By Is’haq Modibbo Kawu
WHAT has a poor transvestite (the Northern phenomenon of DAN DAUDU) got to do with Nigeria’s security challenge today? Everything apparently!

Last Saturday, practically every Nigerian newspaper front page carried pictures of a young man, dressed like a woman, arrested as suspect, in the attempted assassination of General Muhammed Buhari in Kaduna.

It was certainly a day of madness in the city that I reside in. There had been an earlier attempt on the highly revered Islamic scholar, Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi. Many lost their lives in these attempts, but Nigeria was spared of unthinkable horror had the terrorists succeeded in claiming the lives of two of the most popular individuals in Nigeria, certainly in Northern Nigeria, today!

Following the crimes and to be seen as pro-active in the so-called ‘war on terror’, Nigeria’s embattled security forces effected an arrest at the scene of the attack on General Buhari. The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) announced “the capture of a man it described as the mastermind of Wednesday’s botched suicide attack on former Head of State, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari”, according to THE NATION newspaper of Saturday, July 26, 2014, “the suspect was arrested at the scene of the blast in Kaduna dressed like a woman.

His true sex was established only after his arrest”. Gen. Chris Olukolade, Director of Defence Intelligence, who issued the statement, said the suspect “had disguised as a woman clad in female garb to exude feminity with a brazier affixed to his chest. The suspect was arrested while trying to fizzle into a crowd of onlookers when the patrol team arrived the scene”. Well, Well, Well!

Saturday newspapers had a field day feasting on DHQ’s ‘earth-shattering’ revelation! THE NATION lead with three pictures in tow: “KADUNA BLAST ‘MASTERMIND’ ARRESTED”; SATURDAY PUNCH screamed “SOLDIERS ARREST BOMBER DISGUISED AS WOMAN IN KADUNA”, it also carried three pictures of the ‘mastermind’.

Pictures of the mastermind

SATURDAY VANGUARD also had three pictures and its bullet point caption read: “MAN DISGUISED AS WOMAN ARRESTED”. In true tabloid fashion, SATURDAY SUN blew up a picture of the queer young man along with a smaller picture showing the ‘mastermind’ in an ill-fitting brazier, and a screaming headline: “FACE OF BOMBER”, plus a bullet point “SUSPECT BEHIND KADUNA BLASTS DISGUISED AS WOMN, ARRESTED”, attributed to the Military.

It seemed the media became wittingly, part of a propaganda blitz by an under fire security apparatus, which needed some success story and given the scale of the bombers’ criminal ambitions and their high profile targets, they needed to quickly arrest ‘suspects’ or ‘masterminds’ of any description, even the most absurd. And the national feeling for some good news was equally exploited through the reportage.

Otherwise, the media should have been more circumspect about any piece of news from DHQ and especially, Gen. Chris Olukolade. Wasn’t he the same individual who announced to an expectant nation that the abducted Chibok girls had been freed, only for us to discover that we had been conned?

But there is a far more
nuanced issue that was lost in the arrest of the alleged “mastermind”. This was the cultural angle that won’t be lost in Northern Nigeria. When I saw the pictures posted, I was convinced that the “mastermind” was actually a transvestite, a typical DAN DAUDU, available in cities of Northern Nigeria. I do not for one moment say that there might not be a security angle to his presence at the scene of crime.

The security forces must ferret that out painstakingly. But the “mastermind” seems either a DAN DAUDU or has dressed as one, to exploit a cultural/sexual phenomenon that is easily recognizable in a Northern Nigerian setting. I was still thinking about the issue when a DAILY TRUST report revealed the arrested “mastermind” as being a certain Mansir Yusuf; his mother is a Zubeida Yusuf resident in Mando, in Kaduna. Zubeida gave credence to my suspicion that the chap was the typical “queer”.

Zubeida said: “my son is not a terrorist. What is wrong with him is an evil spiritual attack which is making him to prefer women’s clothing and to act as one who is mentally retarded. Everyone in Mando knows that he only has a spiritual condition that is making him to act strangely.

He often dresses normally from home, but whenever he gets to an uncompleted building, he would go in and change to female clothes. He usually carries his bag. He has been taken to the Village Head several times and has been flogged in the hope to cast away the spirits, but the spirits have remained and have continued to torment him”.

This was the “mastermind” that DHQ, through General Chris Olukolade, presented with gusto to a shocked nation at the weekend! The YAN DAUDU lives on the margins of Northern Nigerian society; they prowl and have sexual liaisons with people, from all strata of our society.

They are a queer subset that society is aware of, tolerates but does not necessarily approve of! That explains why the mother said the “mastermind” suffered an “evil attack”. During the 1990s, I spent a whole week tracking down a group of YAN DAUDU in the Abedi Area of Sabongari in Kano, to interview them for the BBC World Service.

It is good that our security forces have become more proactive in their anti-terror war. Nigerians should support the endeavour; but they need a nuanced appreciation of the cultural complexities of society, so that they won’t be on a wild goose chase, while real terrorists plot their evil against all of us.

But honestly the pictures posted of the alleged “mastermind” of the Kaduna assassination attempts, did not convince. They seem to have arrested a DAN DAUDU who is in the wrong place at a tragic moment.

DHQ must show that it has not gone after a soft target as a convenient straw man, because of the pressure for success in the anti-terror war. And while on this, may they also act just as fast, to arrest the “masterminds” who murdered in cold blood, three sons of Sheikh Ibrahim Elzakzaky in Zaria, last weekend.

I WAS tension-soaked on Monday night as sprinters lined up for the final of the Women’s 100 meters at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, in Glasgow, Scotland. This was directly because Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare was one of those searching for glory. She won her semi-final race, posting the fastest time of all the athletes including the favourite, Veronica Campbell-Brown, many-time World and Olympics Champion. At the 2012 London Olympics, Okagabre had similarly run a fast semi-final of 10.92secs., but was to come last in the final with an underwhelming 11.01secs! It was a painful disappointment for the courageous young lady that has become a visible ambassador of Nigerian athletics. She carries herself with so much grace, determination and modesty.

But back to Monday night. Even the commentators tipped Blessing Okagbare to do something spectacular because of the way she had attacked her heats and semi-final. When the starters gun boomed, our Blessing got a marvelous start and by the seventy-fifth meter, it was clear she was headed for the first position. She dusted a star-studded line up and by posting a new Commonwealth record time of 10. 85seconds, Blessing Okagbare broke Debbie Ferguson’s twelve-year-old record of 10. 91seconds.It was a most wonderful evening for Nigerian sprinting, recalling the glorious eras of Nigerian domination of Commonwealth sprinting.

I saw a jubilant Governor Emannuel Uduaghan of Delta state in the stadium and recalling what Uduaghan did to promote the young lady’s career, I sent him a congratulatory text. Emmanuel Uduaghan supported Blessing Ukagbare’s career through the generous provision of training grants to assist her, ensuring that she could train in relative security.

Relative security

That meant that she could choose the meets to participate in, in line with a programme worked out with her coaches. The result is that she can pace herself according to her programme and peak at the right time for the most important competitions. We must not underrate the importance of this level of support, for any athlete or sports person. During the 1990s, Nigerian sprinters were some of the best in the world. But they had to depend on participation in the lucrative athletics circuit to earn a livelihood. They were often left to their devices by the nation’s athletics authorities; so by the time the major international events come and all of us are expecting these athletes to excel, they were already burnt out by the exertions in the circuit.

 God bless our Blessing Okagbare

Burden bearer: It was this problem that Emmanuel Uduaghan took away from Blessing Okagbare and it was therefore no surprise, that the young lady did all of us proud in Glasgow. I was so delighted on Monday night that I posted a short piece about Blessing Okagbare on the Nigerian Collective online forum.

This must be the third piece I have written about this young ambassador of Nigerian sports in the past two years. I think her examples of commitment, gracefulness and patriotism should be widely recognized, celebrated and emulated in Nigeria.

Blessing Okagbare is a noteworthy representation of the best of Nigerian womanhood and youth and I talk as a father of four daughters, that our girls, ladies and women possess remarkable qualities that should be encouraged and nurtured for national development. I think every positive female role model should be publicised, especially in Northern Nigeria, where the force of tradition has often been used to hamstring the education, advancement, social and sporting participation of our women.

There is no society that can reach the level of development that it aspires to or deserves, where the women are not given the ambience to flower.

I think in a very young country as Nigeria is today, with 63% of our population being under 25 and 75% under 35, we need to redouble effort to provide the ambience for the flowering of our young in positive, nation building endeavours.

And what is more edifying as the field of sports? Young people have tremendous energy to burn and are always full of ideals. We need to provide the outlets to creatively and positively direct this energy otherwise, they will find the negative outlets, since nature is said to abhor a vacuum.

We must revolutionise our sports, in the manner that the late Chief Isaac Akioye did during the 1970s, which then provided the platform for Nigerian dominance of many sporting disciplines and a consistent development of elite sportsmen, into the last few decades. Blessing Okagbare has once again shown what our young people can be about. May God bless our lovely Blessing Okagbare, the Commonwealth sprint champion!