Follow Us on Google
These times are not anything normal; very uncanny and absurd. They are by every inch perilous, treacherous and fraught with great danger.
Welcome to our obscure clime. It has no duplicate anywhere else. We are being carelessly made vulnerable to uncertainty and risk. And all at no fault of ours.
Things are pretty looking up for terrorists these times. They are making waves and huge impacts all over. Their exploits are yielding fruitful results for themselves alone.
They have an advocate in our legislature. Sadly enough, Senator Ibrahim Gaidam is in the forefront of the pack. He was exceptionally lucky. He held sway in Yobe State as governor for more than 10 years. Not satisfied, he made it to the Senate in 2019.
His state is one of the areas being ravaged by the Boko Haram Islamist group in the North-East. Since he brought his controversial bill to the Senate, he has not known peace. He coined it: “A bill for an Act to establish a national agency for the education, rehabilitation, de-radicalisation and integration of repentant insurgents in Nigeria.”
His argument: “The bill is not meant for those who were captured by the soldiers. The people that would benefit are those who willingly come out to surrender and who have shown some signs of remorse.”
This is the best of times for the terrorists. From being given amnesty to foreign education. With this bill, the so-called repentant insurgents would have unrestrained access to education and training abroad. They are even calling these terrorists “ex-agitators.” What awkward audacity!
What about the victims of these atrocities? What does Gaidam want make out of them? The conditions in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps are appalling. The inmates of these camps are our bountiful harvests from the Boko Haram project. Gaidam and his co-sponsors are far from caring for the IDPs. They are aloof to their plights.
Those who see Western education as “haram” (forbidden) are now going to be the greatest beneficiaries of the system they vehemently oppose. Those who support Western education are now inmates in the IDP camps. That is the height of the absurdity of the arrangement put together and labelled Nigeria
The Socio-Economic Rights Accountability Project (SERAP), would not allow Gaidam to breath. Its contention was on spot: “The bill erodes justice and makes a mockery of the suffering of victims and unspeakable human tragedy, humanitarian crisis and appalling atrocities committed by the Boko Haram terrorist group.”
SERAP became more furious, spitting fire, as usual: “By calling Boko Haram members ‘ex-agitators’, the bill mocks the victims of the appalling atrocities committed by the terrorists, and blatant affront to victims’ dignity.”
Its final verdict: “Repentant Boko Haram terrorists are not ex-agitators; they are terrorists under the Nigerian and international laws.” We align with the gospel truth.
Just in the midst of this, Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information, rudely interrupted our flow. He barged in on us almost uninvited. He told us all that we knew long ago. He merely came on board to add his unsolicited cunny comedy. We never asked for what he told us. He has changed his old narrative.
He agreed now without mincing words that Boko Haram insurgents truly target Christians: “They (Boko Haram terrorists) have started targeting Christians and Christian villages for a specific reason, which is to trigger a religious war and throw the nation into chaos.”
He was convinced: “Let me repeat, the insurgents, who delude themselves as Muslims, whereas they are nothing more than blood-thirsty, rapacious killers who subscribe to no religion, have recently started targeting Christians with a view to sowing the seed of confusion between the two great religions.”
He made himself clearer: “This did not in any way signify that they have stopped attacking Muslims. But they seem to now have a deliberate policy of attacking Christians.”
Mohammed had vehemently opposed this position several times over. It has now dawned on him the need to have a change of heart. And we have every reason to believe him this time around.
But our man of the moment is undoubtedly Emir Muhammadu Sanusi of Kano. His words of respite were hard nuts but soothing at the same time. He went deep into the root cause of insurgency.
He is never given to frivolities. He says it as he sees it and sees it as he says it. No half measure in whatever he says or does. No pretence.
All through his days in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), he walked his talk. Whatever he sets his mind on, he goes for the jugular.
The recent 60th birthday of Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State provided another platform. He identified six key areas of grave concerns. And they pose serious challenges, which the North must address even now.
His vintage pronouncement: “You cannot be happy with about 87 per cent of poverty in Nigeria being in the North…With millions of northern children out of school…With nine states in the North contributing almost 50 per cent of the entire malnutrition burden in the country.
“You cannot be happy with the drug problem, Boko Haram problem, political thuggery; the Almajiri problem that we have.”
He lamented, all the while, things are being done in the very wrong way in the North. That is certainly not the best manner to bring about the desired change:
“The real change in the North will come from those who are considered mad people. You look around and say if this is the way we have been doing things and this is where we have ended up, maybe we need to do things differently.”
He was clear in his mind that the North is fast heading for self-destruction: “We have been saying this for 20 to 30 years. If the North does not change, the North will destroy itself. The country is moving on. The quota system that everybody talks about must have a sunset clause.”
He was not done yet: “You don’t need to rise on being from the North or being a Muslim to get a job. You come with your credentials, you go with your competence, you can compete with any Nigerian from anywhere.”
His fears: “If we don’t listen, there would be a day when there would be a constitutional amendment that addresses these quota system and federal character.”
Point-blank he told his audience: “The rest of the country cannot be investing, educating its children, producing graduates and then they watch us, they cannot get jobs because they come from the wrong state, when we have not invested in the future of our children.”
Four days later, Emir Sanusi was still boiling. He refused to keep mum and mute. He took the controversial Sharia laws to the cleaners: “Is it a fact that a father has the right to force his daughter to a loveless marriage? That you have the right to have children and push them to the streets to beg?
“Begging is disallowed in Islam. No father should send children to Almajiri school without proper adequate provision for their wellbeing.” He wants defaulter-parents arrested.
The royal oracle from the far North has spoken again. And he has spoken perfectly well. Let him who has ears hear, and those with discerning hearts discern.
Only the deep can yoke together with the deep.
