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Kaduna, the capital city of the defunct Northern Region, was my favourite Nigerian city. Now one of the 19 legacy states of the Northern Region, Kaduna state, especially the Kaduna city centre, which serves as the state capital, is a microcosm of the larger Nigeria. Highly cosmopolitan yet reserved, liberal but conservative, modern and still ancient, Kaduna signposted the best of Nigeria’s unity and harmony in ethno-geographic and religious plurality. Kaduna was where the northerner, southerner, the Christian, Muslim, the Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Efik, Ibiobio, Ebira, Igala, Ijaw, Itsekiri, Urhobo and others harmonized their various identities into a super identity that was Kaduna, their shared geographic entity, with Hausa as their common language.
At the height of the unity, peace and prosperity that was Kaduna, the former capital of the Northern Region competed well with Lagos as the favoured destination for would-be rural-urban migrants in search of better economic opportunities under a conducive social atmosphere. And, yes, Kaduna became the breeding and grooming ground for some of Nigeria’s best of the best in the academia, media, sports, business, labour and entertainment. In fact, Kaduna is also the grooming ground of Nigeria elite class of military officers as the Nigerian Defence Academy is located in the city. So, from President Olusegun Obasanjo and professor of political economics, Pat Utomi, to businessman Sunny Okogwu, soccer stars Daniel Amokachi, Emmanuel and Celestine Babayaro, to veteran trade unionist, former governor of Edo State and current senator of the federal republic Adams Oshiomhole to media mogul and founder of Trust Media Group, Kabir Yusuf, and famous music star Zakky Azzay, Kaduna made a significant contribution to Nigeria’s pool of human resources while at the same time forging a united Nigerian nation through excellent diversity management.
At this time Muslim and Christian religious leaders kept faith at the personal level while preaching love, tolerance and accommodation, just as they refrained from preaching hateful, inciting and divisive doctrines. In Kaduna, Muslims and Christians coexisted under an atmosphere of mutual respect, accommodation, love, peace and unity. And the icing on the cake of the beauty that was Kaduna was the rich Hausa cultural and linguistic commonwealth that characterised the city. The Hausa culture of respect, modesty, generosity, accommodation, honesty, hard work, zero materialism and communal living helped shape the character of the residents of the city, while the beautiful, phonetically sophisticated and grammatically rich Hausa language was similarly mastered by all. And with the rise to prominence of Hausa to the un-official language of politics and power in Nigeria, many a resident of Kaduna would leverage on this strong network of family and friends to advance both individual and group career and business endeavours.
As a liberal conservative that I am, Kaduna was an exciting balance of society for me. While I find its people, urban, cosmopolitan, educated and enlightened hence easy to relate with, I also savoured the traditional cover of cherished societal values such as modesty, accommodation, honesty and mutual respect, which made Kaduna all the more a liveable place with the advantages of two worlds [ancient and modern]. Observing how Nigerians from all sections resident in Kaduna seamlessly integrated and assimilated into the Hausa cultural and linguistic commonwealth made Kaduna feel like home, I longed to have a permanent home there. Seeing an Igbo or Yoruba speaking flawless Hausa, decked in a kaftan with ‘muhadu’ cap to match was such a soul-lifting delight as it signalled hope for a united Nigeria of our dream.
But all that changed drastically when religiously bigotry slowly infected the society like a viral disease, which somehow transmuted into a cancerous ailment that ravished Kaduna and transfigured it from a beautiful society to one that is ugly and deeply divided along ethno-religious fault lines. The many ethno-religious conflicts, which resulted in sorrow, tears and blood, left Kaduna on the road to Lebanon, where its constituent peoples are similarly divided along Christian, Sunni Muslim and Shia Muslim fault lines. Consequently, Kaduna, over the years, has become a ground for fierce competition between its Christian and Muslim population, as religious identity found exploitation in partisan politics.
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However, there seems to be a serious effort to return Kaduna to its golden age by the current managers of the state. Surprisingly, Governor Uba Sani, a product the vilest form of exploitation of religious identity politics, is leading the way back to the Kaduna I longed to live in. Like a Moses out the household of Pharaoh, Gov. Sani has taken a decision to put a final stop to the division that has reduced Kaduna from a thriving cosmopolitan city to a sleepy rural rustic town that is sharply divided along religious lines.
It is often said that, to solve a problem, it is imperative to ascend to a higher consciousness than what created it. In his attempt to solve this age-long problem, Gov. Sani has decided to transcend from the conscious of ‘diversity without unity’ to a higher consciousness of recognizing the problem of Kaduna as of ‘division in oneness’.
As far as Gov. Sani is concerned, the people of Kaduna State are one and the same people, irrespective of their ethnicity or religion, and are deserving of equal opportunity in the state. It is this recognition of the oneness of the people that is the guiding philosophy of Gov. Sani’s effort at rebuilding the Kaduna of our dreams. I describe him as a Moses out of the household of Pharaoh because, though a product of an establishment that instituted ‘Muslim’ privilege in Kaduna, Gov. Sani, a Muslim, has decided to replace this unfair, skewed and unjust privilege with ‘Kaduna Privilege’ that accommodates all, irrespective of ethnicity and religion.
The actions of Gov. Sani in this regard are not only constitutional but also Islamic and a hallmark of a true Muslim, in line with the prophetic tradition of Muhammad [PBUH] of justice, equity, fairness and inclusion. All that Gov. Sani needed to do was to continue with the weaponisation of politics of divide-and-rule to hold on to power by marginalizing the Christian half of Kaduna in favour of its Muslim other half. But the governor has chosen the godly and constitutional path of administering his state with the principles of equity, fairness, inclusion and justice.
At a time when some Muslim religious bigots are chastising fellow Muslims against eating “Christmas rice and chicken” of their Christian neighbours, Gov. Sani’s appearance at a Christmas Carol event in Kaduna, where he urged a return to the days “when we were young, there was nothing like Muslim or Christian; we all looked forward to Christmas, joining our Christian brothers to look for the houses serving the most rice and meat. Unfortunately, things are different today. By God’s grace, we will bring back that”.
It was refreshing in an atmosphere that had been tainted by religious bigotry. For these and many more efforts by Gov. Sani, Kaduna has been peaceful in the last two and half years of his administration, with no report of ethno-religious conflicts, just as tension in the state has been doused by the governor’s leadership by example.
