that made him a virtual dictator. During the next few years, while Muhammad’s following grew rapidly, a series of battles were fought between Medina and Mecca. This was ended in 630 with Muhammad’s triumphant return to Mecca as conqueror. The remaining two and one-half years of his life witnessed the rapid conversion of the Arab tribes to the new religion”.

After His Demise

When Muhammad died, in 632, he was the effective ruler of all of southern Arabia. The Bedouin tribesmen of Arabia had a reputation as fierce warriors. But their number was small; and plagued by disunity and internecine warfare, they had been no match for the larger armies of the kingdoms in the settled agricultural areas to the north. However, unified by Muhammad for the first time in history, and inspired by their fervent belief in the one true God, these small Arab armies now embarked upon one of the most astonishing series of conquests in human history.

To the northeast of Arabia lay the large Neo-Persian Empire of the Sassanids; to the northwest lay the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman Empire, centred in Constantinople. Numerically, the Arabs were no match for their opponents. On the field of battle, though, the inspired Arabs rapidly conquered all of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. By 642, Egypt had been wrested from the Byzantine Empire, while the Persian armies had been crushed at the key battles of Qadisiya in 637, and Nehavend in 642. But even these enormous conquests, which were made under the leadership of Muhammad’s close friends and immediate successors, Ali, Abu Bakr, Uthman and ‘Umar Bn al-Khattab, did not mark the end of the Arab advance”.

Further Spread of Islam

“By 711, the Arab armies had swept completely across North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. There, they turned north and, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, overwhelmed the Visigothic kingdom in Spain.

How, then, is one to assess the overall impact of Muhammad on human history? Like all religions, Islam exerts an enormous influence upon the lives of its followers. It is for this reason that the founders of the world’s great religions all figure prominently in this book. Since there are roughly twice as many Christians as Moslems in the world, it may initially seem strange that Muhammad has been ranked higher than Jesus. There are two principal reasons for that decision. First, Muhammad played a far more important role in the development of Islam than Jesus did in the development of Christianity. … It is this unparalleled combination of secular and religious influence which I feel entitles Muhammad to be considered the most influential single figure in human history”.

Summary

The summary of Michael Hart’s analytical justification for his choice of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) as the greatest human being that ever lived has not been faulted and can never be faulted. He, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was the greatest man alive and he remains the greatest of all the dead even 1400 years after his demise. And that greatness continues to wax stronger as the population of the Muslims increases geometrically across the world despite the implacable hostility from the West.

Revision

When Michael Hart revised and reprinted the book in 1992, he dropped some names and retained most of those who made the original list with their rankings. Some of those he dropped included Vladimir Lenin of Russia who established the Unon of Soviet Socialist Republic in 1917 and Mao Zedong who was tagged the father. The reason that Hart gave for dropping them was that communist empires which qualified them for that list, in the first instance, had collapsed. He however listed some new names which included Mikhail Gorbachev and Williams Shakespeare.

Epilogue

What is yet to be clear to the Westerners about Islam is that Prophet Muhammad is like the sun in the midst of stars, whenever it rises, all those starts will bow in reverence. And it does not bother the Sun if all the blind men and women of this world, including Emanuel Macron of France, deny its existence. The sun will always be the sun and, the scorching effect of its beaming rays will always punish any naked eye that wants to see it in action.

FEMI ABBAS

Monologue 

Time is an abstract phenomenon that cruises uninterruptedly along the line of destiny. Time is the natural abode in which history resides permanently.

The history of the past years is what forms the archive from which today’s generation is gathering the experience with which to build the archive of tomorrow. In a nutshell, there can be no history without time. But, ironically, time, itself, has no history.

Warning

“…Beware of a calamity that may afflict, not only the perpetrators of injustice amongst you, (but also, some innocent ones who may have no hands in the cause of that calamity) and, be warned that Allah’s retribution can be very severe….”

25. 8:25.

Preamble

The admonishing verse of the Qur’an quoted above had been repeatedly quoted in this column as a sound of warning. However, that warning has been consistently ignored by the successive rulers of Nigeria and those of some other African countries, most of who see no lesson to learn from the records of history. Incidentally, the nonchalant attitude to highly sensitive issues that can negatively affect the lives of the citizenry is not peculiar to Nigerian rulers. Just recently, a queer array of massive protests began to rent the air in some dozens of countries across global regions and became amazement for the governments of those countries. Among the countries so overwhelmed, for various reasons, were Guinea, Ivory Coast, Belarus, Chile, Hong Kong, Thailand, Haiti Lebanon, the United States of America, France, Iraq and a host of others. The whole scenario was like a voyage with any precise destination. Yet, the precise destination of that undefined voyage remains a matter of guess for the entire world.

History as a Teacher

History is an invisible teacher. It teaches the experience of the past to the inexperienced people of the present with a view to guarding them towards a safe future port by using the yacht of experience.

However, while some people perceive history as the best teacher because of its frequent warning against the vanity of human wishes and its encouragement for emulation of impeccable exemplariness, some others see it a bad teacher because it does not practically prevent people from falling into the quagmire of life.

From whatever angle it is observed, however, history remains the undisputable teacher of all teachers, which can be described anyhow, by anybody, depending on the side of the divide to which each observer belongs. Thus, for as long as human beings remain in existence, passing   through the coast of history will never cease to serve as a   lesson for man.

Reminiscence

About a   decade ago, Libya stood out as a special chimney from which a strange suffocating smoke of history began to ooz out into the firmaments of African and Middle East orbits. Citizens suddenly trooped out onto the streets for a spontaneous protest that was named ‘Arab Spring’. When it began, the immediate thought of most observers around the world was that such a fortuitous occurrence could quickly become a lesson from which other rulers would learn the act of constructive governance.

Of all the North African and Middle East countries engulfed in that turmoil perhaps the least expected to join the fray was Libya. And, that assertion would have automatically become an axiom if Muammar Gaddafi, the then 69 year old ruler of that country, had heeded the warning of an obvious premonition coming from the neighbouring Tunisia.

Misconception

Meanwhile, there had been a general but erroneous belief about the trend of the foraging revolts in the Arab world, which culminated in sweeping the leadership across the core Arab countries and reduced those countries into mere rubles.

Contrary to sketchy media reports about the landmark tsunami that started just about a decade ago, what came to be known as ‘Arab Spring’ actually started in Egypt as far back as 1977. In that year, a sudden revolt broke out in Cairo, which was called ‘Egyptian Bread Riot’.

The two-day riot of January 18 and 19, 1977 was a spontaneous reaction, by hundreds of thousands of Egyptian peasants, to a mandate given to Egyptian government. That mandate, recommended by the World Bank and IMF,  was to remove all subsidies on foodstuffs. And, based on that mandate, the then President, Anwar Sadat first reduced subsidy on all food stuffs starting with bread which price was increased by just one Piaster (an equivalence of one Nigerian Kobo) as a first step. That decision was generally received as the height of insensitivity, to the penurious plight of the masses of that time. Thus, within the twinkling of an eye, the city of Cairo was on fire. And, before the government could gather itself together to address the issue, that fire had turned into a furnace that required triple effort to quench.

By the time the dust finally settled, about 79 people had been shrouded for burial while over 800 others had become emergency patients in the casualty sections of many hospitals in the country. Eventually, the fortuitous riot came to an end only after the government officially announced the reversal of the obnoxious policy and the restoration of the removed subsidies. That unexpected incident only came to aggravate the general discontent in the land which had been engendered by the evident class dichotomy that finally led to the assassination of President Sadat three years later (1980).

From thence, the Egyptians became so conscious of their supposed role in governance that they could only conclude that the only language understandable to their government was violent revolt.

Another Riot

In 1986, barely six years after the death of Sadat and Hosni Mubarak’s assumption of office as President, another major riot broke out in Cairo.

On February 25, 1986, about 17,000 Egyptian conscripts of the Central Security Forces (CSF), otherwise known as Egyptian Para-military Force, staged a violent protest in and around Cairo city, properties, including two major Hotels, belonging to the government as well as the upper and the middle classes were torched indiscriminately. The riot which was allegedly caused by a apiral rumour that the government had decided to increase the then two-year compulsory national service to three years without any commensurate remuneration lasted only three days. But the official fatality figure that followed it was put at 107 while over 2,000 people were said to be terribly injured and hospitalised.

However, unlike Sadat who quickly reversed his foodstuff subsidy policy, the only lesson that Hosni Mubarak could learn from that experience was the use of force against the protesters. And, the result was unpalatable. Ever since, Egypt has become a delicate gun powder waiting to be ignited at anytime. The Egyptian revolution that later abruptly ended Mubarak’s 32-year old regime did not, therefore, come as a surprise to  people who had been well familiar with that country’s political trend, since the 1970s. With the Egyptian experience, therefore, one would have expected other African and Middle East rulers to have learnt a lesson. But as a Yoruba adage goes,” a dog that would die in perdition will never respond to the guiding whistle of the hunter”.

Tunisian experience

In Tunisia, the protests leading to the flight of President Zainu l-Abidin Ben Ali to Saudi Arabia in January 2011 were instigated by the gruesomely symbolic suicide of one young man called Mohammed Bouazizi. The incident occurred on December 17, 2010. The 25-year-old University

Graduate had used his  degree certificate as a collateral for obtaining a bank loan with which to venture into retailing some farm products. He decided to obtain the loan after realizing the futility of looking for white collar job in a country where about 14 per cent of the populace was painfully unemployed.

After obtaining the loan he quickly commenced his planned private retailing job. But less than a week after the commencement, his consignment of farm products was confiscated by government officials who claimed that he did not obtain official permit for selling farm products. The young man then concluded that his country didn’t need him anymore and, he decided to commit suicide by setting himself ablaze and died on his way to the hospital.

People’s immediate reaction to that incident   was unimaginably spontaneous.

Violence erupted immediately across cities and towns as already aggrieved youths trooped to the streets and started burning whatever could be burnt and maiming whoever was suspected to be partly responsible. The government became so confused that the only option left was how to quench the furnace of violence.

By that time, the President tried to address some of the issues against which complaints were made. But then, it had become too late for such efforts to yield any sensible result. When the coming signals were no longer positive, President Zainul Abiden Bn Ali knew that the die had been cast and decided to flee the country thereby ending his 24-year-old regime with historic ignominy.

The case of the young man,  Bouazizi, who set himself ablaze and was nationally pronounced a martyr as well as the father of the revolution was just an atom in the complex story of  long term discontent in Tunisia.

There were many other cases of the like but three main factors can be said to be the immediate precipitates of the Tunisian revolution:

1. Open day, audacious corruption
2. Massive unemployment and
3. Insensitive exhibition of affluence, with impunity, by government officials. Now, which of these is not being experienced in Nigeria of today?

Gaddafi’s reaction

While demonstrations were going on in Tunisia and Egypt, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s impression was that the Presidents of both countries were mere jellies with little political experience. It was far from his imagination that the surging political tsunami in those two Arab countries could come near Libya let alone consume him and his regime. Thus,  after 42 years of unbridled despotism, Gaddafi reopened the film of Pharaoh’s history for the world to behold. Thus, like Saddam Hussein before him, he lost all that he had built for his country and for himself including his family.

The stories of the Tunisian, the Egyptian, and the Libyan revolutions, cannot be fully told in a one page weekly newspaper column like ‘The Message’. The vivid signal sent by those stories was that similar occurrences could subsequently be reenacted in some black African countries. But that signal was not seen.

Analysis

In virtually all the Arab countries, education is free from the primary school to the university. There is no problem of electricity, water, roads, rail system, and housing. The only two areas in which the people of those countries had problem with their governments were those of unemployment that was causing hunger and lack of constitutional privilege to partake freely in the  governance of their countries.  And, for those two reasons, a political tsunami of an unimaginable measure ensued to sweep the length and breadth of North Africa and a part of the Middle East like a hurricane.

Morocco and Algeria

The Moroccan monarch and Algerian President were only lucky to have heeded the warning of that sweeping tsunami in time, thereby escaping its squeezing   consequences. The lesson that the leaders of those two countries  learned from the experiences of their colleagues was what quickly served them in good stead. Otherwise, they would have ended up like Sadam Hussein of Iraq or Muammar Gaddafi of Libya or Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

The Nigerian Example

Here in Nigeria, where none of the above mentioned infrastructures is available despite the enormous material resources with which the country is naturally endowed, the rulers’ trade in stock since 1999 has been to ferry the scarce resources of the country illegally to some foreign countries either under the guise of searching for foreign investors or that of arms purchase. Rather than utilizing those resources to boost the general standard of living and thereby uplift the economic status of the country, the priority of our government officials has consistently been to squeeze the citizenry dry through the claim of a fictitious fuel subsidy and callous imposition of frivolous increase on the tariff of electricity even when it is evident that Nigeria has no stable electricity despite the so-called privatization of the power sector. For decades, children have been dropping out of schools; widows have shedding tears ceaselessly days and nights over self-survival; retired men and women have been fully rendered penurious at old age even as many of them have died unsung; farmers have been subjected to unwarranted siege for lack of roads through which to convey their farm products to markets. And, yet, even right now, despite the tense situation in the country, some Governors are trying to empty their State treasuries on building white elephant airports for themselves and their families. Or how many citizens in those States can afford to travel by air?

Comparison

While the Tunisians became restive over 14 per cent unemployment figure about a decade ago, Nigerians are sadly grappling with about 62per cent  of unemployment rate today even as the government keeps drumming the deceptive tune of becoming one of the 20 most economically viable countries in the world before 2030.

The warning here is for the doubting ‘Thomases’ who are still in the dream land in Nigeria and the rest of Africa to open their eyes and clearly see the vanity of human wishes in the cited Arab nations. Such tendentious talks as: “political tsunami can’t happen here in Nigeria” only belongs to parochial people who are still living in the primordial time.

To avoid becoming like flies drinking and dying in a bottle of wine, men of reason who are privileged to be in government had better learn from the experiences of others before some others begin to learn from their own experiences. The recent ‘ENDSARS’ saga is a signal that must serve as a warning for the wise.

Where you have people who are educated enough to know their rights; where you have people who are conscious of their common affinity; where you have people who believe in God and His capability to bring justice to an unjust nation, let no one think that such people can be exploited indefinitely. Those in power in Nigeria today who may still be thinking that they can live perpetually on injustice should remember that the likes of Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak never thought that nemesis could afflict their imperial offices one day. Their episodes are now part of archival history with which the fortress of the future can be formidably   built.

Nigeria for instance

The current situation in Nigeria is by far worse than the relayed episodes in the Arab country a decade ago. Here is a country where corruption has graduated from a crime into a pride, and, both conscience and shame have taken a permanent flight thereby decimating the future for the generations yet unborn. Here is a country where all types of vices are tied to the aprons of ethnicity and religion while ministers and some criminal political merchants (masquerading in the cloak of religion) are audaciously stealing public funds and ferrying them to other countries for keep without expectation of any possible consequences. Here is a country where well known unremorseful criminals are shamelessly granted state pardon and rewarded with national honours at the expense of conscience and shame. Here is a country where the so-called privatization policy is being formulated not for the growth of national economy but for the benefit of the formulators who see themselves as the inheritors of the nation’s wealth. Here is a country where pseudo-clerics serve as suppliers of arms and ammunition even as brigands enjoy patronage of the Federal and State governments in their perpetration of atrocities. Here is a country where official insurgency against the citizenry is a political instrument for silencing voices of dissent and for self-perpetration in public offices.

When such vices as mentioned above are perpetrated in a society, religion is often seen as the last bastion of hope to which the populace  look for solution. But when religion itself is portrayed as the haven of crimes what else remains as hope for the innocent few in that society?

To think that such crimes can be committed without nemesis is to live in a fool’s paradise. Therefore, let those in Nigeria who refuse to learn from ancient history try to learn from the recent one. To avert a combination of the wrath of the people with that of Allah, a change in the style of governance is now a sine qua non.  To be forewarned is to be forearmed. God bless Nigeria!

By Femi Abbas

“Say oh Allah! You are the Lord of all dominions; You give dominion to whoever You  wish and withdraw dominion from whoever You wish; Your power over everything is unquestionable….” Q. 3: 26-27.

Monologue 

This article is a reminder of an article written and published in this column by yours sincerely about four years ago. The precise date was Friday, January 20, 2017. In the article entitled ‘Welcoming a Trump of Sadism’, I predicted what would become of the United States of America (USA) at the instance of that country’s newly elected President, Donald Trump. Two weeks before the publication of that article, an earlier article was written and published, also by yours sincerely, in this same column. It was entitled ‘Waiting for January 20’ (2017). Venerable readers of ‘The Message’ column are hereby given the privilege of reading both articles once again through the excerpts quoted below as follows:

First Excerpt

“Like the hands of a clock, many democratic countries in the world do swear a new President into office every four or five years at the expiration of a previous tenure. Now, it is the turn of the United States of America again to do that. And, the man to take charge as from today, January 20, 2017, for the next four years, all things being equal, is called Donald Trump, a man that most people in the world, including Americans, who voted for him, have seen as a wild bull surging furiously into a china shop.

Second Excerpt

Below is also an excerpt from an earlier article entitled ‘Waiting for January 20’ and published on January 6, 2017, in this same column by yours sincerely. Its contents went thus in part: All eyes, across the world, are on the 20th day of January 2017.  That is the day that the newly elected American President, Donald John Trump, will be formally ushered into the ‘White House’ in Washington, with a swearing in ceremony. He will be the 45thAmerican President. That the entire world is waiting for this event is a confirmation of America’s undisputed leadership of the contemporary world. There is no doubt that this event will be historically electric, positively or negatively. A similar wait had taken place in February 1933, in Germany, when Adolf Hitler was sworn into office as the Chancellor of that country. The speech he delivered on that occasion was what eventually altered the destiny of Germany and reshaped the geography of the world in the 20th century.

Incidentally, Donald Trump’s ancestral origin is Germany. Now, will Trump of the 21st century replay the posture of Hitler of the 20th century by dragging the world into another World War? That is a fundamental question that the unfolding events of the days ahead may have to answer fundamentally”.

The meaning of Trump

“The name Trump is a short form of trumpet, a musical instrument with which the decision of a despotic tyrant is often announced in a local cultural setting. Ever since this man was declared the winner of the American Presidential election of November 2016, he has been trumpeting his tyrannical plans to the world arrogantly. And, the jitters rolled out of that trumpet have started gripping the world with an imaginary icy hand. That an American President-elect has begun to overrule his still serving predecessor even before taking an oath of office is a clear indication of what the world should expect from the china shop in which a wild bull will start  to operate as from today.

History as a Teacher

History is a well known phenomenal teacher. It teaches the old and the young alike. Its students are always drawn from far and near. It examines those students from time to time and gives them examination results periodically. Its lessons are as much generational as they cut across races and cultures. Yet, it has no peculiar language of communication. But then, it faces a fundamental problem. That problem is not in the repetition that has characteristically become the culture of history but, rather, in getting mankind to understand its repeated teachings as well as in heeding its warnings.

In virtually all celestial religions, history plays such a prominent role that gives it the permanent identity of a teacher. And, from its beneficial teachings, human beings build ladders of experiences with which they mount the pyramids of life”.

Christianity and Islam

“Despite the seeming brutal gangsterismbeing vaingloriously displayed by this goon called Donald Trump, however, the Muslim world should not   write him off completely as an agent of the Lucifer.

In the histories of both Christianity and Islam, we are repeatedly told of certain arch antagonists of God’s divine message, who dramatically turned round to become voluntary Ambassadors of the same message to which they had been viciously antagonistic. One of such antagonists was Saul of Tarsus, an avowed anti-Christ who dramatically turned round to accept the message of Jesus after the latter had departed this world. Saul later adopted the name Paul as a symbol of his new apostolic faith. That was from the Christian narration.

Another known antagonist of Allah’s divine Message was Umar Bn Khattab of Makkah who had plotted the murder of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) but dramatically turned round to embrace Islam on the day he was to implement his plot. Eventually, Umar rose to become the second Caliph in Islam and conscientiously spread Allah’s divine religion across continents even more than any other Caliph”.

Jesus’ Wish

“Jesus had wished that Saul, a well- educated person, accept his message while he was around. But that wish did not materialize until after his departure from the prophetic stage.

If Saul had not eventually accepted Christianity when he did, perhaps, the situation of that religion would have been completely different today”.

The case of Umar

“In the case of Umar Bn Khattab, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had prayed to Allah to enable one of the two famous personalities bearing Umar in Makkah, at that time, to accept Islam. Although the Prophet’s mind was on the other Umar, It however turned out that Umar Bn Khattab was the one favoured by Allah. And, his acceptance of Islam became so remarkable that the Prophet was reported to have once said of him as follows: “Were there to be a Prophet after me, Umar Bn Khattab would have been that Prophet”.

Irony of Life

“Today, another thorny bud seems to be wildly growing under the armpit of an American bitter tree in the 21st century. That proverbial human bud is an avowed racist and morbid hater of Islam that will assume office as President in that country on January 20, 2017. His open disposition and filthy utterances alone, have proved to be a vivid reminder of the unbridled atrocities of the originator of Nazism, Adolf Hitler, who brutally terrorised the entire continent of Europe with his tyrannical ambition.

And, for the first time ever, majority of Americans who voted to choose Trump as President started to express fear of uncertainty about their choice even before his assumption of office. Thus, from the very beginning of his first four year presidential tenure, Trump has been perceived as an unpredictable incubated egg waiting to be hatched without a yoke of democracy. This means that the kind of chicken that would come out of that incubated egg is just a matter of guess. Nevertheless, such a perception at the beginning of  2017 may be be too early in the day for the eagerly agitated Americans. After all, the cited cases of Saul and Umar still remain very validly influential on contemporary history”.

Factors of Influence

“Like Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump must have been satanically influenced by the weird poems by two European racial poets of the 19th/20th century. One of them was  William Butler (WB) Yeats of Ireland, who coined a poem entitled ‘The Second Coming’, which served as the template for Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe’s famous book entitled ‘Things Fall Apart’. Here is the poem: “Turning and turning round in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold….”

Observation

“If the above quoted stanza is seen as an impetus for Trump to behave like a typical restive dragon dancing on the surface of an ominous brook, another poem by Rudyard Kipling may have equally served as an intoxicant that could help to exacerbate the already dangerous situation of today’s world for which the new American President is ready to be the chief agent. Incidentally, both Yeats and Kipling were contemporary literary men of about the same age. They were both born in 1865 but died differently within a gap of about three years apart. Below is Kipling’s own further divisive poem that strengthened the unwarranted enmity between the West and the East of the world:

“Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat…”

Coded Bile

“Today’s the coded bile of history is ordinarily bitter, but whenever it plays its natural role in the body system of an individual or that of a nation, it automatically becomes clear that survival without it is impossible”.

In Retrospect

“Yes, it sounded odd in the centuries of yore, when speculations began to indicate that Greece and  Rome could adopt Christianity as State religion. It also sounded unbelievable that the whole of Arabia could adopt Islam as official religion. But reality eventually prevailed and, today, the rest remains a property of history.

In the same vein, far from feigning prophesy, like some Nigerian fraudsters who are claiming to be clerics, I foresee a day in the future, when America will become the foremost home of Islam and give that genuine divine religion the Impeccable reality of life that it deserves. In reaction to this millennial prediction, as it happened in the Greek and Roman  Empires of yore, the doubting Thomases of this era may commence their repugnant arguments from here. But those who will engage in any argument on this assertive prediction should remember that the seeds of tomorrow’s gargantuan tree of peace are already being firmly planted in today’s fertile soil as those of today were planted centuries ago.

Personal Comment

Allah’s way of doing things is full of wonders. For Him, nothing is impossible to do. And, if the cause of American transformation is not dramatically realisable with a wild bull like Donald Trump today, it may surprisingly be realisable with a modern day ‘Umar’ of America tomorrow. What matters most is for Islam to fulfill its statutorily ordained mission by wonderfully transforming this wild world into one of serenity and equanimity as promised by Allah.

FEMI ABBAS

Preamble

IT is an undisputable axiom that two phenomenal substances in human life are unsurpassable. One is knowledge. The other is time. None of these two has a substitute. Since the creation of man’s primogenitor named Adam and his spouse (Hawa’u), no human generation has ever lived successfully without these two substances.  Knowledge is power and time is life. Any rightly guided person who is well familiar with the contents of the sacred Book called the Qur’an’ will surely know that that glorious Book contains 114 chapters. Out of these, six chapters are about the animal kingdom, three of which are specifically dedicated to insects. They are chapters 16, 27 and 29 which are dedicated to ‘The BEE’, ‘The ANT’ and ‘The SPIDER’ respectively. That is a confirmation that the revealed messages of Allah are not meant for human beings alone.

The Referential Chapters

Each of the referred chapters is particularly symbolic of the purpose for which it is dedicated. But it takes only those who are rightly guided and can reason in the atmosphere of knowledge to comprehend them. However, our immediate concern here is the insect called ‘BEE’ about which Qur’an 16, verse 68 is very explicit. Here is the verse:

“And your Lord revealed to the bees thus: “Build your homes in the mountains, in the trees and in the hives which men shall make for you. Feed on every kind of fruits and follow the trodden path of your Lord’. “From its (bee’s) belly comes forth a substance of many hues that serves as healing fluid for mankind. Surely in this, there is a sign for those who can sensibly reason….”.

The Parable of Honey

Honey is like an environmental message. No one can gain access to it except through the messenger. And, the messenger, in this case, is the bee. To appreciate the value of honey and other bee products, it is necessary to know something about the life of the bee. Honey to the bee is like egg to the hen. No one knows which of them first came into existence. It is impossible for the bee to be alive without honey since honey is its food. And, it is impossible to get honey without the bee since honey is a major product of the bee. Thus their symbiotic existence is to the advantage of man.

The Life of Bees

Bees are social insects living a communal life under an organized and disciplined government headed by a Queen. Bees have male and female genders. Their males are called drones. Their females are known as workers. They all live together in an abode called hive. Such hive may be wild or manmade. Although people had been harvesting honey for thousands of years, it was not until 1851 that the idea of a definite man-made hive came into existence. In that year, an American apiarist, Lorenzo Langstroth, who discovered the principle of space, strictly maintained by the bees, came up with the idea of building homes for bees. It was the study of this principle, by Loren, zo Langstroth, that led to the design of a man-made hive to suit the need of the bees. The hive was named Langstroth, in commemoration of its designer. Thus, with Langstrogth’s discovery, bees became domesticated insects.

Colony

A colony, as far as the bees are concerned, is a hive that is effectively occupied, as a home, by the bees while a combination of hives is called an apiary. And, a bee farmer who keeps custody of haves is called an apiarist.

Man-made Hives

In contemporary times, man-made hives are of three types. These are Langstroth, Kenyan Top Bar and Tanzanian Top Bar. While Langsroth was designed in the United States in 1851, Kenyan and Tanzanian Top Bars, which look almost alike, were designed in Kenya and Tanzania in 1959 and 1962 respectively. Each of the Kenyan and Tanzanian hives can contain an average of 20 litres of honey produced and stored by the bees. The hive called Langstroth, on the other hand, can contain as much as between 38 and 40 litresof honey because of its rooming space of double chamber capacity.

 Government of the Bees

Bees are governed by a female monarch called ‘the Queen’. To install a Queen, a group of Queen makers in the hive meet to select some fertilized eggs shortly before those eggs are hatched. The selected eggs are then incubated royally. After hatching, they automatically become princesses and are then fed with a special food called Royal Jelly to accelerate their growth and strengthen their immunity as a way of facilitating their longevity.

After about 16 weeks, one of those princesses will emerge as the Queen apparent while the rest are either taken out into new hives to become Queens inside hives other than the one in which their eggs were hatched or they are left inside those original hive to slug it out among themselves in a royal battle for succession. In such a situation, whichever of them emerges as overall winner, will retain the crown and become the Queen of that particular hive. All other fertilized eggs that are not specially selected for the same purpose are left to grow naturally until they become worker bees.

The Drones 

Drones are the male bees produced from unfertilized eggs. They neither sting nor work. Their main duty, in the hive, is to mate with an emerged queen and that duty is performed only once in a lifetime because as soon as the mating is over, all the male bees that participate in it will automatically fall down and die.

The queen also mates only once in a lifetime but she does not die as a result. Drones are very few in any hive since the unfertilized eggs that produce them are scantily laid by the Queen. The drones constitute less than one per cent of the bees in any hive. The other drones which do not participate in mating only loiter around in the hive and feed freely from the labour of the workers. The population of the drones in any hive is invariably determined by the Queen which lays very few big and unfertilized eggs from which the drones are produced.

The Worker Bees

The worker bees are female bees. They are produced from smaller but fertilized eggs. It is from among them that the queen bee emerges.

As workers that feed the queen and maintain the sanity of the hive, the female bees have a way of sharing duties among themselves in a way otherwise called division of labour.

The Queen Bee

The queen bee has the biggest size in any beehive. Her size is about five times the size of an ordinary worker bee and she is the commander-in-chief of the hive in which she lives.  Only one Queen can be found in a hive at any given time. And she has no deputy. If two or more Queens should meet in the same hive, they will engage in a royal battle for survival, killing one another until only one (the strongest) eventually emerges as the victor and the reigning queen.

Breeding New Bees

To breed new bees, the Queen bee lays unfertilized eggs in the larger chambers of the bee comb while she lays fertilized ones in the smaller chambers of the comb. The eggs in the larger chambers are meant for the production of the drones while those in the smaller chambers are meant for the production of the workers. This is because

the drones are naturally bigger, in size, than the workers. Both chambers are expertly designed in the honeycomb by the worker bees for the purpose of breeding. One of the mysteries of the beehives is the building of the honeycomb by the worker bees. Apiarists know that the bees use wax to build honeycomb but they are still puzzled by the natural skill with which those tiny insects do it. An attempt, at a time,  by researchers to manufacture similar honeycombs, as a means of assisting the bees, in reducing their workload, proved abortive as the bees shunned the use of such artificial comb for the storage of the honey they produced. Honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal cells built by the honeybees in their nest to contain their larvae and store honey as well as pollen.

Division of Labour

Worker bees are classified into groups for the purpose of carrying out specific duties assigned to them. Some go out every morning to scout for flower nectars with which to produce honey. Some are assigned to the duty of picking resin with which to produce propolis. Such resin is picked from certain specific trees at certain periods of the day. Some other workrs are charged with fetching water to be used in the hive. All of them travel out in groups of hundreds into the wild vegetations or plantations every morning to carry out their duties. And, for carrying out such duties, they are called foragers.

Among the other multitudes remaining in or around the hive, some are responsible for security by guarding the hive against any foreign attack or aggression. Those are the security officers. Some are assigned to carrying out the conversion of nectars into honey from the flower nectars brought into the hive by the foragers. Those are the corporate cooks manning the kitchen in the hive. Some engage permanently in fanning the interior of the hive with their tiny wings to reduce the heat and neutralize the humidity therein. Those are called ventilators. Some specialize in converting the resin of trees, brought into the hive by the foragers, into propolis. Those are called pharmacists or apothecarists. Some are assigned to the Queen’s special kitchen as special cooks and they prepare royal jelly for the Queen as her exclusive food. Those are called the Queen’s royal chefs. Some are kept at the entrance of the hive for monitoring the environment and for passing any gathered information to the busy workers. Those are called informants. Some are put in charge of nursing the young bees into adults. They are called foster mothers. Some are assigned to the building and maintenance of the honeycomb. They are called colony architects and builders. Some are assigned to sterilizing the interior of the hive particularly to ceil any leakages therein as well as to embalm any predators that stray into the hive after such predators might have been stung to death as a way of preventing any outbreak of epidemic in the hive. Those are called sanitary inspectors. All of these duties are carried out by the female bees called worker bees.

Scavenging Officers

In the performance of their duties, some foragers do alert other worker bees about the discovery of new sources of raw materials like nectar, pollen and resin in the visited vegetations by doing a “waggle” dance, which explains the direction and distance of those raw materials. If the source is within the range of 100 meters from the hive, the bees dance in a circular shape. If it is farther away than 100 meters, they dance in figure 8 shape. Worker bees, by their nature, do travel very far in search of water or other raw materials needed to carry out their assigned duties in the hive. And they follow the principle of ‘esprit de corps’ in carrying out such duties.

This great division of labour is a daily routine which enables perfection to be attained in the hive. And all these activities are centrally co-ordinated by the Queen bee from her palatial chamber.

Features of the Queen Bee

The Queen bee lays an average of about 2,000 eggs per day. And she lives about 40 times longer than those other bees because of the exclusive diet of Royal Jelly which she takes every day. The average lifespan of an ordinary bee is six weeks. That of the Queen bee is two and a half years but she can live for as long as six years depending on the conduciveness of her royal environment.

Character of Bees

Bees have as much friendly stinging as they have hostile stinging. Their friendly stinging, which serves as vaccine, is for healing purposes. Their hostile stinging is like missiles reserved for attack on enemies. The natural sac in which their venom is kept at the tail end of their abdomen is called ‘ovipositor’.

Species of Bees

There are about 20,000 species of bees in the world. But the most prominent ones in relation to human life are seven. These are Bumble Bees; Carpenter Bees; Honey Bees; Killer Bees; Ground Bees and Yellow Jacket Bees. Some worker bees are stingless. But generally, the world of bees is a wonderful one. It takes those who know it to appreciate its value. Without bees, there will neither be crops nor farmers because it the bees that fertilize about 80% of the crops.

Authenticity of the Qur’an

No amount of narration here can expose all about the communal life of the bees. The story of the bees is inexhaustible.

For many centuries, Professors and other intellectually inclined people have been studying the life of bees. Yet, it took the consciousness of an unlettered Prophet of Allah, from Arabia, to bring this mysterious knowledge to mankind through the Qur’anic revelation which he received from the Almighty Allah.

Conclusion

Looking at the communal life of the bees as well as the style of government in the beehive, no sensible person will disagree with an Arab poet who once coined a poetic couplet, part of which reads thus:

“…..And in every creature, there is a natural sign confirming not only the true existence of Allah but also His indisputable oneness”.

The truth will continue to thrive to eternity even if the unbelievers abhor it in their blatant ignorance. God bless the readers of ‘THE MESSAGE’.

FEMI ABBAS

Preamble

Last Sunday, (November 22, 2020) was a unique day of glory and unprecedented equanimity, for the Muslim Ummah of South west Nigeria (MUSWEN. That was the day that a new President emerged for that Umbrella body of the entire Muslims in that region. The name of the new President, whose nomination was unanimously ratified by MUSWEN’s General Assembly, is Alhaji Rasaki Oladejo, an economist of international repute and a former President of Nawair-Ud-Deen Society of Nigeria who was also the Chairman of Finance Committee of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA).

By his emergence, as President of MUSWEN and the formal ratification of his nomination as Deputy President General of NSCIA, Alhaji Oladejo has become a successor to Dr. Sakariyau Olayiwola Babalola, OON, who demised in October 2019. Thus, he now is the third substantive President of MUSWEN and the third Deputy President General (South) of NSCIA.

MUSWEN’s General Assembly also ratified the nomination of Alhaji Rafiu Ebiti, a Fellow of Chartered Accountant (FCA) and Chairman of MUSWEN’s Finance Committee, as the First Deputy President of MUSWEN.

The ratification of Alhaji Oladejo’s nomination as Deputy President General of NSCIA was in response to NSCIA’s, official request for such nomination from MUSWEN, earlier this year.

Who is Alhaji Rasaki Oladejo?

Since this man’s emergence as President of MUSWEN and the unanimous ratification of his nomination as Deputy President General of NSCIA just last Sunday, many people have been calling yours sincerely to unveil his identity/profile for public assessment. But the space here is not enough to display such profile as requested. Many occasions are still lying ahead to warrant that, in the near future, in sha’Allah.

However, if a prominent Muslim of that status has been qualified enough to represent Nigeria at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), as Deputy Director General of Nigeria’s Stock Exchange, and, he has successfully served as a two terms President of Nawair-ud-Deen Society of Nigeria as well as Chairman of Finance Committee of NSCIA, what further qualification can be needed for his public assessment? After all, he is the current Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Lagos Muslim Alumni Association.

Suggestion

Instead of displaying Alhaji Oldejo’s paper qualification here, why don’t we assess him (for now) through the contents of his  acceptance Speech, at MUSWEN’s General Assembly, where his nomination was ratified? That acceptance speech does not only speak volumes about his personality and focus, it also confirms who he really is intellectually and administratively. In other words, paper qualification is just like the hood which does not necessarily make the Monk. If you want to know some details about this man, please, read an excerpt from his acceptance speech of last Sunday, as presented below.

His Acceptance Speech

”….In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful!

After protocols were duly observed, the speech went thus:

”…….Please, let me start with expression of a profound gratitude to the Almighty Allah, the Omnipresent the Omnipotent who bears no child and was not born. Whenever He (Allah) wants something done, He only commands it to be and it automatically becomes. It is only by His inimitable grace that we are all gathered here today, to witness this great occasion. Without His grace, nothing can be possible in the life of man.

Allah Akbar!

Prologue

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I received an invitation from MUSWEN to come and  serve Islam in a particular capacity, it was far beyond my dream or imagination, to stand before this unique Assembly of Muslim Who’s Who in the South West of Nigeria, in response to the ‘summon’ that brought me here today.  My plan, after retirement and attainment of septuagenarian age, some years ago, was

to sit back, at home, with  subtle relaxation, and take a private retrospective view of my life’s odyssey, in the past 60 or 65 years, with a view to transforming the experience garnered during that period into a special school where today’s younger Muslims could

learn the art of mounting the pyramid of life as a fortress for the Muslim generations of tomorrow.

It was through a window on that pyramid, during my youthful days, in the 1950s/60s, that I was able to see the spiritual life style of our own generation, partly as a warning on the vanity of human wishes and partly as an encouragement for paving a thorough way for others in life. That was my planed agenda in retirement. But, as we all know, man only proposes while Allah disposes.

Reminiscence

Today’s Annual General Assembly is both a practical reminiscence and a vivid reminder of similar assemblies of highly foresighted and rightly guided Muslim elites at the beginning of the 20th century.

Although those elites were very few in number and they grossly lacked the required facilities for building a  befitting modern Muslim Community of their desire, the  strong will and determination that propelled their excellent intention, at that time, was the impetus that gingered them to create a worthy legacy which eventually became a worthy heritage for us today.

It was the strong foundation laid by those elites that made it possible for most of us here today, to be educated in the Western way without forcefully becoming Christians.

Today, we can talk of ubiquitous Muslim schools and Muslim teachers with delight. We can attend Muslim Hospitals and consult Muslim Doctors/Nurses confidently without suspicion. Our children can attend Muslim Universities and be taught by Muslim Professors with trust. Young Muslim job seekers can apply and be employed in Muslim companies and be trained by Muslim Professionals. Male and female Muslim parents can be members of viable Muslim Organizations in which competent Muslim administrators can serve as their models. All these are now easily achieved with pride. Alhamdu liLlah!

Potent Question

However, without the above mentioned solid foundation laid by those highly dedicated earlier Muslim elites, which now serves as a template for our generation, how could we have attained the rightly guided prowess that makes us the qualitative Muslims that we are today, individually and collectively?

The above narrated episode has come to form an indelible archive in the contemporary history of Islam in Nigeria with indelible impact on the present adherents of that divine religion. Alhamdu liLllah.

That we are practicing Islam in Nigeria, today, without any fear of intimidation and any recourse to the mercy of non-Muslims is a clear evidence that our spiritual edifice is based on a formidable foundation. Alhamdu liLlah!

Our Own Era

Now, this is our own era in history. We met a solid foundation on ground and we built a befitting edifice on it. That is how to turn a worthy legacy into a worthy heritage. But, then, in our own life time, that same edifice, of which we are very proud, is fast becoming ramshackle while we keep basking vaingloriously in the euphoria of the past. At any time of human life, change is a major precursor of progress. Without change, any dream of progress may end up in a nightmare. Even the Almighty Allah emphasizes this in Chaper 13 Verse 11 of the Qur’an thus:

“Allah does not change the situation of a community unless the people of such a Community change their abnormal attitude to life….”

Formation of MUSWEN

Just over a decade ago, some thoughtful Muslim Elites, in this same South West of Nigeria, came together as brothers and sisters, to further advance the vibrancy of the edifice built on the existing solid foundation, by firming together, the various flanks of that edifice, in the name of MUSWEN, for the purpose of unity of the Ummah. Thus, today, we have an unprecedented unification umbrella that gives the South West Muslims a national identity not only in name but also in action. Today, the role of MUSWEN in Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) is appreciably exemplary. Alhamdu liLllah!

His Eminence

With the current Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, mni, as President General of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), no genuine Muslim of worth in Nigeria or even abroad, today, can doubt the fact that we, indeed, have a great leader. At least, we, in the South West of Nigeria, could not have forgotten, so soon, the role which His Eminence played in planting the seed of a formidable Muslim unity in this region, at the inauguration of MUSWEN, here in Ibadan, in August, 2008. And ever since, His Eminence has not relented a bit, in encouraging the germination and nourishment of that seed into a gargantuan tree that MUSWEN has become today.

Cooperation  

Today, going by the trend of unity and its attendant growth of MUSWEN, it is doubtful that the Muslims in the South West of Nigeria would have achieved the formidable mutual cooperation with other regions, which we proudly enjoy today, by the grace of Allah, to the chagrin envy of those who are now evidently uncomfortable.  It is, therefore, the duty and responsibility of MUSWEN, to work assiduously, towards the solidification of the factors which brought that national Muslim unity about and may become a comfortable heritage for our children and other future generations. As a regional body, we have a major stake in the progressive greatness of the NSCIA as the common rope that binds  us together and strengthens us to jointly  hold the flag of Islam aloft in Nigeria, in spite of the sour song of ‘Islamization’ often chorused frivolously in certain quarters to distract the Muslims through the waves of Higerian media.

As Muslims in Nigeria, in Africa or even in the entire world, we have a single body with a single mission which we cannot afford to betray at any moment, for any reason.

Let us always pray for our leaders’ divine guidance without any iota of tribal or denominational instinct in mind. We should not forget that in Islam, actions are judged by intention. God bless our leaders with long lives and sound health that they may be able to resist any forceful distraction while forging ahead with their divinely guided intention.

Salutations

As a Muslim and an appreciative beneficiary of wisdom, courage, endurance and sacrifices of the leaders who laid foundation for us, upon which to build further growth and development for Islam, in this region, I hereby salute the doggedness of the indefatigable leaders of the past and those of the present who remain relentless in their dedicated service to the course of Islam without minding any visible or invisible odds surreptitiously erected on their ways. I, particularly, salute the Sultan of Sokoto and President General of NSCIA for piloting the affairs of Nigerian Muslim Ummah nationally and methodically despite the occasional missiles of  insults hauled at his highly venerable position, from certain uncultured quarters.

I salute the late Professor Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa, a onetime Nigerian Minister of Education, who as the pioneer President of MUSWEN, laid a formidable foundation for that unprecedented edifice.

I salute our highly principled father, Justice Tijani Bolarinwa Babalakin, who took the mantle of leadership from Professor Fafunwa, as acting President, but decided to step aside, along the line, in self honour and self dignity, due to health challenge.

I salute the late Alhaji (Chief) S. O. Babalola, who worked vigorously to ensure that MUSWEN stands vertically as a reliable pillar for the stability of Islam in Nigeria.

I salute the impeccable intention of our amiable father, Prince Abdul Jabar Bola Ajibola, who champions the custody of MUSWEN as a registered body that requires formidable pillars to uphold it.

I salute, the late Aare Musulumi of Yoruba Land, Alhaji Abdul Azeez Arisekola Alao, the first Deputy President Ceneral (South) of NSCIA, whose stupendous pecuniary contribution to MUSWEN, as a nonesuch edifice, was a priority in the latter part of his life.

I salute our inexhaustible father and erudite scholar, Professor D. O. S. Noibi, the Pioneer Executive Secretary of MUSWEN, who established the administrative prowess of the body’s secretariat and stabilized it firmly.

I salute all other stake holders and touch bearers of this great umbrella body and pray the Almighty Allah to reward them as well as all of you here and those at homes abundantly in this world and the Hereafter. Amin!

Our Women and Youths

From the little experience I have been able to gather through intellectual and physical interactions with some successful movers and shakers of the society, I have come to realize that wealth is not as much about money as it is about people.

Even recently, the United Nations emphasized that the future of Nigeria lies in the numerical strength of its youths and not oil wells.

If, with their brains, people could invent money, own it and direct its movements in terms of income and expenditure, then, people, and not money, should be given priority in running the affairs of a body like MUSWEN. Our talents and potentials are diverse. And, we need the harmonization of these talents in propelling Islam and in adequately equipping those who will serve as agents of that propel-lance. It is for this reason that I want, with your express permission, to call on the management of MUSWEN to design a variety of programs that can entice our women and our youths to active participation in the activities of MUSWEN, especially at the State levels. That may serve as a way of utilizing the potentialities of our youths and the grooming of their potentials into experiences. I believe that mass participation of our women and youths can open the door for us to build our future leaders in advance.

Conclusion

Today, November 22, 2020, on your commanding ‘summon’, I am here, to declare, in the name of Allah, that I accept to serve Islam by the grace of Allah, as you have requested of me. But I must confess on this occasion that the duty and responsibility which are about to be entrusted to me and my deputies, through this service, cannot be fully carried out by us alone. They should be taken as a major venture which all of us must jointly handle with strong determination in spirit and in action without any room for doubt or regret. Naturally, I am a student. And as a student I am always eager to learn according to the counsel of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who said that “learning is from cradle to grave”. Our population, as Muslims, is our wealth. And, it is by pulling our resources together that we can successfully forge ahead today and pave a smooth way for a pleasant tomorrow. Finally, please, permit me to round off this speech with an excerpt from a poem of a famous American intellectual and Statesman,William Webster as follows:

“If we work marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds, and instill in them just principles; we are then engraving that upon tablets which no time can efface, but will brighten to eternity”.

Assalam alaykum wa rahmatu-Llah wa barakatuhu.

Finally, please, permit to round off this speech with an excerpt from a poem of a famous American Intellectual and Statesman, William Webster, as follows:

“If we work marble, it will perish; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust, if we work upon brass, time will efface it; but if we work upon immortal minds and instil in them, just principles; we are then  engraving that upon tablets which no time can efface but will brighten into all eternity”. Once again, I thank you very much for allowing me to spend so much time. God bless you all!”

FEMI ABBAS

No sensible human being ever restricts his itinerary to a particular habitat; to keep moving by migrating from place to place is the secret of human progress….”.

Arab Poet

Monologue

Today, ‘The Message’ column is migrating, if psychologically, from the insanity of Nigeria’s political/economic/religious rigmarole to the globally escalating tempest of disatrous  diseases, including the current Corona Virus pandemic codenamed COVID 19. Such a migration by ‘The Message’ may bring a temporary respite to readers of this column especially in respect of the current combination of suffocating economic heat with incessant incidents of terrorism and banditry in the country.

That is a way of ventilating a relative atmosphere of peace for peace-loving Nigerians.

Preamble

It is not by accident that today’s world is in a sweeping turmoil. That turmoil is rather by design. But most people do not know its genesis especially as it coincides with the advent of the 21st century.

Perhaps, this is an opportunity to recall the fact that the multifarious calamities currently ravaging the entire world, to the detriment of peace and tranquillity for mankind, is a product of long term plan for which the Europeans are well known. Since the end of the 19th century, when the once lucrative European venture of colonizing certain countries and utilizing their resources to the benefit of the colonizers, began to fade out, due to agitations for freedom and independence of those colonies, the Caucasian race of Europe had started to plan new ventures that could enable them to continue the domination of the world economy.

Thus, an ambitious blueprint for the current millennium was theoretically prepared at the beginning of the 20th century. It was

the practical effect of that blueprint that precipitated the current ongoing turmoil that began with three fortuitous incidents 41 years ago (1979). Incidentally, 1979 was the turn of the Islamic century 1400 AH.

The first of the dramatic incidents in that year was the undreamt Iranian revolution that toppled the

then, Imperial Shah, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, after 38 years reign (1941-1979) on Iran’s imperial throne. The man reigned as the Shah of Iran from September 16, 1941 to February 11, 1979. The revolution that stripped him of despotic throne occurred on February 11, 1979. It must be remembered that Shah Pahlavi was the monarchical agent of the West, planted in the midst of the Middle East monarchs who were aversed to Western model of democracy. His main duty as an agent was to hobnob with other kings in the region and spy those kings for his Western masters.

The second frightening incident, in 1979, was a failed coup d’état that was staged during Hajj time, in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, on November 20, 1979.

And, the third incident was the invasion of Afghanistan by the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on December 24, 1979. That invasion, which eventually led to the emergence of Usama Bn Laden phenomenon, through his founded Al-Qaeda Islamic Group, was part of the struggle for supremacy among the Western powers.

Usama was recruited by the US to assist in getting Islamic mercinaries who could resist USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan. It was the same US that engineered the establishment of the Taliban government in that country, as a couter force to the Soviet aggression. All these were in a bid to counter socialism/communism in Asia Minor and the Middle East.

But after the USSR had been forced by the Muslim forces to withdraw her invasion of Afghanistan, the US proposed a confrontation with certain Muslim countries to which Usama objected. And, that was the beginning of the rift between the US and Usama Bn Laden. A former American Presidential candidate, who was also a onetime American First Lady, Hilary Clinton, confessed to that American plot against Islam.

Explanation

Although the above listed incidents occurred separately in different countries and at different times of the year, they were, nevertheless, interconnected through two major factors. One of those factors was the religion of Islam which linked the peoples of the affected countries who were predominantly Muslims.

The other factor was the then raging cold war between the the capitalist West and the socialist East which had engendered an unpredictable ideological cold war that engineered global enmity among human races in the 20th century. If these two factors are deeply viewed from divergent angles, Islam will be discovered to be the main target of both blocks.

A Grand Design

Long before the above mentioned incidents began to rear their ugly heads, a dangerous graph of desperation had been designed, by the West, in anticipation of perpetual domination of the world.

That grand design was first expressed in 1902 by a British Prime Minister, Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman when he observed as follows:

“There are people who control spacious territories teeming with manifest and hidden resources.  They dominate the intersections of world routes. Their lands were the cradles of human civilizations and religions. These people have one faith, one language and the same aspirations. No natural barriers can isolate them from one another….If, per chance, these people were to be unified into one state it would then take the fate of the world into its hands and separate Europe from the rest of the world. Taking these considerations seriously, a foreign body should be planted in the heart of this nation to prevent the convergence of its wings in such a way that it could exhaust its powers in never-ending wars. It could also serve as a spring board for the West to gain its coveted objects”.

Analysis

Although Bannerman did not mention his targeted race and religion, it was obvious that he was talking about the Arabs of the Middle East and Islam which was their religion. The subsequent developments in that region later proved that the religion in reference was no other than ISLAM.

Follow Up

Sir Bannerman’s observation was in further pursuit of an earlier demand by an Austrian Jewish Lawyer/Journalist, Theodor Herzl, who founded the Zionist movement in 1879 with a cogent demand from the Western powers. In his demand at that time, Theodor Herzl said:

“Let sovereignty be granted us (Jews) over a portion of the globe, large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation; the rest, we shall manage by ourselves…”

In response to that clandestine demand, some years later, another British Prime Minister, James Arthur Balfour, issued a devastating declaration that now bears his name. The declaration which was issued on November 2, 1917, (one year before the end of the World War I),  conceded a major part of Palestine to the Zionists as a home.

The Letters of the Declaration

That (Balfour) declaration, which was aimed at enabling the British government to gain direct access to the Suez Canal in Egypt, with Israel as her Policeman in the Gulf, has since put the Middle East in an incessant turmoil till today. The declaration read thus in part: “…His majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use its best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this objective…. The rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country shall not be prejudiced by the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.

Implementation

To facilitate the implementation of that objective effectively, some other Middle East countries had to be incapacitated economically and politically by excising from them, some juicy chunks of their lands. Thus, Lebanon was excised from Syria just as Kuwait was excised from Iraq. The strategy was to cause an irresolvable dissention among the citizens of those countries with the intention of breaking the yoke of the Muslim unity which Bannerman had targeted in his infamous observation of 1902, quoted above.

Iranian Status

Now, how does Iran come into the above painted picture when she is not an Arab country?

That is a logical question that anybody who is not quite familiar with the Middle East and the intricacies of its political and economic set up would ask.

Naturally, Iran is affected by three major factors: Politics, economy and culture. And, by culture here, we mean ISLAM.

Iran is a foremost Islamic country even if her official language is farsi and not Arabic. And, as an Islamic Country, whatever affects any Muslim country must affect her. Iran is the only non-Arab country in the Gulf area of the Middle East.

Turkey for Instance

The case of Turkey is another good example of a no-Arabic speaking country that has a direct link with the Middle East. Turkey was the seat of the Islamic Caliphate until 1924 when a diabolical agent of the West came on stage as Head of State. His name was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a man who wanted to prove to the West that it was possible for a non-Catholic to be “Holier than the Pope” especially when it came to adopting the so-called Western Civilization. On March 3, 1924, just one year after he assumed office as the new ruler of Turkey, Ataturk introduced a Bill to the Turkish Parliament, seeking to secularize his country by abolishing the office of the Caliph without any consideration for the feelings and sensibility of the people he wanted to rule.

Presenting the Bill, Ataturk said: “Ottoman Empire was built and   existed on the principle of Islam. Islam is Arabic in character and in concept. It shapes from birth to death, the lives of its adherents; it stifles hope and initiative. The Republic (of Turkey) is threatened by the continued existence of Islam in its midst….”

Thus, with the passage of that Bill, albeit under duress, Turkey was recognized as a secular state. Politics was separated from religion and Islam was relegated to a personal matter rather than the state religion that it was before then. The Caliphate was abolished and Islamic law was abrogated. Ataturk borrowed the new Turkish civil law from Switzerland, he borrowed the criminal law from Italy and the international law of trade from Germany. The Muslim personal law was harmonized with the European civil law. Religious instruction in public schools was prohibited. Islamic Purdah system was abolished and declared illegal while co-gender education was compelled in schools. The use of Arabic alphabets was prohibited and replaced by the Latin Script. Adhan (the call to prayer) was no longer to be made in Arabic but in Turkish language while the national costume was changed to that of the Europeans even as the wearing of hat was made compulsory. What Ataturk did not do was to abrogate the tenets of Islam completely.

Thus, by one man’s whim, Turkey lost her values and heritage of centuries in a bid to adopt the so called ‘modernity’ brought by ‘Western civilization’. One can imagine what Islam would have become today, if countries like Iran, Indonesia and Pakistan had adopted the same misfortune in the name of civilization.

The Emergence of  Khomeni

It was the fear of a reoccurence of the unfortunate Turkish experience that prompted the late Iranian spiritual leader, Ayatullah Ruhullah Mousavi Khomeini to lead the commencement of a liberation struggle, in Iran, in 1963, which culminated in a successful revolution of 1979. However, unlike Ataturk, Imam Khomeini knew that the greatest virtue that could be lost in the life of man or that of a nation was culture. He knew that without a clear-cut culture, man couldn’t have been better than a beast. He knew that such values as law, education and religion, which served as the guiding factors for man in his peregrinations on earth, were the main attributes of culture. He knew that a nation, which surrendered its culture and adopted that of another nation, had enslaved herself permanently to the caprice of that other nation. Thus, Khomeini saw Islam, (the culture of over one billion adherents in the world (at that time), as the target of the Western imperialists, which needed defence and protection.

The Revolution

No one believed in 1979 that a mere mass protest by armless Mullahs could snowball into such a great magnitude of political ‘earthquake’, capable of sweeping an imperial monarchy like that Muhammad Pahlavi into permanent oblivion. By the time the foggy dust finally settled in February 1979, a new Iran had emerged from the debris of the old. Thus, against the wish and expectation of the capitalist West, the secular, monarchical Iran became an Islamic Republic. The drama was quite electric.

But, characteristic of the West, all hands still remained on deck, at that time, to ensure that an Islamic Republic did not succeed the despotic monarchy headed by Shah Pahlavi which was heavily backed up by the oppressive West.

In particular, America was most active in that ambitious but vainglorious plot. She would not easily allow the massive material benefit that she had been enjoying for decades in that oil-rich country, under the Shah regime, to slip out of her hands just like that. Thus, under the pretext of wanting to rescue her citizens from the siege laid by Iranian students on American embassy, in Tehran, the US attempted an invasion of Iran.  The espionage activities by the American diplomats, inside that embassy, against the new Islamic government had warranted the siege.

The American Strategy

While a number of US F15 jet bombers were approaching Iran, the then US President, Jimmy Carter, tactically engaged his country’s press men in a media chat without giving any hint of the impending military operation in Iran. The tactics was to divert the attention of the press and, even that of the entire American populace from the illegal Pentagon’s military expedition. But no sane person can ever fault the contents of the Qur’an.

Qur’anic Notion

Almost 1400 years before the American plot in Iran, a verse of the Qur’an had been revealed to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) thus: “They (the unbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemes. Allah is the supreme schemer”. Q. 3:54.

Jimmy Carter’s thought was that by the time he would be finishing his media chat, information would have reached him that America had successfully invaded Iran to reinstall Shah Pahlavi as the imperial ruler of that Country. He had therefore intended to announce the news of his ‘great’ successful scheme to the press as the epilogue of his media chat. And that would have served as his impetus for wining that year’s Presidential election for a second term in office. But, as Allah would have it, instead of the expected news, what he got was a shocker of his life.

The failure of American Might

Two of the F15 fighters deployed for that surreptitious operation miraculously collided in the air and crashed with their contents, just at the point of entering the territory of Iran. And, the crash consumed the lives of 16 top air force officers inside those jets while the other jet fighters had to turn back after realizing the futility of continuing the mission.

When the news of that devastating occurence reached Carter, it was too much to hide and it quickly went viral through the throbs of the media.

Thus, the mighty America failed woefully, with her technology, in circumstances she has never been able to analyze convincingly till date. Allah Akbar!

Jimmy Carter’s Fate

And, with that failed plot, it became obvious that Jimmy Carter of the Democrat Party had dug his own political grave. Of course, he lost the election to the cowboy turned Politician, (Ronald Reagan) of the Republican Party that succeeded him in office.

And, for about 444 days (well over a year) after that incident, the 52 American diplomats that were held hostage in American Embassy, in Tehran, remained under the siege of the Iranian students. It took high-level diplomacy, through third party countries, to get them released.

Yet, America was not done. She went ahead to freeze Iran’s foreign reserve of about $80 billion in addition to imposition of economic sanctions with the intention of running that country’s economy aground. The only Iran’s offence in this case was to have decided to chart an independent political course that could liberate her citizens from the manacles of the Western imperialism. Trust Iran, she recovered her money from American banks by an unimaginable means.

Ever since, the diplomatic relation between America and Iran has remained icy. However,

that relation further deteriorated recently when Iran started a nuclear project with which to prop up her economy through electricity. America responded with a threat to Iran, saying the United States would not tolerate any nuclear project in that Gulf country because she (America) could not trust that Islamic country with nuclear power when Israel, in the same Gulf, had acquired nuclear power.

Secret of American Power

The secret of America’s military successes in various parts of the world is neither in technological advancement, nor military superiority per se. That country’s  failed rescue mission in Iran, in 1979, has confirmed this assertion. America’s secret is rather in her ability to cause schism among some other nations and races. That is why many American Presidents have won or lost elections at home due to the foreign policy of the concerned President.

Iran has never been a direct prey to any Western military aggression, because she has never played a fool, dancing to the sour music of a predator in an open market.

Coup in Saudi Arabia

In the same 1979, some disgruntled elements fortuitously staged a coup against the monarchical government of King Khalid. The aim of the coup was not to change the system of government but to hijack the monarchy in the name of a Mahdi (a promised messiah). That incident caused a stoppage of salat and Umrah for almost four months.

Invasion of Afghanistan

Also, in 1979, the now defunct Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with the intention of annexing the latter. It was  that incident that led to an unprecedented jihad that paved way for the emergence of Alqaida and that of the Taliban government in that country.

All these incidences of 1979 jointly formed the foundation for the global turmoil of the 21st century now pervading the world and threatening human existence. The details of the coup attempt in Saudi Arabia will be discussed in this column at another time soon, in sha’Allah.

FEMI ABBAS

This is the month of December, a month of paradoxical tradefair in which lies, fabrications and falsehood are, invarably, the wares displayed for exhibition. This is the month in which ostentation displaces faith and deception replaces conscience. How and why are these case? Please, read the story of facts and fictions below.

Preamble

An axiomatic Yoruba adage came to mind

Again recently, when a so-National Christian Elders’ Forum (NCEF) of octogenarians published a fabricated statement in Nigerian media and falsely credited it to the late Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello. The statement was quoted from a false publication by some Biafra agitators of Igbo extraction, as a justification for their thoughtless secession bid. The adage goes thus: “Any slave that is desperate to forcefully usurp an estate bequeathed to an innocent orphan must fabricate a rootless history to justify his/her inordinate ambition for usurpation”. For people who can read between the lines, this adage needs no interpretation. It is self-explanatory.

Record of history

Here is a season in which recalling certain aspects of Nigerian history, if only to put the records straight, is a sine qua non. History is a living phenomenon that is common to all people around the world, in time and in space. No matter what interpretation or misinterpretation is given to it, in certain quarters, the fact remains that history is not anybody’s personal property and can, therefore, not be anybody’s enclave of monopoly.

Memory lane

Sir Ahmadu Bello, the first and only Premier of Northern Nigeria was not just one of the foremost political icons in Nigeria’s First Republic. He was also a patriarch of the political party called Northern People’s Congress (NPC). This man of colossal status became the Premier of Northern Nigeria in 1954, the same year in which his political counterparts and arch-rivals, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, became Premiers of Eastern and Western regions respectively. The trio assumed office as Premiers, in 1954,  through party-based elections. They were later joined by Chief Denis Osadebe as the fourth Premier in Nigeria. The latter became the Premier of Midwest region, in 1963, when that region was created. However, barely five years after Nigeria’s independence, Sir Ahmadu Bello was calously killed, as Premier, on Saturday, January 15, 1966, by some Nigerian military coup plotters whose real intent was to obliterate all traces of Islam in Nigeria. Virtually all  those coup plotters were of Igbo extraction and no single one of them was a Muslim, an indication that the coup was religiously motivated. That devilish coup was led by one Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, an Igbo man from the present day geographical area of Nigeria, called Delta State. Those coup plotters had killed the Muslim leaders in government, inclding Premier Ahmadu Bello, Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and several other poltical leaders of other tribal extractions, in that year’s sacred month of Ramadan, before they started looking for reasons to give as a justification for the heinous termination of those leaders’ lives. The three reasons that they gave after killing those leaders were corruption, tribalism and religious bigotry. It was a matter of calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it.

Analysis of their reasons

Among the four Premiers in Nigeria during the first republic, only Ahmadu Bello, was a Muslim and he could not, in any way, be evidently linked to corruption. Unlike the other Premiers who lived opulently in expensive affluence, Ahmadu Bello was an ascetic personality who served his people deligently and patriotically without an iota of blemish. At the time of his gruesome murder, that Northern Premier had only a small residential bungalow in his home town of Raba in Sokoto Province, which he built with a loan and nothing more has been traced to him as property till today. He had not even completed the payment of the loan he obtained for the building of that bungalow before he was murdered.

Who else among his peers can be said to have left such a flank behind?

Sir Ahmadu Bello, the only Premier from the North, at that time, could also not be singularly accused of being tribally inclined because tribalism was the basis of all the existing political parties of the time. No Premier, in Nigeria, from 1954 to 1966 could be exonerated from tribalism directly or indirectly. They were all guilty of it.

Genesis of Tribal Politics in Nigeria

It can be recalled that certain tribal groups such as Ibiobio State Union (IBU), Ibo Federal Union (IFU) Egbe Omo Oduduwa (EOO) and ‘Jam’iyyar Al-Ummar Nigeriya ta Arewa’ translated as Northern Elements Progressive Association (NEPA) which later transformed into Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) were all tribal socio-cultural organizations that metamorphosed into political parties. All those parties preceded ‘Jam’iyyar Mutane Arewa’ meaning Northern People’s Congress (NPC), to which Ahmadu Bello belonged. Many other ethnic-based political parties later emerged to broaden tribalism in Nigerian politics. If anything, therefore, Ahmadu Bello was the least tribally inclined Premier of his time. If he was actually a tribalist and religious bigot as he has always been maliciously painted in Nigeria’s political history, by the Sothern Nigerian media, he would not have appointed Sunday Awoniyi, a Yoruba Christian, from the present day Kogi State, as his Private Secretary. Which other Premier appointed his private secretary from another tribe or from a religion other than Christianity? And, why did his killers link him alone to tribalism and bigotry?

His 1959 Christmas Message

Among the four Premiers in Nigeria’s first republic, only Ahmadu Bello was bold and sincere enough to allay the fear of the minority groups in his (Northern) region by making a public policy statement about his government’s stand concerning tribalism and religious bigotry. Here is an excerpt from what he said while sending a Christmas message to northern Christians at the time of Christmas in 1959:

“…We are people of many different races, tribes and religions, who are knit together by common history, common interests and common ideals. Our diversity may be great but the things that unite us are stronger than the things that divide us. On an occasion like this, I always remind people about our firmly rooted policy on religious tolerance. Families of all creeds and colours can rely on these assurances. We have no intention of favouring one religion at the expense of another. Subject to overriding need to preserve law and order, it is our determination that everyone should have absolute liberty to practice his belief. It is befitting on this momentous day, on behalf of my ministers and myself, to send a special word of gratitude to all Christian missions”.

“Let me conclude this with a personal message. I extend my greetings to all our people who are Christians on this great feast day. Let us forget the difference in our religion and remember the common brotherhood before God, by dedicating ourselves afresh to the great tasks which lie before us….”

That was the Christmas message that Sir Ahmadu Bello delivered in a radio broadcast on Thursday, December 24, 1959. And, it remained intact in Nigerian historical archive until 18 years ago (2002), when a Yoruba agent of the Lucifer came up with a fabricated statement that is now being devilishly quoted and circulated spirally by mischievous elements in Nigeria, who have been  crediting it to Sir Ahmadu Bello.

The fabricated version

Decades after Sir Ahmadu Bello’s unjustifiable assassination, some evil elements in the media, in active conspiracy with certain political demagogues, who were passionately pregnant with morbid hatred for Islam, went to fabricate another ‘Christmas Message’ and credited it to the late Northern Premier as a justification for his murder. The concocted statement was purportedly culled from a non-existing newspaper called ‘The Parrot’. Below is the fabricated Christmas Message:

“…The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the north as willing tools and the south as a conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us and never allow them to have control over their future….”

Now, should that senselessly fabricated statement said to have been made by Sir Ahmadu Bello on October 12, 1960, be quoted blindly by any reasonable individual or group? How can a Christmas message by a Premier of Ahmadu Bello Status, be delivered in October, two months before Christmas? Haba! Is that not a confirmation that liars never think of the implications of their lies before they fabricate them?

Truth and falsehood

“Truth has come and falsehood has vamoosed; surely, falsehood is meant to vamoose in the presence of the truth”.  Q. 17: 81

Comparison

Now, looking at both (genuine and fabricated) statements quoted above very carefully, shouldn’t any sensible person be able to distinguish between truth and falsehood? The Premier’s original Christmas message, earlier quoted above, was made on the eve of Christmas on Thursday, December 24, 1959, through a radio broadcast and it was published by all newspapers in the country including the vociferous ‘West African Pilot’ owned by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the boisterous ‘Tribune’ owned by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the clamorous ‘Daily Times’ jointly owned privately by certain prominent Nigerian individuals at that time. That original statement was equally published by many other smaller newspapers in Nigeria. All those newspapers are identifiable in Nigeria’s media history even though most of them are now defunct.

On the other hand, the place and occasion of the fabricated statement credited to Sir Ahmadu Bello was not indicated and cannot be traced in Nigeria’s newspaper history.

Evidence of fabrication

The first time any genuinely existing newspaper ever made reference to that fabricated statement was on November 13, 2002 (42 years after it was purportedly made by Sir Ahmadu Bello. And, ‘The Tribune’ newspaper that published it on that date only claimed to have culled it from an online column published on October 24 2002 by a fraudulent Yoruba Journalist (name withheld) who entitled it ‘The Northern Agenda’. The referred online was actually named ‘Nairaland’, and it can still be found on the internet today if googled.

It can therefore be confirmed that the statement was actually fabricated, not in the 1960s but in October 2002, by the so-called online columnist who credited it to a newspaper that never existed. The objective was to give it an undeserved credibility. What a country! What a people! What a shame! This is a typical case of an obvious mischief by heartless mischief makers just to fetch ephemeral fame and illegal income.

The belief of such fraudsters was that once such a fabricated article appears on the internet and is ignorantly quoted by some inconsequential mercenary writers, it would automatically become a document of fact. And, true to that assertion, a self-acclaimed Nigerian Christian Elders Forum’ (NCEF) has shamelessly quoted that fabricated falsehood, as usual, to justify its baseless allegation of ‘Islamization’ of Nigeria. That is Nigeria for you.

The 1966 Coup Episode

January 15, 1966 was a Saturday like no other one in the history of Nigeria. It was on that day that the bitter political seed which germinated and grew into the thorny political tree that is now feeding Nigerians with bitter political fruits, was planted. The evil planting of that seed marked the beginning of an agonizing voyage of destiny on which Nigerians embarked without a compass. Coming up in the sacred month of Ramadan, the day, (January 15, 1966) actually came to confirm the axiomatic thought of an Arab poet who once asserted in a couplet thus: “Nights are heavily pregnant; they give birth to wonders in the days….”

The major casualties

The real target of the heartless coup ploters in  military uniform, who struck on January 15, 1966 coup was Islam. Although they (the coupists) killed virtually all the major key players in the then Nigerian politics except those of Igbo extraction, most of the victims of that coup were Muslims and some non-Igbo Christians who were then in prisons. The Prime Minister, Alhaji Sir AbubakarTafawa Balewa and the Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh were killed in Lagos. The Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, was killed with his wife and some other people in Kaduna, the then Headquarters of Northern Nigeria. The Premier of Western Region, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, was killed in Ibadan, the then Headquarters of the South Western Region, while some military top brass of non-Igbo extraction were killed in different military barracks across the country.

Except for Lt. Col. Arthur Unegbe who was killed for being too close to one Brigadier-General Zakariya’ Maimalari, a top Muslim military officer from the north, and could not be trusted, no other Igbo man of note, civilian or military, was killed in that coup. As a matter of fact, if there was any feeling of the coup in Nigeria’s Eastern Region at all, it was that of victory and heroism. The top military officers who were killed in the senseless coup included: Brig. S. A. Ademulegun (South West); Brig. ZakariMaimalari (North East); Col. Kur Mohammed (North West); Lt. Col. J. Y. Pam (North Central); Col. S. A. Shodeinde (South West); Lt. Col. Largema (North Central); Lt. Col. A. G. Unegbe (South East); S/Lt. James Odu (Mid West) and a host of others.

The False Allegations

After the dust had settled, it became evident that virtually all the planners of that coup as well as its executors were soldiers of Igbo extraction and Christians. Thus, other Nigerians whose relatives were severely affected saw the coup not only as tribal but also as religious, the killing of some Christians like Chiefs Akintola and Okotie-Eboh notwithstanding. This was because the then Governor of Eastern Nigeria, Sir Francis Akanu Ibiam was as deeply involved in religious matters as Sir Ahmadu Bello. The one was a Vice-President of the World Council of Churches. The other was the Vice-President of the Muslim World League. If religion was therefore the reason for the coup, the two of them ought to have been killed for bigotry. But history entails a variety of interpretations especially in a society where conscience hardly plays any meaningful role.

Beneficiaries

It is historically notable that the chief beneficiary of the coup (Major-General Johnson AguiyiIronsi) was also of Igbo extraction. Almost all the military appointments after the coup were for men of Igbo extraction. Among those appointees, only Hassan Katsina and Muhammadu Shuwa were Muslims. How else could a coup be tribal and religious? After all, as far back as 1953, a frontline Igbo politician (name withheld) had set such agenda for his tribe’s men when he reportedly said that “Ibos’ domination of Nigeria is a matter of time”.  That statement was allegedly made at a cocktail party in Lagos. If this remains the yardstick for driving democracy in Nigeria, for how long can such democracy last?

Femi Abbas

Preamble

An article entitled ‘A Voice from Harvard’ published in this column, on Friday, October 21, 2011. That article is being repeated here today because of its vivid relevance to Nigeria’s current situation. Its repetition is in response to popular demand by many readers of this column who passionately believe that the article is as nuch  relevant to the  happenings in today’s Nigeria as it was nine years ago. It mostly contains excerpts from a wonderful lecture delivered by His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar CFR, mni, the Sultan of Sokoto and President General of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), at Harvard University, in the United States of America, on October 3, 2011.

The title of that royal lecture was ‘Islam and Peace Building in West Africa’.

In the 33 page lecture which drew a very lasting standing ovation and a reverberated applause through the global media waves, His Eminence enumerated the causes and effects of violent crises, including terrorism, Vandalism, armed robbery and banditry in the West African sub-region with particular reference to Nigeria.

In that lecture, His Eminence blamed such crises on three major issues:

• Political struggle for supremacy between the elite and the poor masses
• Bad governance on the part of the ruling class and
• Primordial ethno-religious sentiments. Now, which of these issues is not true of Nigerian situation today?

The most prominent of those three issues, according to His Eminence, was bad governance which engendered corruption, joblessness, poverty, exploitation, inter-tribal suspicion and general bitterness in the land.

Preamble

Traditionally, ‘The Message’, as a column, does not serialize articles because such is journalistically unprofessional. Thus, a single but lengthy speech like that of the Sultan had to be divided, for the purpose of publication, into a number of segments with each segment given a different title.  One of those segments, which is being repeated here today, is qualified to be ebtitled as ‘The Foresight of a Leader’. An excerpt from that memorable lecture is as follows:

“….Many people (outside our country) consider Nigeria as a theatre of absurd conflicts and interminable crises.  They may be justified in holding such a view. With the Jos crises festering for years, with persistent post-election violence and suicide bombings (at that time), it is difficult to think otherwise.  When we consider Nigeria’s population of about 150 million, half the population of West Africa, its over 250 ethnic and language groups, its regional and geo-political configurations, its landmass and diversity in religion and culture, it may be difficult to reach a different conclusion.

Catalogue of Crises

”Nigeria may be a paragon of stability which, as God Almighty has willed, shall undergo all the trials allotted it early enough in its national history.

But in all fairness, systemic ethno-political and religious crises, like the ones we witnessed in recent years, do not have a long history in Nigeria.  They all began in the late 1980s, following the intense competition for power and influence, especially among the western educated elite. The Kafanchan crisis of 1987, in Southern Kaduna which was quickly followed by the one in Zangon Kataf and others, all in the same vicinity, cannot be easily forgotten.  On the other hand, the democratic dispensation, which began in 1999 also came with its set of problems, the most visible being the Shari’ah crisis and the first Jos crisis, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency in Plateau State.

But these crises, varied as they were, had a multi-dimensional nature of Nigeria as a political entity. From time to time, we witness the primacy of politics in almost all of them.

The Struggle for Power

In the struggle for power and political supremacy, politicians exercise no restraint in aggravating the socio-religious and ethnic cleavages which characterize the geo-politics of the Nigerian State.  It should not be forgotten that the second Jos crisis of November 2008 was ignited by a botched Chairmanship election in Jos North Local Government. That was a dimension”.

The Second Dimension

”The second dimension to the festering  crises, especially in Kaduna and Plateau States, is that of indigene/settler dichotomy which is yet to be addressed properly by the Nigerian State.  Many ethnic groups in those conflict areas see the other ethnic groups as foreigners who should not enjoy the full rights of bona fide residents. Incidentally, most of those disenfranchised Nigerians happened to be Muslims. However, those who oppose that dichotomy argue that the so-called settlers had spent more than two hundred years in the areas of their residence. They believe that as Nigerian citizens, they have the full right to reside wherever they wish and pursue their legitimate businesses without let or hindrance. After all, like Nigerians of other religions or tribes, they cannot be settlers in their own country”.

The Third Dimension

”The third dimension of Nigeria’s ethno-religious crises is the potential of those crises to become a systematic national problem. When a person is killed in any of the areas of conflict, his co-religionists, especially in the cities, react violently and begin to kill anyone they think is related to him.  This often triggers further reprisals from other parts of the country where victims come from.  It took a lot of efforts by the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), which I co-chair, and State authorities, to treat each crisis independently and thereby reduce the risk of systemic reprisals”.

The Fourth Dimension

”The fourth dimension of Nigeria’s crises is poor leadership and bad governance usually associated with its management. Many of those charged with authority in the States where these conflicts occur are also parties to the crises. They make feeble efforts to control the violence and do so only when much of the damages has been done…”.

Bad Governance

“….The issue of poor leadership and bad governance also explains how the Boko Haram movement was able to transform itself from a small Hijrah group in Yobe State, escaping from the uncertainties and contradictions of the Nigerian State, into a militant movement able to wreak havoc and destruction, at will. Those in authority were prepared to court the leaders of this group when it suited them and to trample on them like flies when they were no longer useful…However, the bombing of the United Nations Office in Abuja introduced an international dimension to terrorists’ activities, a development which was hitherto entirely unknown to Nigeria”.

The promise of Dialogue

“….When I became the Sultan of Sokoto in November 2006, some of the major problems I found on ground were the after-effects of the Riots, especially in Kaduna, Jos and some parts of the North East as well as a disturbing atmosphere of mistrust, fear and hostility, especially between the leaderships of Nigeria’s two major religions: Islam and Christianity. To resolve those knotty issues, we chose the path of positive engagement, which we thought would engender meaningful discourse, improve communication and understanding as well as change the dynamics of our operating environment to that of trust and confidence…”

NIREC

“…At that time, the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) provided the right platform for constructive engagement. The Council itself, a product of Nigeria’s ethno-religious crises, composed of 25 members each from the two religions and co-chaired by myself, in my capacity as the President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, and the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). The approach of NIREC was simple and practical. Firstly, we affirmed the sanctity of human life, Muslim and Christian, and insisted that anybody who took the law into his hands, regardless of the circumstances, must bear the full legal consequences of his action. However, despite the frequency of those disturbances, only a few people were punished for perpetrating any act of violence. The masterminds often went scot-free. Secondly, while appreciating the fact that we (in NIREC), were required to look after the interest of our co-religionists, we still had to pay attention to the other dimensions of our conflicts. As many people were preparing to declare a religious war in Jos, for example, we laboured hard to draw people’s attention to the other dimensions of the crisis. It was a conflict between Muslims and Christians quite alright, but it was not a conflict between Islam and Christianity. When Nigeria’s President called for a parley among stakeholders, we made bold to declare that the Jos crisis was a political. Thirdly, we adopted a tactical approach to conflict resolution. Whenever there was a break-out of violence, we worked together to restore law and order and asked the quarrelsome questions later inhouse. We took this approach to minimize loss of lives and to ensure that the crises were contained in the primary areas where they occurred. Also, we devised and scheduled quarterly meetings that took us to all parts of the country. It was heartening to many to see us working together and preaching peaceful co-existence and religious harmony even in areas, which never registered an ethno-religious conflict”.

Observation

”I must point out that it was also our view that inter-faith action should transcend conflict resolution. For it to be effective, we believed that it must affect the life of the common man. To accomplish this, NIREC floated the Nigerian Inter-Faith Action Association (NIFAA) to take up any arising challenge and, thus, NIFAA became very active in the control of the dreaded tropical disease called Malaria. We also realized that we had to act together to address issues related to electoral reform, good governance and anti-corruption. I am also glad to state that the goodwill and understanding which these activities were able to generate gave impetus to the development of inter-faith dialogue to a new level. I often remember, with happiness, the seminar organised by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in April 2010, on ‘Knowing Your Muslim Neighbour’, where I presented a paper on the topic. The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) gracefully reciprocated by inviting CAN members to its formal meeting in Kaduna, where the CAN representative gave a lecture on Islam in the Eyes of a Christian.

At that occasion, both Muslim and Christian scholars gave inspiring responses on the scriptural basis of mutual co-existence. However, despite serious setbacks in recent times, many of us remain committed to this positive engagement and to the promise that dialogue offers the best resolution of Nigeria’s ethno-religious crises”.

Looking Ahead

“…Now, understanding the multifarious nature of Nigeria’s ethno-religious crises should strengthen our resolve and determination to deploy all the energies and resources at our disposal to see to their resolution. Of course, our inability and reluctance to take meaningful action posed a challenge, not only to our common humanity but also to our self-worth.  It is, therefore, important for us to appreciate, first and foremost, the importance of consensus building within the polity, with a view to ameliorating the current state of political polarization. Those in the Nigerian political class must be able to speak and understand one another as well as develop a minimum national agenda to chart the way forward.  The political class must also be able to open dialogue on a variety of national issues, including the perennial problem of power rotation and willingly enter into agreements that they can honour with dignity. Also, governance, at all levels, must translate into tangible benefits for all Nigerians, regardless of their ethnic and religious affiliations. Nigeria has the resources to make life more pleasant for its people.  It is equally imperative to address the poverty problem as well as the needs of the youth population both in all the geo-political areas of the country.

Joblessness

”In a situation where over 50 per cent of our population is jobless at less than 19 years of age, we are definitely sitting on a time bomb much deadlier than that of Boko Haram unless we take urgent action to defuse it.

Furthermore, there should be renewed determination to address both the Jos and Boko Haram sectarian crises.  The Federal Government must take seriously, its security responsibilities and effectively contain those crises.  But beyond that, a genuine dialogue must be initiated, to begin healing festering wounds and to bring genuine understanding and reconciliation amongst the entire people of Plateau State and beyond. The social dimension of the Boko Haram cannot, also, be resolved by mere use of force.  This is the reason why I have consistently suggested State government’s emphasis on education, especially modern education as a matter of necessity”.

Out of School Children

Millions of pupils, especially Muslims, are already outside the school system. Millions more will definitely follow if urgent intervention is not undertaken to enlighten the younger generations. And, the question I have always asked is this: ”What kind of society can we build in the 21st century when our youths turn their back on Science and Technology and are unable to produce the next generation of doctors, engineers and other specialists necessary for sustaining the socio-economic development of the society”?

Conclusion

“Finally, we should not neglect the impact of the international environment on Nigeria’s ethno-religious crises. Happenings in the US, Iraq, Afghanistan, Norway, Netherlands, the UK and France are as the recent relevants in Jos, Maiduguri and Abuja. We must preach international tolerance and moderation. The fight against extremist groups should never be perverted to become a fight against Islam and its doctrines.  We should all remember that in the final analysis, it is not what the perpetrators of violence do that will count.  It is the actions we take, individually and collectively, that will shape the fate of humanity….”

Comment

The year 2011 was nine years ago. If the issues raised by His Eminence in his lecture at Harvard University, as far back as 2011, had been seriously addressed by the government since then, Nigeria would not have degenerated to the current dangerous level of fear and despair. Who says the words of foresighted leaders are not the words of wisdom? God save Nigeria!

FEMI ABBAS

Monologue

The ongoing raging calamities in form of terrorism, banditry, armed robbery and serial rape in Nigeria, today, are cultivating a variety of focuses, ironically, from the agents of the Lucifer, who are clandestinely engineering them. The calamities are virtually turning those  agents into thirsty entities searching for water in a chronic desert where no oases are available. The world is passing through a trying period which needs to be studied with caution and candour. And, those who will sincerely be involved in such a study must thread softly. The continuity of human existence is dependent, not on selfish destruction of the lives of others but on ventilating the atmosphere for all and sundry through universal peace. It is rather a deceptive bid for certain people in a part of the world to engage, surreptitiously, in the annihilation of another part of the world on a satanic assumption that the survival of the their own part. In their search for the root cause of terrorism around the world, some Western countries began, some years ago, to  beam their searchlights on madrasah (ie Arabic/Qur’anic school) in the entire world in an errorneous belief that only such school could serve as as the main bastion of  extremism and breed terrorists in various societies. While this satanic remains un-established, the occurrences which led to its germination are far from making it a justifiable cause of such an allegation.

Preamble

Whereas madrasah has been in existence in Nigeria since the 9th century CE, terrorism in this country is a recent phenomenon engendered by certain imported circumstances clandestinely imposed mostly on third world countries. To genuinely identify the causes of terrorism, a thorough and unbiased study of the circumstances that warrant it should be a sine qua non.

Since 2009 when Muhammad Yusuf, the founder of a religious group that came to be called ‘Boko Haram’ was killed in cold blood by Nigerian Police, no single case of terrorism has been linked directly to any madrasah either in the Middle East or in Asia or in Europe or in America or even in Africa. Most of the persons who were arrested and judicially tried for terrorism in Nigeria, in the past one decade or thereabout,  attended formal, conventional schools and not madrasah. In fact, most of those criminals have been found to be professionals in various fields of human endeavour.

It is thus, clear, in reason and logic, that anybody who would handle such sophisticated weapons of mass destruction must be reasonably educated in sciences and technology. And, the secrecy of training such criminals, as well as the intellectual and material resources required for their training, are far beyond the level of any local madrasah boys and girls.

Madrasah (the plural of which is madaris), is a school where Qur’an and Sunnah are taught and learned in Arabic language. And, the purpose of learning in those schools is to thoroughly comprehend Islamic law and jurisprudence for acquiring deep Islamic knowledge and for worshipping Allah, based on such knowledge.

Locations of Madaris

Wherever Muslims are found, madaris must be found. Madrasah is the primary source of acquiring Islamic education. All other serious religions also have similar schools for similar purposes and they are not subjected to any persecting harassment through the media. For instance, there was nothing like Boko Haram in any part of Africa, in 1988, when a group named ‘The Lords Resistance Movement’ (LRM), was established in Uganda. That Movement of an heterodox Christian group, which was destructively operating in Northern Uganda, was led by one Joseph Kony. Its objective was to overthrow the government of Uganda and establish a Christian government in that country as a model in Africa. For 24 years, from 1988 when that terrorist movement was established to 2014, when its leader, Joseph Kony, went into hiding, LRM remained a painful whitlow on the thump of Uganda. Yet no Musli media linked it to any Chritian cathechism.

Reminiscence

For the information of tose who are venomously labelling madrasah as a breeder of terrorists, it is on record that the very first University in the world (the University of Cordoba, established by the Muslims in Spain, in the 9th century, sprang from madrasah. And the three oldest Universities in the world today, (Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt; Qarawiyyin University in Fez, Morocco and Zaytuniyyah University in Tunis, Tunisia; all of which were established in the 10th century, emerged from madrasah. It was from those Universities that the West first came in contact with the idea of tertiary education.

Attestation

Attesting to the above fact in a lecture he delivered at Oxford University in 1993, Prince Charles of England said as follows: “If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt which our own culture and civilisation owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure which stems, I think, from the straight jacket of history which we have inherited. The mediaeval Islamic world, from Central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished”.

“But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society and system of belief, we have tended to ignore it or erase its great relevance to our history. For example, we have underestimated the importance of 700 years of Islamic society and culture in Spain between the 8th and 15th centuries. The contribution of Muslim Spain to the preservation of classical learning during the Dark Ages, and the first flowerings of the Renaissance, has long been recognised”.

Traits of Civilisation

In his 1993 educative lecture at Oxford University, which drew applause from renowned intellectuals, Prince Charles continued as follows:

“Many of the traits on which modern Europe prides itself came to it from Muslim Spain. Diplomacy, free trade, open borders, the techniques of academic research, of anthropology, etiquette, fashion, alternative medicine, hospitals, all came from this great city of cities”. “Medieval Islam was a religion of remarkable tolerance for its time allowing Jews and Christians the right to practise their beliefs, and setting an example which was not, unfortunately, copied for many centuries in the West….”

Comment

If this was the Muslim situation in medieval Europe and it all came through the madrasah, why should the same madrasah become a hunted institution in the 21st century?

A Professorial Analysis

It was for the purpose of answering the above question succintly that the role of ‘madaris’ in the modern world caught the attention of LAI OLURODE, a renowned Professor of Sociology at the University of Lagos, who wrote a well researched book on that subject, which was publicly presented on Wednesday, January 13, 2009 at Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos.

Comparative Analysis

In the book entitled ‘Glimses of Madrasah in Africa’, Professor Olurode did a comparative analysis on the function of madrasah in Nigeria and Kenya pointing out the similarities and dissimilarities in the methodology of teaching Arabic language/Islamic religion in both countries as well as the impact of those madaris on the peoples of both countries.

Professor Olurode, a onetime Dean of the Faculty of Arts in the University of Lagos and now the Chairman of the that University’s Muslim Community, also looked into the structure of ‘madrasah’ system of learning in the two mentioned countries of study with regards to ownership, student enrolment, gender and age distribution, curriculum, location and environment of madrasah. He did not stop there as he went further to examine  teachers’ qualifications and remunerations as well as funding and parents’ expectations from those schools.

Strength and Weaknesses of Madaris

Using Iwo (in Osun State) and Ilorin (in Kwara State), two Yoruba speaking cities in the Southwest and Middle Belt of Nigeria and two coastal towns of Mombasa and Lamu in Kenya, as study cases, Professor Olurode went into thorough analysis of strength and weaknesses of madaris pointing out what ought to be done in those institutions as against what was on ground at the time he presented his book.

In that book, he also looked at the phenomenon of madrasah in the medieval time as well as the contemporary time, vis a vis the conventional modern day schools and, he traced the  connection of madrasah  to the current global geo-politics.

Excerpt

Below is an excerpt from what he said in the book:

“The American war against the Soviets in Afghanistan could not have recorded much success without the collaboration of Muslim coalition forces that were determined to oust the pro-Russian regime in Afghanistan. The US conveniently courted the friendship of those Muslims and their organisations that were willing to fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan so as to roll back the evil of communism.

“The research findings of M. Mamdani (in his book published in New York in 2004: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: ‘The Cold War and the Roots of Terror’) suggested a strong possibility of a CIA connection in the recruitment network that prosecuted the war in Afghanistan. There were also traces of religious and charitable organisations involvement in the recruitment drive and on an international scale too. Mamdani went further by insisting that: The Tablighi Jamat was neither set up nor functioned as a terrorist organisation. This main stream religious group was, however, among those used by the CIA as a conduit in its recruitment.

“In the United States too, the CIA took cover behind legitimate charitable and religious Muslim organisations…one instance will suffice to highlight this development thus: “According to Cooley, the Al-kifah Afghan refugees center on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, was turned into a key center for “recruiting and fund raising for the Afghan jihad” and came to be called “Al-Jihad center by those who worked there. (See pages 13-15 of Mamdani’s book).

Also, after touching deeply on such areas about madrasah like: Centrality of Early Child Education to Poverty Reduction; Connecting Madrasah to Public Education and Empowerment; Advocacy and Public Support for Madrasah; Penetrating the Worldview of Madrasah Pupils and Teachers as well as Cultural Heuristic and Moral Considerations, Professor Olurode concluded as follows: “The theory which drives this analysis, as outlined before, was that which subscribes to the centrality of culture in development. On several occasions, when culture has been ignored, development action, even where it manifests, is patently unsustainable. In a world that is characterized by turbulence, social prejudice and stereotype, violence, restlessness, profound uncertainties and insecurity, the madrasah system as a cultural heritage of the Islamic world has endured”. “This, it has done because it provides a shield from the perceived global siege on Islam and its practitioners”.

“Muslims are generally of the view that Islam and Muslims are under siege and there exists a conspiratorial theory against Islam by the West and their allies. But the survival of Islam and the Muslims in the context of globalization is not without noticeable changes on its fringes. The retention of the core features of madrasah in the Islamic societies under study underlines the importance and the wisdom in working through this heritage, rather than by-passing it in the efforts to open up Muslims to effective participation in modern education. The typical madrasah should therefore be courted….”.

When Professor Olurode’s social theory of madrasah and his recommended conclusion are juxtaposed with the thinking in the West, there is tendency that keen observers will settle for Rudyard Kipling’s couplet in which he concluded that “West is West and East is East; never will the twain meet”.

The issues bringing the East and the West together are more mutually suspicious than friendly. And no amount of pretext can erase this fact. The lopsidedness in that relationship however is the main cause of the current global turmoil. There are much more fundamental causes of wonton destruction of lives and property than the principal actors therein are presenting to the world.

Conclusion

Now, there seems to be much more trouble ahead than currently being witnessed. America is engaging many countries including Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia in a counter-terrorism war. And she wants to win on all fronts. The Iraqis and the Afghans are calling on the US to withdraw her forces from their land. Yemen and Pakistan are grudging over America’s usurpation of their security managements. Saudi Arabia and Syria are not pleased with the master’s role which America is playing in the Middle East. Iran and Lebanon are almost in readiness for war with the US. Nigeria and Kenya are watching very carefully, the step being taken by the US in blacklisting them over isolated cases of attempted or suspected terrorism link.

This is the same situation that paved way for the doom of Germany in the World War II when Adolf Hitler lost to arrogance of power rather than inferiority of arsenal. In a situation where the United States in collaboration with her Western allies is pulling dozens of countries into a war arena whither the world in the 21st century?

By FEMI ABBAS

Say oh Allah! The Sovereign Lord of all dominions; You grant dominion to whoever You will and take away dominion from whoever You will; You exalt whoever You will and abase whoever You will; In your hand alone are all good things and You are capable of doing all things. You cause the night to enter the womb of the day and You cause the day to enter the womb of the night; You bring forth the living from the dead, just as you bring forth the dead from the living; Yours is the sustenance of existence and You alone can grant sustenance to whoever You will beyond reckoning….” Q. 3:26-27

Monologue

By next Tuesday (January 20, 2021), God willing, it will be exactly four years since a reincarnate of Adolf Hitler emerged in the United States of America (USA), in the name of Ronald John Trump. His mission was to replay Hitler’s drama of calamity that gripped the world by the jugular between 1939 and 1945 with a virtual change of destiny. But as usual, the gracious will of Allah prevailed to signify safety for mankind.

The fortuitous drama that beclouded American democracy in the past two months was not for America alone. It was for the entire world, not as spectators, but as students in the classroom of the Qur’an as quoted above.

From the contents of those quoted two verses, it should ordinarily behoove any sensible student to learn the vital lesson that attainment of power, in any field of human endeavour, is neither by mortal wisdom nor by demonic arrogance. The same Allah who deposed the Egyptian Pharaoh of yore with unimaginable disgrace and destroyed the destructive power of Adolf Hitler of the 20th century, is still alive and will remain alive forever. He neither sleeps nor slumbers. Allah Akbar!

Preamble

This article is a reminder of an article written and published in this column, by yours sincerely, on Friday, January 20, 2017. In that article, I predicted what would become of the United States of America (USA) at the instance of that country’s newly smuggled President, called Donald John Trump, who found his way into the White House with no respect for fairness or merit. The article was entitled ‘Welcoming a Trump of Sadism’.

Two weeks before the publication of that article, an earlier article appeared in this same column which was also written by yours sincerely on January 6, 2020. It was entitled ‘Waiting for January 20’, 2017.  Through those two articles, the ardent readers of this column must have been able to confirm that an intuitive person does not have to fraudulently claim to be a prophet before predicting certain future occurrences of this world, based on foresight. For the rightly guided people, prediction is surely not the same as prophecy. It is only fraudsters that can claim to be prophets while expressing their unattainable demonic wishes. And, it takes gullibly blind believers to be followers of those fraudsters.

Excerpts

Some excerpts from the two mentioned articles above are as follows:

“….Like the hands of a clock, many democratic countries in the world do swear a new President into office every four or five years at the expiration of a previous tenure. Now, it is the turn of the United States of America to do that again. And, the man to take charge, presidentially, as from today, (January 20, 2017), for the next four years, all things being equal, is called Donald John Trump. That is a man who most people in the world, including the

Americans who voted for him, have seen as a wild bull surging furiously into a china shop. From his conduct even before assuming office, they had realized that this wild bull could become a nemesis of the world’s champion of democracy”.

In an earlier article entitled ‘Waiting for January 20’ and published in this column on January 6, 2017, yours sincerely cited the example of Adolf Hitler’s oath of office and his inaugural address of 1933 that culminated in the World War II which started in 1939 and ended in 1945. The dramatic events within that period of 12 years (1933-1945) were the main determinants of today’s world history”.

Excerpts

An excerpt from that article goes thus in part:

“…All eyes, across the world, are on the 20th day of January 2017.  That is the day that the new American President elect, Donald John Trump, will be formally ushered into the ‘White House’ in Washington, with a swearing in ceremony. He will be the 45th American President. That the entire world is waiting for this event is a confirmation of America’s leadership of the contemporary world. There is no doubt that this event will be historically electric, positively or negatively, depending on the personal conduct of the occupier of the White House. A similar wait had taken place in February 1933, in Germany, when Adolf Hitler was sworn into office as the Chancellor of that country. The speech which he (Hitler) delivered on that occasion eventually altered the destiny of Germany and reshaped the geography of the world.

Incidentally, Donald

Trump’s ancestral origin is Germany. He can therefore be called a grand cousin of Hitler.

Now, will Trump of the 21st century replay the posture of Hitler of the 20th century to put the world on the path of another World War? That is a major question that the unfolding events of the days ahead may have to answer fundamentally about how an untamed shrewd can cope with the delicate situation of the China shop.

The Meaning of Trump

The name TRUMP is a short form of trumpet, a musical instrument with which the decision of a tyrant is often announced in a local cultural setting. Ever since he was declared the winner of the American Presidential election of November 2016, this Trump has been trumpeting his tyrannical plans, arrogantly, as a threat to the world, just as Hitler did during his early days as the German ‘Furah’. And, the jitters he is rolling out of that trumpet have started to grip the world with an icy hand. That an American President elect had begun to overrule his still serving predecessor even before taking the oath of office is a clear indication of what the world should expect from the china shop in which a wild bull will start to operate as from today (January 20, 2020)”.

History as a teacher  

History is a well known phenomenal teacher. It teaches the old and the young alike. Its students are always drawn from far and near. It examines those students from time to time and gives them examination results periodically, either as a symbol of promotion or that of demotion. History’s lessons are as generational as they cut across races and cultures. Yet, it has no peculiar language of communication. But then, it faces a fundamental problem. That problem is not in the repetition that has characteristically become the culture of history but in getting mankind to understand its repeated lessons as well as in heeding its warnings”.

“In virtually all celestial religions, history plays such a prominent role that gives it the permanent identity of a teacher. And, from its beneficial teachings, human beings build ladders of experiences with which they mount the pyramids of life”. Incidentally, a laughable aspect of the tragic drama currently unfolding in America, over that country’s 2020 presidential election, is the silhouette of a Nigerian ‘Orubebe’ that was ridiculously displayed by Trump himself in his desperate bid to truncate the results of his own conducted election. Who could have imagined that such a third world drama as ‘Orubebe saga’ could be so attractive to the self-appointed model of democracy that the principal bull in that country’s Cnina shop could become a student in Nigeria’s ‘Orubebe’ school? And, as that unfathomable drama was running, a retinue of satanic ‘prophets’  queued up, here in Nigeria, as potential actors, dishing out satanic prophecies of victory for an obviously sinking Trump in America’s political mud.

Now, with America’s eventual riddance of evil, where are the Nigerian agents of the Lucifer whose wishful demonic wishes had pervasively throbbed the Nigerian media waves with deafening effect? And now, as America becomes demystified democratically so have Nigeria’s satanic prophets have been derobbed psychologically.

Irony of life

Who could have imagined, in 2017, when Trump was surreptitiously smuggled into American White House, as President, that the same arrogant Trump could be indefinitely banned along with over 70,000 of his supporters, from the global web of Tweeter? Does that not confirm to the world of today that if a Pharaoh of yore could be disgraced with deposition and Red Sea sinking, a Trump of the modern time can also be disgraced with indefinite Tweeter banning and legislative impeachment with permanent official deprivation of public office? Allah Akbar!

The reality of Allah’s existence

For sensible people who are not astray, today’s American political drama is a pregnant incident with a variety of issues which call for thorough analysis. Since January 20, 2017, when the wild bull strayed into the China shop in America, a glaring indication  had  become manifest that another thorny bud was  wildly growing under the armpit of an American bitter tree in the 21st century. That proverbial human bud is an avowed racist and morbid hater of Islam that assumed office as President in that country on January 20, 2017. His irritating posture and his filthy utterances alone, anywhere, have proved to be a vivid reminder of the unbridled atrocities of a onetime originator of Nazism, Adolf Hitler, who brutally terrorized the entire continent of Europe with his tyrannical ambition.

And, for the first time ever, majority of Americans who voted to choose Trump as President started to express fear of uncertainty about their choice even before he assumed office.

Thus, from the beginning of his four year presidential tenure, Trump had been perceived as an unpredictable incubated egg waiting to be hatched democratically.  However, the kind of chicken that would come out of that incubated egg was a matter of guess. Nevertheless, such a perception in 2017 might have been too early in the day for the eagerly agitated Americans. But now, they have all seen the reality of the political folly which they thought they ride in form of a horse.

Future shock 

From the foresighted perception of yours sincerely, the narration above was a virtual indicator of a future shock that the world could have been ignorantly waiting to grapple with after  America’s riddance of evil.

Now, the ongoing occurrences in the United States, besides COVID-19, have come to vindicate my perception and predictions. The only aspect of that perception that is still eagerly awaiting vindication is what will eventually become of today’s sadistic Trump by the time he parts way with his vainglorious presidential history.

Factors of influence

Like Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump must have been satanically influenced by the weird poems of two European racial poets of the 19th/20th century. One of them was William Butler (WB) Yeats of Ireland, who coined the poem entitled ‘The Second Coming’, upon which Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe’s famous book entitled ‘Things Fall Apart’ was based. Here is the poem:

“Turning and turning round in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold….”

Observation

If the above quoted stanza serves as an impetus for Trump to behave like a typical dragon dancing on the surface of an ominous brook, another poem by Rudyard Kipling may equally serve as an intoxicant that can help him to exacerbate the already dangerous situation of the modern world for which he, as a onetime  American President, will be remembered. Incidentally, both Yeats and Kipling were contemporary literary men of about the same age. They were both born in 1865 but died differently within a gap of about three years apart. Below is Kipling’s own further divisive poem that strengthened the unwarranted enmity between the West and the East:

“Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat…”

History’s role tomorrow

Today, we know where a two times impeached American President belongs in the chapters of history. But where he will belong, tomorrow, without a Nigerian ‘Orubebe’ is left for the tomorrow’s generations of the contemporary time to determine. We pray the Almighty Allah to save us from the evil machinations of this period.

Femi Abass

Monologue

Peace is a unique virtue in the life of man. Its value cannot be measured on the scale of gold or that of silver. Any life without peace is a life without worth.

Peace, in any religiously tempestuous society like Nigeria, is often not by chance. It can only be by a well-planned sphere of life with formidable but abstract pillars such as endurance, tolerance and mutual respect based on mutual understanding. The usual template of peace in any disciplined society is based on experience gained from history.

Preamble

This article is not new. It was first published in this column in 2012, when a satanically disastrous group of bandits called Boko Haram in Nigeria was just three years old. But the same article is being repeated here today because of demands for its re-publication by many readers who passionately believe in its relevance to the current Nigerian situation in which religion has become the biggest commercial venture that vigorously constitutes a tug of war at the instance of some  charlatans who are claiming to be religious leaders.

Such charlatans are mostly known, not only by their audacious preaching of prosperity alone, but also by the hate speeches which they provocatively dish out in torrents from their pulpits, as a form of advertisement with which to entice certain ignorant people to their  commercial dragnets.

The Wings of History

History is an invisible object with two invisible wings flying across generations in time and in space. One of those wings is positive while the other is negative. It is only with history that the present becomes the heritage of the past while the future awaits the baton of continuity or otherwise from the present. No living nation or tribe or even individuals can dream of a realizable future without a veritable present based on a memorable experience of the past. The web of life is like a magnet which no iron element can bypass on its way to ornamental glory.

A Fabric of Uncertainty

Today, against what ought to be a valuable heritage, Nigeria is, sadly passing through a fabric of uncertainty as she rolls back the fibres of the future into those of the present and weaves both together into the vestiges of the past. Such is a sign of a dead nation waiting to be interned. What kind of  war is not ravaging Nigeria today, in spite of Allah’s abundant bounties? The forces of the present seem to have connived with those of the past to jointly engage in wrestling down the future with a determination to deprive the generations yet unborn of any hope of decent existence.

For decades, Nigeria has been forced by the so-called leaders to engage in political, economic and social warfare without winning any. Now, a religious dimension is being desperately and demonically added to those wars for pecuniary purpose.

Thus, like a billow vigorously storming around at the instance of an invisible tempest, a melee of religious hullabaloo engendered by a vicious political Pandora has virtually turned Nigeria into a land of curses. God! Where are we going from here?

Purpose of Religion

By its design and intents, religion is supposed to be, not only a panacea for all human psychological ailments, but also a soothing balm for any spiritual ache. Ironically, however, religion, in Nigeria, today, has been turned into a poison   without any provision for an antidote. And through our usual   attitude tagged Nigerian factor, we seem to be bent on swallowing the pill of that poison without minding its dangerous repercussion.

The Factors of Ignorance

The factors that culminated in what we now variously call religious commerce, religious   militancy or extremism or fanaticism or terrorism, emanated only from the yoke of ignorance which bad governance has perennially incubated in readiness for hatching. And, could anything have influenced bad governance as much as ignorance? Yet, ignorance would not have had a role to play in our religious or political lives if we had demonstrated the will to genuinely follow the tenets of our religions and learned from the lessons of history without banking on sentimental assumptions and fallacious rumours.

History as a Teacher

History as a teacher always has a lesson in its kitty to teach those who are ready to learn from time to time. But, unfortunately, most human beings, especially Nigerians, refuse to learn any lesson from history and the price is what we are paying today.

Reminiscence

In 1962, Nigeria’s Governor General, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (who later became Nigeria’s first President in 1963), paid a three day official courtesy visit to the then Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, in Kaduna. Dr Azikiwe was accompanied by his wife, Flora. The host Premier mobilized all the paraphernalia of office in honour of his guests whom he accorded an unprecedentedly flamboyant hospitality. The three days visit enabled those leaders’ wives to become so familiar with each other that Flora also invited the Bellos to the East on a similar visit. By the time the visit ended, Dr. Azikiwe had become so much impressed that at the point of departure he held Ahmadu Bello’s hands and gently pleaded with him to “please let us forget our differences”.

In response to that emotional but infatuating gesture, Sir Ahmadu Bello said in an equally gentle, baritone voice: “No sir! Rather than forgetting our differences, let us understand them. I am a Muslim from the North. You are a Christian from the South. It is only by identifying and understanding those differences meaningfully that our friendliness can truly blossom and endure”. There and then, Dr. Azikiwe nodded in agreement with his host’s logic and accepted the fact that one could not forget what has not been identified and understood. The lesson to learn from this experience is that of mutual understanding without pretentiously sweeping anything under the carpet. That is the principle upon which the marriage of political strange fellows who find themselves in a joint government is often based in Nigeria. It is also the principle upon which partnership of many Nigerian businessmen and women is based despite their cultural incompatibility. But that principle is not applied to Religion in Nigeria despite the existence of a body called Nigeria Interreligious Council (NIREC). And, this is because of easy but dubious access to cheap wealth by certain fraudulent charlatans who are greedily masquerading in the cassock of religion and parading themselves as   religious leaders.

Stages of Ignorance

For thousands of years, peoples of all races and tribes across the world thrived vaingloriously on cultural ignorance while attributing their calamities to mysterious forces and blaming such mysteries on what they called witchcraft. In the past, here in Africa, millions of children were forced to die in infancy, by their own parents, out of sheer ignorance, while the same parents turned round to blame what they called ‘ABIKU’ or ‘OGBANJE’ for the mass infanticide which they ignorantly engendered. With time, however, education and knowledge of science brought about the invention of various vaccines with which children were immunized against different diseases thereby giving those infants the   opportunity to survive. And, this has enabled us to know, today, that the mystery which we once called ‘ABIKU’ or ‘OGBANJE’ was a euphemism for ignorance in African mythology of those days.

Now that the days of cultural ignorance seem to be over, Nigerians have devised another means of restiveness by shifting to religious ignorance which enables them to replace the infanticide of the yore with modern day genocide through terrorism and banditry. It is hoped that one day, real education and not mere literacy will also help us to overcome the spectre of religious ignorance and propel our country to the progressive pedestal on which she ought to have been dwelling for long.

Qur’anic Testimony

If it had pleased the Almighty Allah to make all human beings one single race with one colour, one tongue and one religion, He would have done so without receiving any query from any quarters. But as the undisputable Omnipresent and Omnipotent entity, His decision to diversify His creatures cannot be faulted because it is from that diversity that all creatures have consistently derived unfettered benefits. In the world today, there are different races and tribes of human beings with different colours, languages and cultures each functioning as predestined and, yet they all interact positively with one another to the benefit of all and sundry.  This is in accordance with the words of Allah in Chapter 49 verse 13 of the Qur’an thus: “Oh mankind! We have created you from a male and a female and classified you into races and tribes that you may interact positively with one another (and thereby draw from the advantages therein). Verily, the most honourable among you before Allah are the most pious ones. Allah is All-knowing and most acquainted with all things”. Q. 49:13

Other Creatures

What is true of human beings in the above quoted Qur’anic verse is equally true of other creatures. For instance we can all see that on a single   plot of arable land on which a variety of plants may grow to form an orchard but each plant will stand out with different foliages and fruits. Some of those fruits may be sweet, some may be bitter and some may be sour. Some may be fruitful and some may be fruitless. Some may be trees of gargantuan posture while others may be ordinary legumes. Yet they are all fed by the same soil, watered by the same rain and photosynthesized by the same sun. Their different foliages, sizes, heights and tastes notwithstanding, they all function effectively and advantageously according to the purpose for which they are created. In the ecosystem, no tree in an orchard will ever accuse another of bearing fruits different from its own and no animal will blame another for carrying a feature or for wearing a colour different from its own. No whale will ever denigrate even a fingerling in the ocean for sharing the same water with it. Ditto the world of birds, reptiles, and that of insects.  Even as plants, animals, aquatics, reptiles, birds and insects, those creatures know that for everything Allah does there is a reason which may not be instantly known but will become known later. It is only among human beings that discrimination and segregation exist, based on ignorance.

Parable of Religion

We can also compare the above analogy to a situation inside a football stadium where there is a variety of sections such as State Box for the upper class, State Box Extension for the Middle Class and popular side for the lower class. At the entrance of the stadium, each person obtains a ticket according to his or her financial ability which determines his status. And that qualifies him for a seat in any of the sections in the stadium, according to the status of the ticket obtained. Without prejudice to the categories of the tickets they obtain, all the spectators in the stadium are authorised to watch the match for which they have paid. If at the end of the match however, a spectator, who was privileged to sit in the State Box, turns round to say that another spectator, who sat at the popular side of the stadium, did not watch the match, others around them will sarcastically conclude that something might have gone wrong with the psyche of the accuser. The positions from which those spectators watched the match might be different but the fact remains that they all watched the same match. That is the parable of religion in the lives of individual human beings.

The Mission of Religion

In Islam, all revealed religions are like an embassy established by a nation in another nation to strengthen her diplomatic relation with the host nation. The Ambassadors appointed to manage such embassy may be changed from time to time just like the foreign policy which guides those ambassadors, but the embassy remains intact, barring any unforeseen circumstances. So is the case with the Prophets of Allah. They might have come at different times and from different lands with different tongues. They might have brought different books revealed in different languages but their mission was one and the same because their Creator who appointed them as Ambassadors is only one and He cannot be pluralized. Muslims believe that all the Prophets and Messengers who have come into the world to guide mankind were from one and the same God who created the universe. Thus, Prophets Ibrahim (Abraham), Ismail (Ishmael) Ishaq (Isaac), Musa (Moses), Daud (David), Isa (Jesus) and Muhammad (SAW) as well as others who preceded them or came in-between them brought the same message of monotheism through which mankind was counselled to worship one God and be upright in conduct.

In Qur’an Chapter 2 verse 285, Allah admonishes Muslims against discriminating among His Apostles thus: “The Apostle of Allah, Muhammad, (SAW) believes in what has been revealed to him by his Lord, and so do all the (Muslim) faithful. They all believe in Allah and His Angels, His Books as well as His Apostles. We do not discriminate against any of His Apostles. They say ‘We hear and obey. Grant us your forgiveness oh Lord! To you we shall all return”.

Religious Rivalry

As a Muslim, you cannot believe in one of those Apostles and disbelieve in others. And you cannot believe in one of the revealed Books while disbelieving in others. That is why no true adherent of Islamwill ever express foul language against the person of Jesus or blame the misdemeanour of a Christian on Christianity as some Nigerian Christians do against the person of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and Islam as a religion when they accidentally have an unpleasant encounter with a misbehaving Muslim as if there are no misbehaving Christians in Nigeria.  Were Nigerian Muslims also to bring such a disgruntled rivalry into religion especially in their propagations, the country called Nigeria would have probably been long forgotten.

Unity of God

Although the modalities for worshipping God may differ from faith to faith and from sanctuary to sanctuary, this does not change the course of their faith in only one God. Thus, the rivalry between Muslims and Christians, especially, in Nigeria, over who is spiritually right or wrong is a product of ignorance.

Similarities

As taught by Christianity and Islam through their  revealed  Books, respectively, the areas of life that need our cooperation are by far more comprehensive than those in which we differ. For instance, both the Bible and the Qur’an counsel humanity to worship one God. They preach good deeds to neighbours and other fellow human beings, publicly and privately, irrespective of religious lineage. They advocate good care for our parents, our children, the aged ones amongst us and the handicapped. They urge kindness to our spouses, forgiveness for our offenders, leniency with our adversaries and magnanimity in victory to the vanquished. They admonish us against cheating and any form of corruption. They forbid theft, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism and above all the killing of fellow human beings, extra-judicially, for whatever reason. They also warn us against provocation, aggression, oppression, exploitation and transgression even as they emphasize the ephemerality of this world and the eventuality of the hereafter. In all these, we have a common affinity to jointly guard us.

Dissimilarities

The few areas in which we differ are abstract and quite personal. They are not areas on which human beings are given the power to pass judgement. Only the Almighty God can judge on them. Such are the areas which we believe will pave our ways into the Paradise. But since paradise is for individuals and not for religious blocks why are we fighting each other as religious bodies on the basis of belief or disbelief? After all, the journey to Paradise or Hell is a matter of choice for every individual. And no one can tell with precision who will go to Paradise or go to Hell. Such is the prerogative of God which He has not assigned to any human being and which no human being can and should arrogate to himself or herself except one who wants to play God.

Perception of God

As an adherent of a religion, you can only perceive your God according to your faith and that should not cause any rancour between you and adherents of any other religion. As Nigerians, we dwell in the same country, eat the same foods, drink the same water, wear similar dresses, trade in the same markets, share the same offices and spend the same money. Our children attend the same schools, write the same examinations and obtain the same certificates. We intermarry across tribes and ethnicities as well as religions. All these form a stronger bond that ought to unite us much more than the abstract ones which often threaten to tear us apart. In a situation where the factors of life that unite us grossly surpass those that divide us will it not be stupid to relinquishunity and cooperation for the adoption of satanic animosity and ruinous antagonism?

Observation

With the official formation of an interfaith group called NIREC, it had been thought that religion in Nigeria would be the last bastion of hope that could pave way for a future of harmony, not only in the sphere of religion but also in the social and political spheres of life as well. But unfortunately that noble thought is now rapidly being turned into an unwarranted despair as the agents of Satan are becoming more aggressively combative   against peaceful coexistence just to gain personal ephemeral life in which they would ride in executive jets and regale in exclusive mansions to the detriments of the ignorant congregations which they exploit to the marrows. If we could settle any rift with an external country like Cameroon, we should be to settle any internal rift among ourselvesfor the purpose of peace and posterity.

Bless Nigeria!

By FEMI ABBAS 

Monologue

From all observable agles, the Nigerian media, as championed by the South West axis professional journalism, is the main arena to which the Muslims are regularly drawn into a spiritual war. And, Islam is the main target. If there is any religious tension in the country, at any time, the media is where to search for its cause. The bellicose news reports deliberately aimed at maligning Islam and denigrating Prophet Muhammad (SAW), directly or indirectly, can only be read on the pages of Nigeria newspapers or heard on Nigerian radio waves. The act is an obnoxious way of practising journalism.

Preamble

In response to a particular question coming incessantly to this column from every conceivable angle, yours sincerely decided to recall an article published in this column in 2007, which answers the recurring question. The enquirers wanted to know why Muslims and their activities are not as prominently reported in Nigerian media as those of their Christian counterparts.

Excerpt

An excerpt from the article with which I provided an answer to that question went as follows:

“Information is power. It can make or mar. An informer must be informed. He must know what information to disseminate. He must know, not only when and where to disseminate such information but also how to do it. These are the qualities that make journalists professionals in their calling.

Journalism as a profession is not about news gathering and news reporting alone. It is also about the methodology of disseminating information and transmitting   education as well as dishing out entertainment to the public. That is why a journalist is universally considered to be a professional who knows or should know something about virtually everything.  To be a thorough professional, therefore, a journalist must be an all rounder in various fields of discipline. He cannot report the space exploration without some scientific knowledge of astronomy. He cannot report war without some knowledge of weaponry and the geography of the war areas as well as the socio-cultural history of the warring groups or nations involved. Besides, no trained journalist can report a religious activity without knowing some jargons of the religion in question.

And, of course, in the process of filing his reports, a professional journalist must be conscious of the technical sequence to be followed. This is generally known in the profession as ‘five W’s and H’. The coded cliché here is interpreted as follows: “Who (does) What? Where? When? Why? and How?” Without practical knowledge of that sequence, a journalist cannot be qualified to called a professional.

The Norm of Journalism

From whatever angle journalism is viewed, therefore, knowledge remains the main axis around which its practitioner’s activities must rotate. No ignorant person can be genuinely accommodated in that noble profession.

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had foreseen this before he recommended knowledge seeking to his companions. He said: “Seek knowledge even if you will have to travel to China”. That was at a time when China was known to be the farthest place from Arabia.

Essence of Knowledge

Nothing in the life of man is comparable to knowledge. As a matter of fact, life is worthwhile only if it is based on knowledge.

That was why

the first revelation in the Qur’an started on the premise of knowledge. The very first chapter of that Sacred Book commenced thus: “Read in the name of your Lord who created; He created man from clots of congealed blood. Read! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One, who taught by the pen, (He) taught man what he (man) did not know…”.  And, to further emphasize this, the Prophet said that “knowledge is missing, Muslims should search for it wherever they can find it”. He did not restrict such knowledge to religion. Without knowledge, there can be no right information.

The beginning of Journalism

Contrary to the falsehood documented and disseminated by the Western world that journalism started in Germany in the 15th century, it was the Muslims who actually started journalism in Arabia over 1400 years ago. Though they did not call it journalism, it was they who started what we now call journalism through the process that the early Muslims followed in documenting Hadith (the tradition and rightly guided statements of Prophet Muhammad).

In order to prevent false documentation of any fabricated statements in the name of the Prophet, some Muslim researchers took up the task of ascertaining what the Prophet actually said or did as against what some prominence-seekers were trying to attribute to him. It was a thorough investigative job voluntarily done by certain individuals to retain the authenticity of Islam through Hadith. Foremost among such great researchers were Abu Ibn Abbas, Ibn Mas’ud, Malik Bn Anas, Al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Daud, At-Tirmidhi, An-Nisai, Ibn Majah and a host of others.

For the purpose of authenticity, these great scholars introduced what they called the ‘Chain of Narrations’ (Isnad). Through that Chain, they were able to trace the source of every reported Hadith to the Prophet who was quoted to have expressed it. Such narrations were graded as: Sahih (indisputably genuine); Hasan (perfectly authentic); Hasanun Sahih (genuine and authentic); Munqat’  (broken); Garib (strange) and so forth.

Thus, from its final documentation through this process, Hadith was transmitted from generation to generation just as we transmit news stories today in journalism profession. Without the great effort of those researchers, the world would have been flooded today with all sorts of fabricated expressions credited to the Prophet. And such fabrications would have thrown the Muslim Ummah into total confusion even as Islam itself would have been shrouded in doubt.

The very first Minister appointed by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was that of information.

The black man from Abyssinia, called Bilal, who was charged with informing Muslims of the time of Salat by making ‘Adhan’, was Minister of Information. That shows how important information is in Islam.

However, when journalism, as we know it today, was introduced to Nigeria at Abeokuta, in 1859, it was through the Christian perception and mentality of the colonial masters. Although the early Nigerian journalists were quick to realize the power of the Press which they used to fight for Nigerian independence, they nevertheless, inherited some colonial traditions which are still causing disharmony in our society today. One of such traditions is religious perception. For instance, an average Nigerian journalist does not see anything positive in Islam as a religion because he/she is blatantly ignorant of its tenets. This is not to say that journalists cannot understand Islam if given the opportunity, but the colonial tradition they inherited is such that they must not see anything good in any religion other than Christianity, which is the religion of the colonialists. And, for this reason, they had to follow the colonial Orientation in reporting Islam and the Muslims

according to the latter’s perception until very recently when that perception began to change in the West for various reasons.

Abuse of privilege

Even for well over a century after the introduction of journalism to Nigeria, the word ISLAM and MUSLIMS were reported in Nigerian media, like in European media, as Mohammedanism and Mohammedans respectively. It took the few Muslims in Europe at that time to counter that obnoxious but deliberate imposition before it was changed. Even as of today, and against the ethics of their profession, most Nigerian journalists take pleasure in writing or pronouncing ‘MOSLEM’ rather than ‘MUSLIM’ knowing fully well that the earlier is derogatory and abhorrent to Muslims.

In news reporting and even editorials of many newspapers, some journalists have ridiculously embarrassed themselves, their employers as well as their Muslim readers by confusing Eidul Adha with Eidul Fitr during Muslim festivals out of deliberate refusal to want to know anything about Islam. No Muslim journalist will ever confuse Christmas with Easter.

Another instance is the seeming malicious manner in which some journalists do report the outbreak of events and occurrences in the country particularly at very sensitive times thereby compounding any religious problem at hand. It has virtually become a tradition in Nigerian media to describe youths who engage in any disturbing activities in the north as ‘fanatics’ or ‘fundamentalists’ or ‘zealots’ even before the details of whatever happened become known. And, in other parts of the country, such restive youths are merely reported as miscreants or militants or bandits. The implication here is that any disturbance in the Muslim dominated area in the country must automatically be clad in the garb of Islamic religion which is perceived as the breeder of fanaticism.

These and other religiously insensitive reporting can be potentially dangerous for the corporate existence of this volatile country. We had witnessed many crises that were precipitated by such insensitivity in the remote and recent past. But the big question is: why are Nigerian Muslims apathetic to media employment?

Muslims in the Media

Muslims in the media must have good knowledge of Christianity and the culture of its adherents just as Christian journalist must know the dos and don’ts of Islam and the Muslims. Arabic is not a language meant for the Muslims alone. There are Christian Arabs who speak no language other than Arabic. And, there is no record anywhere to show that Prophet Isa (Jesus) ever spoke English which is the primary language of the Bible in Nigeria today. Both Islam and Christianity came to meet us here in Nigeria. Why must we use them to destroy ourselves on the pages of newspapers or on the radio or television?

One of the responsibilities of the media is to ventilate a peaceful atmosphere for harmonious co-existence of the people. Thus as supposedly educated and civilized professionals, Nigerian journalists must not shirk such a fundamental responsibility at this age of the internet.

Admonition

For the sake of our collective survival, no combative or provocative journalism should be extended to religious sphere. We all need to live in harmony before we can expect any individual to be patriotic to to our country. God save Nigeria!