In Deborah Samuel and the College Idea, Ogbuagu Anikwe picks out three failures that predispose fanatics to violence.
The village of Tungan Magajiya in Rijau LGA of Niger State received and interred the charred remains of Deborah Samuel. She travelled over 250 kilometres to get an education, only to die a needless and senseless death. The late Deborah was a Christian student. It is this fact of being a student stoned to death in a tertiary institution that leaves me speechless. Fellow students not only stoned her to death but also burnt her body with rubber wheels.
The biggest lesson for me is that what happened to her exemplifies all that is wrong with our educational system. People go to college to broaden their knowledge and skills, interrogate phenomena and sharpen critical thinking skills. It is not a place where people go to have their minds closed to ideas. This includes ideas that conflict with what one brought along to the institution. Therefore, if a college cannot teach its students and make them accept that the world is made up of people with different ideas and beliefs, and that no one idea or belief is necessarily better than another, it is not worthy to be called a college. The stoning to death of a college student by fellow students for religious reasons is an indictment on the school faculty.
Last Easter, a financial institution managed by a Muslim compared the resurrection of Jesus Christ to Agege bread. Christians recoiled at the idea and threatened to withdraw business from the bank. The chief executive hurriedly apologized, and the matter was rested. Pray, what would have happened if Christians in the bank went out of their way to waylay and stone the CEO to death? And subsequently burn the managing director for this “blasphemy”?
There are three things that stand out for me as teachable lessons. One is that every religion harbours militant sectarian factions whose members itch to fight for and kill for their god. However, the majority subscribe to the highest teachings of the prophets that brought their different religions into being. I have read, for instance, that the Prophet of Islam never directly commanded his followers to extrajudicially kill others. Everyone knows that Jesus Christ asked his followers to turn the other cheek, if slapped on one. And it is the same for other religious organisations worldwide. Our world deteriorates when overzealous followers find themselves in leadership positions. They use their platforms to misinterpret and, therefrom, brainwash the gullible to kill for God. And this is the same God that we all acknowledge as Almighty, most powerful and the most merciful!
The second thing that stands out is that ours is not a lawful society. If it were, regulatory agency for colleges of education would investigate what Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, teaches that predisposes students to violence. The failure to teach tolerance and respect for the other led a poor ignorant girl to a gruesome death. And predisposed misguided zealots to revenge, served as jungle justice. It is not enough to round up and punish the perpetrators of the Deborah crime. We must look at the problem from its roots, particularly in an atmosphere where religion trumps humanity in the hands of fanatics.
The third is an advisory. It is not enough to let fanatical mobs dispense jungle justice on matters that are controversial. Sokoto State, for instance, practices Sharia legal system. This system implies that there will be scholars who should be pronouncing fatwa (legal rulings) on points of Islamic law. Their pronouncement should become a guide to those who subscribe to the religion. I know that Christian churches, the Catholics for example, have a similar magisterium when the Pope speaks ex cathedra. In this position, the Pontiff uses an encyclical letter to define a doctrine concerning faith or morals. And the Church obeys. This is the same way that appropriate Islamic legal authority issues fatwa. The fatwa educates Muslim faithful about Islam, advises courts on controversial points of law, or elaborates on extant law.
If we cannot stem the outpouring of religious hate through the secular judicial system, this will be the best way to tame everyone, including pastors and imams that preach hate against rival religions.
When Soludo pulled his ears
What does it mean when an elder or a powerful Igbo person pulls the ears in conversation with another? We may never know why Governor Chukwuma Soludo pulled his ears in front of separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu last week. The governor did not address what he discussed with Kanu at the DSS detention facility in Abuja. He was more interested in passing a message that assists his fight to restore normalcy to his beleaguered state. And no guessing why; Anambra State is undergoing torture through mindless violence.
Why is Anambra being assailed by miscreants? We may also never know the reason. But we can take a guess. Before we do, however, let us exhaust the ear-pulling gesture captured in the photo-op at the meeting.
It did not matter that the governor did not disclose what he told Kanu at the meeting. Or indeed why, at a point in their conversation, he began to pull his ears. A picture, they say, speaks more than a million words. Here, we have the image of a “sitting governor” at the edge of his seat, pulling both ears while facing his “host.” And the host, totally relaxed on his chair, replied with an indulgent smile.
That smile says it all.
Among the Igbo, there are two broad ways of pulling one’s ears. If one is addressing an elder or a peer on a matter of grave importance, pulling the ear becomes a grave admonition. The speaker admonishes the hearer to not do something or to stop doing something. But it goes deeper than this. It is also that the ear-puller has had enough and is washing his hands of whatever his hearer has done or wants to do.
“If you do that again, my hand no dey there!”
“I’m telling you now; enough is enough!”
“Better listen to me and listen good; this thing you are doing is not good.”
“I heard something very bad, and it is my duty to warn you about it. So, I am telling you to stop this thing that you are doing. I am telling you now and you are laughing. Hmm. Okay o.”
“I know what you are doing but note that I will not be part of it. Let me warn you that this will lead nowhere safe. Know also that I will not follow you to that place.”
No matter how we view the gesture, it ends up as an admonition when the speaker pulls his ears in front of another adult. If two ears are pulled at the same time, as Soludo was captured doing in this photo, it becomes a very serious admonition and a serious call for caution.
If Kanu were a child, and the governor a father figure, the gesture would have been different. When an adult addresses an unruly or irredeemable child, this can lead to pulling the child’s ears. The adult clamps the thumb and index finger on the child’s earlobes, pinches hard and pulls forwards. The legs of most children wobble from the pull while wincing from the pain. The message is the same but delivered more forcibly.
How I wish there is currently someone of the stature of the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe to give the same ear-pulling message to Ndigbo. The rest of Nigeria have their ears open, listening to the things Ndigbo are saying about the challenges they are facing today. And the challenges are multifaceted. There is the presidency project that is going badly. There is the undeclared and cowardly war against the people of the South-East. No one, except one lunatic in Finland, is taking responsibility for this “war.” And there are the other little wars that disadvantaged people suffer everywhere in Nigeria, the war of survival.
How will Ndigbo win these multiple wars? Our current strategy is precisely the sort of undertaking that the Great Zik would have abhorred. At the middle of the Civil War, when it looked like the generals were not ready to follow his “Fabian tactics,” Zik stylishly pulled out to let them get on with it. And from the time he left the war, everything inexorably ground to a halt and the generals either ran for dear life or wisely surrendered to superior forces.
No one wins a war through direct confrontation with a preponderant adversary. It is true of every battle one can think of, including sports battles, and yes, even the battle of the sexes! On the face of it, it appears like misguided Igbo youths are prosecuting a Fabian Strategy by striking repeatedly at the “enemy” to wear them down. But the enemy happens to be us. We are exhausted and frightened. And this is happening without a formal declaration of a war that requires guerrilla tactics to prosecute. Additionally, even if the youths have the weaponry, which they do not, is it not so pointless and silly to engage a battle in their father’s compound?
The Fabian Strategy that works – and which Ndigbo currently need the most – is much more subtle and non-violent. It involves actions that enable Ndigbo win over or wear out their traducers and it should be an extended and planned campaign. I am not a prophet of doom, but it is difficult to see the presidency project progressing further than it has done. Unless, of course, the General of Aso Rock experiences an epiphanic encounter and blesses Nwajiuba of the South-East or Amaechi of the South-South.
Who will pull Ndigbo’s ears, Soludo-like, to get them to listen to the voice of reason? And to tone down on the fiery rhetoric?