Do you agree with this assertion? I am not the maker. I read it somewhere. It is an assertion of someone who is fed up with the turn of things and events in Nigeria. It sounds bizarre, but there is an element of truth in it. And possibly, it is an absolute truth. No average Nigerian? No middle class? Though middle class could be a vague or rather an ambiguous term, I employ it in this context to refer to those people who are in the middle of the socioeconomic hierarchy. These are people who are not the poorest;…
Author: Abdulkadir Salaudeen
This article is a reaction toSowore’s reaction to the Senate of AdekunleAjasin University, Ondo State. The University came up with a policy on indecent dressing allegedly imposed on students. Students are, by the policy/circular,threatened to be rusticated if they involve in any form of indecent dressing—a menace which many universities are battling with. This does not go well with the fearless human rights activist (Sowore) wholambasts the policy asdraconianwhich emanated from intellectuals that suffer from ‘indecent reasoning’! Ivory towerians—Intellectuals—with ‘indecent reasoning’? This seems to be a shockingly shocking shock! But honestly, accusing someuniversity ‘scholars’ with indecent reasoning is nothing startling—especially…
Can you imagine a 61 year old ‘child’, still a toddler, not yet weaned and using diaper? Diaper is worn by infants to catch excrement and hold urine. Also called napkin or nappy. That 61 year old ‘child’ is Nigeria. She refuses to grow and remains a ‘child’ despite her age which falls in the category of the aged. A 61 year old is old enough to have children and grandchildren. From the perspective of political economy, at 61,Nigeria aught to have grown to a developed economy in the category of the First World Countries. But here she finds herself—a…
I think this is the right question to ask. Femi Adesina, about three months ago, asked: “Where did this Zulum emerge from?” He was apparently dazzled and wowed by what he saw in microcosmic Borno headed by Zulum which he could not see in macrocosmic Nigeria headed by our President. He asked in amazement: “How come he (Zulum) is doing unusual, uncommon things, and being very modest about it?” He was so stupefied to the extent that, I think, he forgot he was in the entourage of Mr. President. He was not hypocritical in his utterances which sound like eulogy…
His Excellency, Governor Ganduje, is in the news again. This time, it is between her Excellency Prof. Hafsah Ganduje and his Excellency Abdulazeez Ganduje her biological son. Please excuse my ignorance for I don’t know if governors sons also bear Excellency. But I think it is better to err by prefixing his name with Excellency than the otherwise. The latter allegedly reported his mother to EFCC on ‘financial issue. I don’t want to say ‘financial crime for some good reasons. I will mention two: one, ordinarily, it should be family issues which should have been resolved within. Two,…
I have argued, always argue, and I will continue to argue that nobody, ethnics, or gender has the monopoly of knowledge. Also, no continent, region, or state in the world is specially endowed with knowledge or ability to know what others cannot know. This is a myth. A myth that should not find place among civilized people in a civilized world. But disappointedly, here we are; it is believed (rightly or wrongly) that cut off marks are lowered by JAMB in favor of the North—i.e. northerners. This is premised on the notion that northerners are dull, unintelligent, unwilling to…
First and foremost, we thank Almighty for the release of these kids. We thank all Good Samaritans who came together, jettisoning their ethnic and religion, to rescue these kids by their prayers and contributions—in kind and cash. It is indisputably one of the darkest pages of Nigerian history. It is indeed a catastrophe of gargantuan proportion. It can only be imagined in other climes; but unfortunately, it is a reality in Nigeria. Any responsible Nigeria—irrespective of social status, political party or religious affiliation—would writhe in pain whenever news of abduction is aired. Is it even a breaking news…
Islamization of Nigeria! By the Bandits or the Sadists? If not for want of evidence, one would have said the geographical boundary which came to be known as Nigeria was purposely created and populated by people who are doomed to live a life of ‘we versus they’ and ‘us versus them’. These religious and ethnic cleavages are becoming too wide. On anything that leads to progress and development, we invariably disagree to agree and agree to disagree. We only agree to agree on ethnico-religious bigotry which leads to general chaos, disarray, and suppression of common sense. The noise of Islamization…
Readers cannot guess wrong; they can only guess right. If you think the above title captures what played out last week in Niger State, you are right. I have said it several times that I am tired of this country. Many have said it too; and we may not stop saying it soon. But it recently dawned on me that there is nothing wrong with Nigeria. It is our over-personification of Nigeria that makes it seem it is behind all our problems. To be candid, there is nothing wrong with Nigeria. Blaming Nigeria is unjust—though not a kind of injustice…
I have come to the conclusion that what Nigeria actual needs to confront her myriad problems is common sense. It is not money. So, who will give us common sense even if in form of loan? Many are willing to give us. We also have it. It is only that we have not learnt how to put it to use. Our problem in Nigeria is that we kowtow before foreign institutions for loans that we don’t need and which will not solve our problems. However, and unfortunately, we despise the common sense that is God’s gift which could solve our…
I was regaled with the interview granted by Pastor Tunde Bakare to BBC Yoruba. At times, I like this kind of entertainment; for it is not the one that corrupts morality like the entertainment industry which notoriety for nudity, promiscuity, prostitution and all sorts of immorality is well known. It is this industry that wows must youths today and its effects are the reflections of their abysmally low academic performance. All known methods of teaching employed to educate these youths only give catastrophic result. Not because our trained, experienced and passionate educators do not know how to teach anymore; but…
I wrote about the Prophet on this page last week. As if it was an inspiration, I will have to continue with the same theme. Though my initial plan was to discuss a different thing entirely, but I don’t know how not to put my weight behind the Prophet (SAW). Really, we live in a country where issues fall upon issues; as we can see, the fugitiveness of Igboho is ignorantly liken to the migration of our noble Prophet (SAW). I think it is impossible for a columnist (at least in Nigeria) not to have what to write on. He…
Prophet in Islam is the highest spiritual station; only few attained it. It is not worked for; it is a blessing from Allah. Unlike in other religions where prophethood can be claimed by every Tom, Dick, and Harry; in Islam, prophethood is neither claimed nor earned. It is bestowed by Allah on whomsoever He wills. The Qur’an says: “Allah is most knowing of where He places His message (Q6:124). Prophethood ended with Prophet Muhammad (SAW). There is no Prophet after him (Q33:40). Before him were Isa (Jesus), Musa (Moses), Abraham (Ibrahim), Ya’qub (Jacob), Yusuf (Joseph), Ayyub (Job), and a host…
I am personally not excited that ‘Idul Adha is around the corner. I was so absent-minded of its approach until my students in the Islaamiyyah drew my attention to it. They importuned: ‘Malam, when shall we have Sallah Break?’ I understand their excitement. They are kids. They are not in the know. To them, all is well. To us (the parents), all is wrong. They could not understand why Malam is so nonchalant as if Sallah has lost meaning to him. So they think. My students are right to think the way they think. I am also not wrong for…
Many consider the ongoing debate on the status of donkeys in Nigeria amazing. Do not think it is an oversight. Perhaps I mean to say ‘cow’ or ‘cattle’. It is not an oversight. I really mean it, donkeys. Yes! Donkeys! It was on Tuesday on the floor of the Senate during the plenary session. There was this bill sponsored by Senate Leader, the Senator representing Kebbi North. It was titled ‘The Bill for an Act to Regulate the Slaughter of Donkeys and Ranching of Donkeys through the Export Certification Value Chain to Mitigate the Extinction of Donkeys, 2021.’ The sponsor…
The article with the above title went viral some days ago. You find it on Facebook and on different social media platforms. It was, and is still, being repeatedly shared on WhatsApp. I have personally received it from different persons, and seen it shared in different WhatsApp groups to which I am a member. To set the record straight, this article was published almost a decade ago—2012 precisely. Could this be a clickbait headline? Possibly. But this is spammy and misleading. The way it was ingeniously manipulated to make it seem as if AdamuAdamu just wrote it is unwelcomingly questionable.…
That is as far as I know. If you think it is blasphemous, you may not be wrong and you are not alone. But if you think those who made this comparison mean different thing, isn’t it high time they learnt how to make comparison between things that are similar and avoid blasphemous similarization? It is human to like. Likeness leads to eulogy. People eulogise those they have unconditional likeness for; and in most cases they eulogise out of sheer hypocrisy. Be that as it may, Nigerian politicians exert all efforts to eulogise their political benefactors. They, at times, push…
The Kano Hisbah was in the media few days ago vis-à-vis a young boy who vowed not to pray again in a viral video. By this he meant the Muslims five daily prayers. It is a common knowledge that these prayers—spread over day and the night—are compulsory upon every sane Muslim. It implies that any Muslim who does not offer them is spiritually insane—and probably pathologically insane. So it is in order to refer to any professed Muslim as insane if they do not offer their Salat (prayers) or offer them intermittently. For one cannot claim to be a Muslim…
In case it is new to you, certificate racketeering is an illegal means of acquiring certificate that does not belong to you or for which you have not worked for and earned. But could anyone in Nigeria claim to be ignorant of this? It is similar to certificate forgery. Now you understand. It is a crime. Whoever engages in it or aids and abets its committal is a criminal. All schools of thought, cultures and civilizations agree that forgery and academic fraud is a crime. Anarchists, despite their aversion for law, do not dispute the fact that academic fraud is…
The offence of this innocent kids is that they committed no offence. To commit no offence has recently become an offence in our dear country. A common saying, courtesy of our corrupt political system which gives wings to corruption and the corrupt, is “steal goat and rot in prison; loot billions of naira from public funds and become a hero”. Should we now say ‘seek knowledge and waste your life’? For I don’t understand why students are becoming endangered. This is even worrisome as the occurrence of students’ kidnapping is more frequent in the northern states which are still considered…
It is funny to link failure of government to evil forces. Witches and wizards are everywhere; not only in Nigeria. China remains a traditional society; and you know what I mean. Yet they are a leading economy in the world. Islam acknowledges the existence of evil forces for us to take precaution against them; not to use them as excuse for our failure. If care is not taken, everyone who commits a crime will attribute it to evil forces. Then, the rule of law, punishments, law enforcement agencies and the courts would be useless. Evil forces, from Islamic perspective, are…
Those in government have said so. We shall be awaiting a constitutional amendment or restructuring to make it official. For in principle, Nigeria is a democratic state. In reality however, only a few would disagree that it practices DEMONcracy. Recall that in my article last week, I defined it as “a system of government that is guided by democratic fetishism. It is a fetish democracy. Or in other words, fetishization of democracy where demons, witches and wizards hold sway in the general administration”. This is, for now, a working definition. Scholars, perhaps, will come up with authoritative definitions when we…
We fervently pray that Year 2021 Ramadan—for Nigerian Muslims—should remain the worst. Don’t get me wrong. It means subsequent Ramadans should be better than this. Insecurity, for the first time in the history of Nigeria, is considered to be worse than the Nigerian Civil War. This should not generate unnecessary argument. It is a reality—a lived reality. Insecurity during the civil war did not envelop the whole country. The war theatre was majorly in the South and some part of the West. But insecurity, as I write, is all encompassing—it spares no single region in Nigeria. What catastrophizes the whole…
