By SUNNY IKHIOYA

Dr. Dele Sobowale introduced the piece in his Sunday Vanguard column of March 9 in words which I think are more appropriate to this discourse. “In every community, there is a class of people profoundly dangerous to the rest. I don’t mean the criminals, for them we have punitive sanctions. I mean the leaders. Invariably, the most dangerous people seek power” -Saul Bellow, 1915-2005.

The governors of Katsina, Kebbi, Bauchi and Kano states declared a full one month schools closure because of the current Ramadan fasting for Muslims. Meanwhile, normal work will continues in the civil service, businesses and other areas. Do we consider this a progressive or retrogressive action?  Your guess is as good as mine. 

Meanwhile, Saudi Crown Prince, Muhammed Bin Salman was telling the world: “We only want to go back to where we were, the moderate of Islam that is open to the world, open to all religions. Seventy per cent of the Saudi people are less than 30 years old, and quite frankly, we will not waste 30 years of our lives in dealing with extremist ideas. We will destroy them today. We want to live a normal life. A life that translates our moderate religion and good customs. We will exist and live in the world and contribute to the development of the world. This is something, steps that have been taken in the past and are clear. I believe that we will eradicate the rest of extremism very soon…”  

So, why is our case different? Keepers/custodians of the religion in other climes are going contemporary and progressive,  while some of our leaders here are determined to set us backwards. It is not because of the love of their religion; the act was deliberately contrived to stir up emotions and reactions from people. We have maintained in the past that some leaders  in Nigeria only use religion and ethnicity as purpose vehicles for their selfish interests. With this situation and knowing the antecedents of such leaders, how will you compare the performance of children in that part of the country with their counterparts in other states? Why are they just bringing this up now? People have been fasting all these years without such restrictions.  Who benefits from such action. The governors need to give us an explanation.  

I remember story narrated by the late Dan Massan of Kano, Yusuf Maitama Sule (1929-2017), a former member, House of Representatives of Nigeria and a strong voice of the Northern region in an interview. He quoted a  professor he met. According to him: “This gentleman told me that he knew why we were out. We wanted to get support and sympathy for Nigeria and to explain the federal cause to the international community. He explained that the international community was not particularly interested in Nigeria as such, all that people were interested in were our resources”. 

Yusuf Maitama Sule quoted the professor thus: “If we could get robots to exploit your resources for us to develop our economies, we wouldn’t mind the whole lot of you being eliminated. 

In the case of Nigeria, there is a difference. And, the difference is that Nigerians are very hard working and very intelligent, and they have got resources, most of which they knew next to nothing about. If this country Nigeria, with all of these resources, both human and material, was to have an uninterrupted 20 years of peace and stability, it would be another Japan. Because these intelligent, hardworking Nigerians would come to know about these resources, they would use their intelligence and work hard and exploit these resources, and develop their economy. A developing economy needs a market. 

“In your own case, you have no problem with the market. Your population is large enough to provide the market that you need. And, even without that, the Nigerian market is the entire West African region and beyond. So, you have no problem with the market. Therefore, if you are given an uninterrupted period of 20 years of peace and stability, you would become another Japan, you will threaten our economy, you would be a thorn in our flesh.” That was the view of the professor in 1967. He, therefore, ended by saying that: “Even after the civil war, we will not allow you to rest. We would create one problem after another for you.” 

So, for Maitama Sule: “Knowing this, therefore, I feel that inspite of our shortcomings, which I must admit we have, there is a kind of orchestrated campaign against Nigeria, so that it may not emerge the economic giant that it is destined to be…”  

For every crisis you are seeing in Nigeria today, some people, institutions or foreign interests are somewhere beating the drums. If this information is out there in the open, why are we not doing something about it? We have not had an uninterrupted five years of peace and stability in this country since independence. The Sharia as introduced by Zamfara’s Ahmed Sani on October 27, 1999, is one of such triggers for crisis. The Boko Haram insurgency, banditry and terrorism in Nigeria were all contrived. It is in  the same vein that some people came out to announce the introduction of sharia in Ekiti and Oyo states. It is deliberately targeted towards destabilisation and that is why the authorities must not take it lightly. 

For emphasis, we must note that this is the first time they are closing schools for Ramadan fasting in Nigeria’s history. With the Sharia council and other groups already calling for more states to join them, what then happens to adherents of other religions in the states? A perfect recipe for chaos. For this nation to attain the much anticipated development, our traditional and religious institutions must be put in their proper perspective. Many people have been brain-washed in this regard; our perpetual enemies are using that route to keep their agenda alive. 

Our leaders must act fast. Who benefits from the destabilisation of Nigeria? Who is happy with the killings and destruction happening in different parts of the country? Why add petrol to an already  raging fire? The Saudis, UAE, Qatar and the rest have adopted a moderate stance. Our religious leaders must follow this example and eschew fanaticism. Our government also must not stand passively, watching helplessly. 

  *Ikhioya wrote via: http://www.southsouthecho.com