₦airaland Forum

I think it is step in the right direction but a lot still needs to be done to win the trust and confidence of the Christians. the suspicion and skepticism of the Christians in this case is understandable when all this solidarity  visits were only made when a christian president is the subject matter. i could remember a similar situation during the early days of the Obasanjo first term when a nationwide industrial action was most effective in the northern part of the country.

Whether one likes it or not, the greatest problem facing the country right now is not the subsidy issue but the Boko Haram insurgency and the attendant indiscriminate massacre of xtians. this is the best avenue to show solidarity and fraternity with the xtians. but in a situation whereby prominent Muslim leaders can not come out and denounce the boko haram in unequivocal terms instead of trying to rationalize what is tantamount to a genocide i doubt if the Christians would swallow this without a great deal of wariness.

How i wish Nigeria's so called muslim leaders will be as concise categorical and convincing in their condemnation of the Boko Haram.
Below is an article written by Imam Mohammed Majid he is the president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)


Dear Fellow Brothers and Sisters in Islam, it is with great sadness that we have heard the devastating news of the deplorable acts of violence committed against our brothers and sisters of the Christian faith in Nigeria. Our prayers go out to the family, friends and community of all those who have lost loved ones and those who were injured.

These horrific acts of violence demand from us Muslims and people of all faiths around the globe to stand up against all those who perpetrate such horrific acts. Violence of any kind against any people cannot be ignored. Transgressions against people's rights are occurring today across all boundaries. Regardless of what perpetrators of such acts claim to hold over any other person, to live safely is a right, and we must all stand up to protect the right for all people. "Stand for justice even if it is against yourself" (Quran Surat-un-Nisa, Chapter 4, Verse 135).

It is those who truly know the religion of Islam who, despite our differences, engage in peaceful dialogue and wholeheartedly forsake acts of violence like this. As dedicate worshippers we recognize that an injustice in one part of the world is never validated by another injustice. Human life is sacred and it is never acceptable to take a person's life to promote a political agenda. Violence is never the answer. We must create a community of harmony with and respect for others. This is the example of our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the teachings of our faith. In a time of our history, Muslims were persecuted to the point that they had to flee from their homes, and we must remember it was the gracious Christian King of Abyssinia who opened his arms, welcoming the Muslims to live safely in his land, under his protection. He helped us preserve the tradition of our Prophet and the peaceful and loving religion of Islam. Muslims must use the King's example in all of our interactions with people of other faiths. Umar ibn al-Khattāb, the second leader of the Muslim community after Prophet Muhammad's death (May God be pleased with him), out of respect for the Church decided not to pray in a Jerusalem Church so that Muslims would not incorrectly feel that they had any entitlement to take it over in the future. He taught us that it is the responsibility of Muslims to protect the religions and religious places of worship in lands in which Muslims are the majority or minority.

The beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) said, "Whoever violates the rights of the People of the Book, I will complain against them on the Day of Judgment." There is none amongst us who wants to be complained against by our Beloved Prophet and teacher. Those who committed injustices against the Christians of Nigeria have distanced themselves from the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad and from his love on the Last Day. Our community must take a strong stand against these criminals and stand beside the innocent people of Nigeria. We, as Muslims, will answer the call of Archbishop John Onaiyekan who called on Muslims to stand against the murderers, as this is not a representation of any aspect of Islam. We stand by the Archbishop during this time and we share with you the words of our Beloved Prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah:

This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them.
Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by God! I hold out against anything that displeases them.
No compulsion is to be on them.
Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses.
Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet.
Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate.
No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight.
The Muslims are to fight for them.
If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray.
Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants.
No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world).
We have the example of those before us, like the King of Abyssinia, and we have the example of those among us, like Pastor James Wuye and his friend, Imam Muhammad Ashafa. During violent clashes against each other in their days as youth in Nigeria, each suffered the loss of loved ones as the hands of the other. After years of being set on revenge the two were brought together and abandoned their hopes for revenge, opting instead for the hope of harmony and peace. Together, as friends of different faiths, they have established the Interfaith Mediation Center of the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Forum in Nigeria. Their courage and determination to rise above evil is what we must all strive toward. That is the teaching of all of our faiths, and the path to peaceful living.

Violence against religious minorities should outrage every Muslim with a conscience because such violence is a misrepresentation of our beloved Prophet Muhammad and transgression of the core of our beliefs. It is a distortion of the beautiful message of Islam. The Muslim community must be leaders in standing against violence. This is the responsibility of the Muslims of Nigeria and Muslims all around the world. I call upon my fellow imams, Muslim scholars and American Muslims to stand against the actions of those who attacked Christian churches. I have asked the King of Jordan, the Council of Muslims Scholars and the leaders of Tunisia to convene a Muslim scholars' conference to protect the rights of minorities in Muslim-majority countries, and they have accepted. We must continue this effort by establishing a council specifically for Muslims and Christians, and work together with the International Interfaith Peace Corps, a new organization, to address the issues of conflict and violence taking place between communities of faith. And we should help to establish leadership roles to reconcile these differences. In addition, we must incorporate into our community curriculums the prophetic examples of how to work together with people of other faiths.

And finally the Muslims of Nigeria, and around the world, must be the example by helping our Christian brothers and sisters to rebuild the destroyed churches and take care of the victims of Nigeria, just as my mosque community, by the Grace of God, was able to do for the churches in Pakistan.

"O YOU who have attained to faith! Be ever steadfast in your devotion to God, bearing witness to the truth in all equity; and never let hatred of anyone lead you into the sin of deviating from justice. Be just: this is closest to being God-conscious. And remain conscious of God: verily, God is aware of all that you do" (Quran Surat Al-Maidah, Chapter 5, Verse .

We pray that God will help us to stand for what is right and leave all that is evil and promote understanding and harmony amongst each other. Let us work together to stop violence of all forms against all people.



The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) has served the Muslims of this continent for more than 40 years. ISNA is one of the Largest and a Premier National Muslim Organization that attracts more than40,000 Muslims at its Annual Convention and Coordinates with several hundred Mosques across the USA. All Dulles Area Muslim Societ y(ADAMS) is one of the largest Muslim communities/mosques in the DC Metro ADAMS serves more than 6,000 families and has 10 branches in Virginia/D.C.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/imam-mohamed-magid/muslims-stand-up-against-nigeria-anti-christian-violence_b_1171584.html

@Katsumoto

You will not fully understand sanusi without a full psycho analysis of his persona.

I have been studying sanusi for a long time and over the years i have come to the conclusion that he is an inconsistent and confused person.

He is moulded in the image of a very few liberal northerners like Nasiru Elrufai, Dangiwa Umar and may be the late Bala Usman of ABU Zaria. Comfortable in wearing western suits and confident in the command of the English language. And of course able to go against some norms in the north, like his wife accompanying him to the senate hearing etc.

But by and large he is still gripped by the image of Islamic activism of which he was an active member in the late 80s Whose aim was to establish sharia rule in Nigeria by violent means if necessary. It is this crusading zeal and mindset that he brought to the CBN. His so called fearlessness stems from this and of course his royal arrogance that makes him to regard everybody as a bloody commoner.

@blims
go on; use it; no problem; just acknowledge source.

i still mantain that sanusi is not fit to hold such a sensitive post. he has no track record and his six months stint in sudan to study arabic does not make him an authority on islam nor is his obnoxious articles which are either attacking his enemies like kwankwaso or sheikh jafar or espounding the superiority of fulfulde (fulani) phylosophy over others or denigrating the minorites in niger delta for their agitation or  castigating the ibos and yorubas for their political  "comedy of errors". and he does it without apology after all he is a prince and respects no body especially the various commoners he comes across. i was brought up in kano in close proximity to the royal house and word can not desribe the daily humiliation and iniquity meted on commoners.

the leading islamic source of jurispudence the alazhar university in cairo in 2002  issued a fatwa or edict on interset-taking has and it will inerest you to see their conclusion on the subject. i am sure sanusi cant compete with them with his sudanese certficate  in elementary arabic. you will realise that all this controversy he is generating is totally ucalled for.

it will also interest you to read this little excerpt on the controversy and how the islamic banks are abused by the so-called promoters:


"Some Islamic banks charge for the time value of money, the common economic definition of Interest (Riba). These institutions are criticized in some quarters of the Muslim community for their lack of strict adherence to Sharia.
The concept of Ijarah is used by some Islamic Banks (the Islami Bank in Bangladesh, for example) to apply to the use of money instead of the more accepted application of supplying goods or services using money as a vehicle. A fixed fee is added to the amount of the loan that must be paid to the bank regardless if the loan generates a return on investment or not. The reasoning is that if the amount owed does not change over time, it is profit and not interest and therefore acceptable under Sharia.
Islamic banks are also criticized by some for not applying the principle of Mudarabah in an acceptable manner. Where Mudarabah stresses the sharing of risk, critics point out that these banks are eager to take part in profit-sharing but they have little tolerance for risk. To some in the Muslim community, these banks may be conforming to the strict legal interpretations of Sharia but avoid recognizing the intent that made the law necessary in the first place.[citation needed]
The majority of Islamic banking clients are found in the Gulf states and in developed countries. With 60% of Muslims living in poverty, Islamic banking is of little benefit to the general population. The majority of financial institutions that offer Islamic banking services are majority owned by Non-Muslims. With Muslims working within these organizations being employed in the marketing of these services and having little input into the actual day to day management, the veracity of these institutions and their services are viewed with suspicion. One Malaysian Bank offering Islamic based investment funds was found to have the majority of these funds invested in the gaming industry; the managers administering these funds were non Muslim.[42] These types of stories contribute to the general impression within the Muslim populace that Islamic banking is simply another means for banks to increase profits through growth of deposits and that only the rich derive benefits from implementation of Islamic Banking principles.
Hence, the controversy that surrounds Islamic Banking continues. Is Islamic Banking really Islamic? This is a question that still is a matter of debate among the Muslim academia"

@ nagoma
your guntin larabci is very funny. you and bashdecash i wonder which radio station you listen to to study arabic. i believe that was the way you studied islam too listening to cheap dubbed cassettes, not researching on your own and forming opinion in the most unenlightened and unreformed manner. for your information she camel is not called 'jamalah' in arabic but 'iblu'. i am not a camel but a human being and jamalh is a combination of my two names jamal and ahmad.

your last post reminds me of ustaz faruk chedi in kano in the late eighties and ealy nineties. he delivered a very famous lecture then. if you are a kano man or is conversant with the rumblings then in the name of islamic revival you will recall the lecture where he was calling for all the calendar months to be changed to arabic ones." jaunary. gunki ne! march gunki! ne april gunki ne!".
meaning january february march et al are all idols. this kind of intolerance are what led to the taliban destroying the budha statues in bamiyan. the belief that if we observe those holidays with our xtian compatriots we are also partaking in their festivities or church going. only a demented and totally obfuscated mind will ever think in such a line. ever wonder why gideon orkar tried to eject us from the nigerian federation?
by the way the aforementioned cleric was appointed the head of the morality police in kano when shekarau came on board. the man was so corrupt that even by shekarau's standards it was just much and had to be relieved of his job.

@jarus
pls shut up your mouth.  i was responding to akanbi edu who questioned my islam. you dont have to prove that you are a sanusi ass licking bigot here and your being a 'nairaland official' does not make you an authority.  in spite of reading tons of religious essays written by sanusi you still cant decipher his mind set. only in nigeria can such a person (who has made his partisanship so clear in so many treatises) be made a central bank chief.

in the first place there is nothing like islamic banking. i remember an interview in the eighties with professor Muhammad Abdussalam the Pakistani and first Muslim nobel laureate. when he was asked about the idea of 'islamic scienc. and he responded that it was no valid than the idea of 'islamic football'. what muslims are concerned about and the quran mentioned is 'riba', loosely translated as interest. what the quran said was 'wala ta'kulur riba ad'afan muda'afan'. note, ad'afan muda'afan 'interest upon interest' the type that you can only attribute to loan sharks. this is a vast academic topic that i will not like to delve into on this forum. by the way interest rates in the advanced economies are temperate and used as a tool of fiscal regulations. in the us the rate is 0.25%. i dont think that can be classified as adafan muda afan.

it is absurd the way pple view islamic banks. i ve heard of pple salivating and dreaming of just walking into a bank and walking out with millions. lending is all about bankability. if you are not bankable forget it in the sense that you have a viable business plan and of course  a recourse inevent of a failure.

the last time they promised us that sharia will solve our problems. but we now know better.
enough of this hood wink.

@akanbi
i am muslim but perhaps not your type of 'muslim'. let me tell you the issue here is pluralism. we need to respect the feelings and aspirations of each and every member of the society. look at the united states for instance. can you guess the percentage  of gays and lesbians: 0.7% of the population and no politician will be bold enough to come out and castigate them or relegate their interest to the gutters. but here is a central bank governor boldly pronouncing over the bbc that he does not care for the concerns of 50% of the populace. imagine a politician doing that in the us, i am sure that is the end of his career.

muslims, especially of the north still live with  the mentality of the middle ages when they held sway over arabia where the population was homogeneous. in a case like that of naija we need to fashion out a way lo live with others not in dominion but respect for each other.

it is the mentality of spiritual superiority that created the boko haram taliban and of course sanusi's constipated idea os islamic banking : that some very few pple know what is good for the whole populace and they must be forced to obey those wishes.

creating policy by fiat and force are outdated and they will never stand the test of time.

in the first place banking is not the priority of muslims in the north. a populace that has been decimated by corruption, feudalism (the like promoted by sanusi and his fore fathers) illiteracy and many other unspeakable extremities does not need all this drama. you only save and invest when you have enough to spare. what with a person that is even yet to feed himself. let me tell you  i grew up in the heart of kano city and i know the level of poverty and deprivation suffered by our pple. when you talk of banks in kano, the biggest northern commercial hub it is clustered around a very small enclave of the kwari market and bello road and by and large they only service traders in sabon gari market and kwari textile market.

these are traders who only seek for a place to keep their money. they know very little about investment and dont even trust such ventures. a lot of them keep hard cash in their shops because their trading is not cheque-based and they cant be bothered with running to the bank every now and then. that is why when the annual fire occurs in these markets we hear of millions burnt to ashes in their shops.

the other banks are all salary 'banks'. when i used to work in kura local govt branch of afribank, the only activity is at the end of the month when the monthly subvention of cash comes from the central govenment. the chairman withdraws everything and tips us and the branch manager and that is it. we wait for another month ending. where is the investment? and that is why the jaiz bank never took off in the first place.

whether we like it or not the bulk of the banking activities, more than 80% by some estimates, are located in the lagos axis.

oue priority in the north are three things: education education education

@naijaking1
i served in the former ondo state, ekiti to be precise and what really touched me was the principal of the school i served.
though a christian but he would always make provisions for me to attend prayers in the mosque, even asking me if i had said my prayers.
the same with my ekiti girlfriend then. the trouble with christians in the south is that by and large they believe that we all serve  the same God and that somehow heaven is like a market to which many roads lead. so long as you are good to your fellow human beings they dont care what you worship. that is why i was surprised when a high-ranking xtian cleric declared that fela will go to heaven before many that profess christianity. the reverse am sorry is however the case when it comes to us Muslims especially in the north. we are brought up to undermine any other faith by any means at our disposal. whether its through proselytism, outright bribery or even violence.  that is why a muslim will hardly encourage a xtian to be steadfast in his faith by telling him to go to church. we dont wish our non-muslim compatriots well. for instance in the north we dont have a way of condoling the dead if it were non muslim because the language of condolence as we know it in hausa is exclusively reserved for muslims. like 'allah ya jikan sa', may god forgive him his trespasses. we dont believe that there is any mercy or forgiveness for non-muslims no matter how good they were in their life time. when a close christian associate is to be consoled for instance for the death of a loved one we will only wriggle round the words using terms like' sorry', etc. but never ever pray for his soul. or even outright insult like 'allah ya kara nauyin kasa'. may god increase the weight of the soil over him.

there was a very popular story years back when i was growing up about the way Mallam Gumi a prominent cleric and the former grand khadi of the north when president Gowon's father died. he had tobe  consoled but the mallam was at a quandary as to what words to use: a prominent sheikh wont be caught committing the blasphemy of wishing a dead infidel well. the tale goes that he had cleverly used the words' allah ya sa shima ya tafi inda kakanninsa suka tafi'. meaning may he go and meet his ancestors . ie wherever they are whether in heaven or hell. he had killed two birds with a single stone. not committing a blunder nor wrong footing Gowon. contrast it with the attitude of the prophet muhammad when he was alive who was reported to stand up whenever the corpse of even a non-muslim was being carried past him. incidentally he even attended and conducted the funeral service of his arch enemy and adversary in Medina, Ibn Salul and used his shawl to cover his corpse. this was someone who technically speaking could be called an apostate.
moreover when the muslims in the early days of islam were persecuted by the idolaters in mecca, they had no where to run but Ethiopia a christian nation where the ruler Negus refused to hand over the early Muslims to their enemies which could have been disastrous for the infant faith. when Negus died years later and islam had become well established, the prophet had organised and conducted a special prayer for him in far away medina
another blatant display of insensitivity was during the ANPP primaries i believe in 2007 when buhari emerged as the presidential flagbearer. i could remember when yarima was called upon to make a speech, he started with a 'muslim' prayer that if the other non-muslim candidates had known the meaning they would have walked out of the eagle square immediately. the prayer, allahumma aizzil islama wal muslimin wa azillishshirka wal mushrikin  bla bla bla. the long and short of it is imploring God to elevate muslims and destroy and humiliate  non muslims of nigeria. incidentally this sort of curses had even been banned in saudi arabia where they originated by the monarch in the wake of the sept 11 bombings which he believed was one of the fodders that encourage terrorism.
i believe this kind of prayers are very inappropriate in a multi religious setting like nigeria. if nation-building  cooperation ethnic and religious harmony and patriotism are the hallmarks of nation-building i wonder if this kind of expletives will aid or mar the effort.

@bilms

well, i dont know how the copyright issue will be negotiated here.
as for me i don't care, just trying to throw light on some issues that are of concern to me.
but i wont mind if you hand over i million naira cash to seun in royalty. he deserves it. lol!!

i just listened to the purported interview conducted of sanusi lamido sanusi by the bbc

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/hausa/multimedia/2011/06/110624_sanusi_video.shtml ) and to be frank he never made mention of a so-called Ibo man investing in the Jaiz bank. But perhaps this was a shorter video clip obviously conducted at the London studios and posted on the Hausa service's website. The radio clip might be longer and may have contained the statement.
But if that was true that he concealed the religion of the Ibo business man in concern, and if really it is true that he meant alhaji Abdulazeez Ude, then it not only shows the shallowness of Sanusi but reflects the mind-set of most Hausa Fulani. the suspicion of other non-hausa fulani muslims as not being 'islamic' enough that and their only genuine identity being their tribe not religion. I could remember when I was attending Rumfa College in the eighties an Ibo member of our class called mohammed usman. But we rarely ever called him his name but the nickname 'inyamirin musulmi'. (Ibo Muslim) he resisted but after sometime he just has to accept it. we couldn't just wrap our heads around the fact that an Ibo person will profess Islam. As an aside this is the reason why when so called religious riots break out in the north, Muslims of non Hausa origin are also attacked if not even more brutally. during the reprisal attacks in kano against pple of Yoruba origin in July 1999 some of them were killed in mosques in the kurna area. one of the victim was even a muezzin and according to reports he was hacked while calling for prayers.

be that as it may, he made a startling and quite disturbing assertion in the short clip that further exposed his mindset. he said and i quote :" it is usual in Nigeria that if an outcry is made over an issue one may be forced to back down. but you know i am not thet type of person". what will come to ones mind is that he has no regard for a large segment of the Nigerian populace that has a reservation toward his actions. As far as he is concerned they are inconsequential. This is a continuation of the mindset of hausa fulani pple that what they want is the only thing that matters in Nigeria.

several things come to mind with all the drama-plagued career of sanusi at the cbn.

sanusi is still a staunch hausa-fulani islamist. moulded in the supremasist beliefs that they are better than any other race in nigeria. i used to be an islamist too almost at the same time that sanusi was an active member, so i am familiar with their way of thinking thoroughly. One may wonder how such a staunch fundamentalist ended up in the 'forbidden' interest-taking banking sector which medieval clerics believe is even worse that indulging in other vices like the consumption or sales of alcohol. the persuasive excuse normally in such a case is 'if we muslims shun the interest-taking banking sector then the whole financial power will be in the hands of infidels'.but even then the guilt still lurk in the mind of most hausa muslims that what they are doing will make them end up in hell fire. i suffered the same fate. when i finished secondary school i got admission to study law at the Bayero University in kano even before the waec came out. awaiting result as it was called then. i had a bright prospect as a lawyer which i scuttled due to belief that i will be studying un islamic laws. i was steeped in islamic activism then and indoctrinated against anything modern or western. we used to call the constitution then derisively 'kwanche-tushe'. which means unravelling of origin (religious). how i wished i had someone to give me a persuasive excuse then and go to the university. any way i redeemed my losses later in life and career but i would have done so earlier even before leaving the shore of nigeria. so with such a mind set, one will see that sanusi is unfit to occupy such a sensitive post. but then this is nigeria, where one can rule even the whole nation with the aim of protecting only a certain segment of the population.

so one way or the other, one will see that this staunch determination to ram islamic banking down our throats could in one way or the other be an attempt to rid himself of the guilt and fear of damnation and at the same time gain some cheap popularity among the hausa fulani populace.

one very interesting aside to the whole saga was when i looked at the jaiz bank directors board an interesting insight came to my mind. abdulmutallab, the father of the underwear bomber became more interesting and further buttresses this assertion of mine. during the xmas bombing issue, a cousin of mine who was very close to members of the family told me that what prmopted his father to alert the authorities was when during his last confrontation with his dad the son had told him that he was breaking all ties with him because he made his money through the unlawful interest-based banking system. he now gave his father a condition for purifying his dirty wealth : help alqaeda. when the father prodded him further he disclosed his contacts with the terrorist orgnization and that was when he realized that his son had reached the point of no return and he had to report him to save his skin. is this a way of 'sanitizing' his wealth?

Another interesting person is Adegbite, who incidentally is occupying the position that Abiola used to in the supreme council of Islamic affairs. is he really a committed investor in the venture or just a dispensable appendage as Abiola was thrown to the dogs when the chips were down.

I am a muslim born and bread in the heart of the ancient Kano city. but i beleive that we muslims especially the north west must come to the realisation that Nigeria is a secular state and actions that threaten that secularity in any shape or form is inimical to the corporate existence of the country. and the more we engage in these kind of insensitive ventures the closer the country moves towards what we dread most: sovereign national conference. and that will really hurt us. moreover i believe that any thing that is not demand-driven will not stand the test of time. when yarima forcefully launched sharia in zamfara state and other northern states followed suit obasanjo said it will die a natural death and it did. the main reason for that was that it was smuggled through the backdoor. none of those governors that launched the sharia included it in their campaign promises. any way, pple are wiser as they have all being completely demystified.
the same goes with sanusi. he never mentioned all these at the senate screening of his candidacy. moreover the jaiz bank idea had been around since the time of abacha and i know of a lot pple (including my mother) still carrying their share certificate since its first ipo for years. for the fact that it could not take off since then says a lot about about the whole idea in the first plac. and of course the personalities involved in the venture. anyway, i personally will not put my money in anything that alhaji Aminu Dantata is involved in. but that is a topic for we 'origina'l, kano city pple that know him very well.

the way bashdecash reasons is not only infantile but terribly flawed. but that is the bane of most of us  northerners.
i wonder what beign a hausa fulani has got to do with the write up and only intolerant narrow minded bigots like bashdecash would ever think that this treatise will cause another riot.
what we are trying to point out is the dangerously irrational way our pple think and reason and how it has not only slowed down the development of the north but the entire nation.
i believe my credential as a commentator on such issues is solid more than bashdecash or his ilks will ever parade.
as a young man i was involved in Islamic activism led by mallam zakzaki. we were at the fore front in the days of the 'gwagwarmaya' (the struggle).
later on the movement split into two and the jama'at tajdid islami (jti) was formed in kano and we were also at the fore front. i wont like to divulge too much about my involvement in the movements for obvious reason.
but the rabid and pathological hatred of our compatriots in the south is what i find intolerable. and it is one of the things that first opened my eyes in my sojourn abroad. i was most flabbergasted when i was living in Syria. for instance the grave of the prophet yahya or john is there at the salahuddin al'ayyubi mosque. but the amazing thing is that both christians and muslims go their to pray especially women praying for a child. and they have never clashed. same with muslims going to christian monks for prayers. it was a picture of harmony in Syria.
another aspect that opened my eye was that all these various races that whole heartedly embraced islam never threw away their pre islamic cultures which they only beautifully sencretised with their new faith. they are not ashamed of their past. for instance in many parts of the middle east the Nowruz is still  celebrated which is a pre islamic Zoroastrian festival. go to egypt they still have the relics of their past thousands of years
ago and is infact ironically their source of livelihood today. the reverse however is the case when it comes to the hausa fulani. we threw away everything. we dont even wan to be in any way associated with our pst or be reminded of it. we are a divine race that just came down pure and untainted from the skies. even our brethren that somehow escaped being islamised we sideline and call bamaguje. where as that very bamaguje is the real unadulterated and pristine hausa man.
language, culture way of life name it. two third of hausa language is diluted, polluted and adulterated Arabic and ironically it does not make a speaker of Hausa to be proficient in arabic.
only last year i was listening to the Dan Masanin Kano, Alhaji Maitama Sule urging researchers to dig deeper and try to find out what the Hausa call numbers before the coming of arabic.
virtually all hausa numbers have diappeared and no one knows what they were called.

@bashdecash
civility demands that you translate whatever you post in Arabic not for my sake but for the sake of others who do not understand the language.
And if you rae posting just for me alone i dont want it. i dont know you; i dont want to know you; i dont even likeshallow pple like you.
this is a public forum if you cant abide by the civility exhibited by everybody here i think you have no business here.

@bashdecash
your childish posts and elementary Arabic which you learnt listening to radio kano is just too amusing.
okay we shall analyse another thief's killing in lagos or enugu as you want but this thread is for GIDEON AKALUKA.
So stop making a fool of yourself and reserve your comments till we start another thread.
and as i said pls whatever you post in any other language other than english pls translate.

@lagosboy
thanks for your observation but if you look well you will notice that i said western or modern education.
a couple of years back i took a tour of many many west african and east african states with my friends. the startling conclusion we reached was that islam was entrenched in most of these countries more than we ever imagined.
islam as practiced in those countries is different to what obtains in northern nigeria. theirs was a tolerant and receptive version that did not prevent them from seeing things in clearer and more lucid terms. and to a lkarge extent their indigenous culture still remeaned by and large.
i believe our backwardness and resistance in northern nigeria has a lot to do with how we perceive our selves.
for instance in hausa the word bahaushe or a hausa man is interchangeable with the word muslim.
we believe hausa and islam are just one thing thus inadvertently we think we are divine no matter what we do and better than others that are not hausa.
we dont believe that we are a 'tribe' but just a race of pple. for instance the hausa term for tibe is 'kabila' but we never ever use such a term for ourselves but others.
same with our language. the term for language in hausa is 'yare' but we can never say yaren hausa or hausa language.
hausa is just hausa. language is a derogatory term reserved for others. at most we may use the term harshe meaning toungue
no wonder during the pogrom of the ibos in the north my dad said that one way of defining an ibo person with not so obvious features is to ask him to pronounce 'gero' the hausa word for millet. most will say 'joro' 'jero' or 'choro' depending on the persons level of proficiency. a failure means automatic death. therefore we attribute mastering of the hausa language with piety and godliness.

thank you bashdecash
the killing of an armed robber in Lagos has nothing to do with his tribe or religion.
the trouble with we northerners is that we are quick to point to vices like smoking cigarette prostitution armed robbery what have you in the south as equivalent to the egregious violations in the north.
only a blind and totally obfuscated mind will ever ever make such comparison.

why cant you reason for a second and ask yourself why must all our protests in the north end up in the killing of innocents. we need to go deep into our soul and question our actions. why dont we take human life as sacred. the quran said that killing a single innocent soul is like killing the whole of humanity and saving a life is like saving the whole of humanity.
we are giulty of all theses atrocities no matter how you look at it.
ive seen young men in kano threaten their well known non-hausa neighbours that they will attack them whem a riot or 'fadan arna'( the war to kill the infidels) starts. and by arna we dont mean infidels only or non muslims. its a blanket term that encompasses anything or any body that is not hausa-fulani
i know you are not such a person bashdecash but we cant run away from the fact that it happens in our backyard year after year.

@bashdecash
and pls remember this forum is conducted in English so pls dont resort to Hausa or Arabic so long as its not for reference purposes and even then make sure you make honest translations.

ka rike dan guntun larabcinka

@bashdecash

i dont know what you are afraid of that you cant tell a simple truth. what is the meaning of uwarka ta tsine maka?
if i say that to you will you be happy? in English it means you are accursed of your mother. if that is a compliment i return it back to you.

and what about all this ranting and incoherent and contradictory gibberish that you vomited out?

i am not a traitor to my pple or religion as you said in Arabic. we should be able to have the confidence to critic our selves and proffer solutions not hide under expletives to denounce those with contrarian opinions.
when the a riot occured in kaduna years back when he was the military administrator, col dangiwa umar went their for inspection the first thing that came out of his mouth was that "i am ashamed to profess the same religion as the pple that did this".
thiese are bold pple.
dont forget the quranic verse that said
'wa la yanakum kan'ana qawmin ala alla tadilu, i'dilu huwa aqrabu littaqwa
the meaning is 'do not let the hatred of a pple prevent you from being just towards them. be just it is the closest to piety

@aocalypse
just forget about him. that is the norm in the north to harass and intimidate pple that have opposing views. or still if you persist to get you killed. that was what happened to dr bala usman in kano in the eghties during a riot that erupted over the attempt by the then kano governor rimi to dethrone the emir. he was attacked n the kano secretariat and burned to death in the building.

the solution is hardly modern or western education. pple still view it with a great deal of mistrust. it is deeply ingrained in the northern Hausa Fulani psyche and it will take a herculean task to dissipate. to be frank, it will not be far-fetched to say that the north is still frozen in the mentality that existed in the 1800's when the colonial masters first set foot in Hausa land. so reversing over 200 years of educational psychological cultural and religious stagnation is not a day's job. i could remember when i was a little kid we will come out early in the coming singing abusive songs at the children going to modern schools which we called makarantar boko. boko in hausa means something that is fake or spurious. therefore when i was enrolled in the jarkasa primary school in old kano city it was the saddest day of my life to have to go to an institution which i have dutifully partook in vilifying.  one will partly blame the colonizers for this. because when they left the emirs in authority as opposed to the norm in the south, they simply kept the pple in a fossilized mental state which is the only way they can continue to remain relevant. wonder why in many northern state the emir is still more powerful than an 'elected governor'.
in most muslim countries at the dawn of the colonial masters the monarchy were toppled one after the other. egypt turkey iraq libya tunisia etc followed the 'progressive' road and rendered the parasitic royals into the dusbin of history. though their progressive experiments are still to take them to the promised land, at least they have started somewhere. in the north of nigeria the surface has not even being scratched. there have never being any documented cultural dissident in the north that has ever challenged the backward ways and ideas of our pple. it still amazing that even wearing a suit is still viewed with contempt in many quarters in contrast with say egypt or syria or turkey where even highly regarded clerics wear the best of saville row. as a boys scout back when i was young, we would untuck our shirts and remove the belts in our beleif then that' zanzaro', (tucked in shirt) was a sin that will prevent our prayers being acepted by god. funnily enough i saw a policeman about a year ago when i attended the friday prayers in hausawa quarters still do the same before joining the prayers. when i was attending the egyptian cultural center near fagge for arabic studies in the nineties we marvel at egyptian scholars who teach us but dont conform to what we believe was the normal islamic comportment. they dress like southern nigerians who we were brought up to hate and never imitate. some even scandalously smoke cigarette.
 i could remember in the early nineties when a lady called Kande Balaraba ( of blessed memory) in kano challenged the marriage instituition that it was not a must for a woman to get married countless clerics came out in full force to attack and force her to renounce her claims.
even most recently when a presenter in the freedom radio in kano tried to criticise the almajiri tradition and institution prominent clerics like Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi came out to denounce him and justify the practice. some even organizing special prayers to invike  curses to 'destroy' him and his attempts. sadly enough, this cleric is a confidant of the vice president who
m one would regard as the highest ranking northerner at present.

what bashdecash was saying practically was that for me to take such a line, my mother must have cursed and disowned me.
while chongaiman replied him back to give his own version of the bitter truth.

@bashdecash
uwata bata tsine min ba. matsalar mu ke nan yan arewa. me zai hana ka fito ka ba da hujjoji kwarara domin ka kalubalanci abin da na rubuta, ka kama zagi.
ni dai ba zan zage ka ba ko na ci mutuncin iyayenka domin na san darajar nawa iyayen kuma na san mutucin kaina. kuma manzon tsira ya ce duk wanda aka zaga ya ki mayarwa to zagin ya koma kan wanda ya fara yi.

@muhsin
thanks for your comments.
however i will like to know where i erred.
am grateful to all commentators on this post. really its being an issue on my mind and so many other topics
as i said our orientation is dangerously flawed in the north. we are brought up with a very screwed image of what islam is. we hate our compatriots in the south like hell on whose resources our well being and livelihood rest. and at the same time our skewered world view will not let us see reason or judge issues with open-minded fairness.
i have to confess one thing. what made me to start having second thoughts about our stained-glass world view began years back after the Gideon issue.

in the year 1998 it was discovered in an uncompleted building kalled kango in hausa (and normally pple use such a place as a toilet) a whole bunch of quran scattered about over feces and all manners of impurities. it was a very scandalous issue that really outraged a lot of pple in kano. though no one was caught in the act but there was no need for that because we knew it was the work of yan tsibbu i.e. marabouts that pple consult for fortune-telling and other rituals good or bad and this was probably a ritual to destroy someone.( that is to scatter his life as the quran was scattered over the excreta in the uncompleted building).

it was all over the radio and the newspapers. i was apprehensive that a big riot will break out and all marabouts( and they are well known) will be attacked and killed. but there was none. in two days or three the whole story died out. i wondered where were all the attackers of Gideon Akaluka where were all the pple that demonstrated without even seeing anything. where were they. because for this the evidence was obvious to all and the perpetrators easy to locate.

i later left the country to study abroad but that little seed of doubt had been planted in my mind and from then things were no longer the same.
my conclusion was that we are not a rational pple and easily carried away with sentiment especially if the persons involved was the other.
i looked back to all the issues that had happened in the past and the conclusion that i reached was totally mind-boggling.

In December 1996, a Christian Igbo trader, Mr Gideon Akaluka was reportedly beheaded by muslim youths in the Northern Nigerian city of Kano. According to the report, Mr Akaluka's wife was said to have torn a piece of the Islamic holy book to use as toiltet paper. But some muslim youths in the city went after the husband, who ran into a police station, killed and beheaded him and joyfully paraded with his severed head around the streets of Kano metropolis. When the incident happened I was no more than 18 and not only believed that he was not guilty as charged but deserved the mob justice that he got. But now looking back I over the years I am convinced that Akaluka was an innocent man and was unjustly lynched for a crime he never committed.
According to accounts of the incident, it was a little almajiri boy begging for food or on an errand that discovered the sacrilege. Other accounts claim that it was a' mai ruwa' or water vendor.I reached my own conclusion by putting my self in the position of the whistle-blowing almajiri boy.when I was a little boy growing up in the ancient city of kano, attending quranic school or makarantar allo, I, together with my peers hold anything written in Arabic as sacred. in our ignorance and naivety, we regard anything written with Arabic alphabets as 'sunan Allah' or the name of God. if walking along the street one saw a paper flying around with Arabic written on it even if it were a mere instruction manual we run after it and saved it from falling into impurity. frankly speaking we can not differentiate between the words of the sacred Qur'an and ordinary words of Arabic.
these are the reasons why I believe that Mr Akaluka was innocent:

1. there was no way the Akalukas would ever get hold of a copy of the Qur'an. No Muslim in Kano would ever sell them one even if they were willing to pay a million naira for it. Christians are regarded in northern Nigeria as impure and unfit to handle the holy Quran.

2.secondly, Akaluka was just your run of the mill Ibo trader and not an academician. I find it hard to imagine him as a student of comparative religion poring over pages of religious tomes. even if it were to be so it will be more tenable that he will opt for an English translation which is considered less sacred than the Arabic origina
, would be readable to him and would be unrecognisable to an almajiri anyway.

3. muslims and xtians clean up in different ways after toilet in Nigeria. While the latter normally use tissue papers or even newspaper pages the former use water and their fingers. And the idea that Akaluka was using the pages of the qur'an for such an unclean business must have inflamed passions beyond imagination. But, wait a minute. Using the pages of any book for such a venture is the clumsiest and most inconvenient enterprise in my opinion and even more so that of the qur'an. in Northern Nigeria there exist a very robust quranic hand copying industry done by seasoned mahaddata ( those that have committed the quran to the memory) in very beautiful kufic calligraphy. the paper used is locally called 'holama' a durable paper that looks like bond paper that is used for letterhead etc. using that to clean will only hurt your anus. Even the more recent more modern press printed ones coming from the middle eastern countries like Egyp,t Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia are not suitable substitutes as tissue.
so what did the almajiri see?

Having dismissed the possibility of the Akalukas acquiring the qur'an for any purpose, methinks that what he saw was just the pages of an Arabic newspaper. The late 80's and, of course, through out the nineties were turbulent times in the history of Islamic development in northern nigeria mostly fomented by representatives of middle astern countries like iran, Saudi Arabia Lebanon, egypt and even Libya.Ppropaganda materials were flying back and forth in the form of books, pamphlets newpapers and even hard cash and juicy scholarships( i too was a beneficiary) in an attempt to win over our souls. I could recall my free subscription for Sakon Musulunci, Mujuahidah, Mahjubah and Echo of Islam.

but why was Gideon Akaluka murdered in such a dastardly manner?

the ready answer that come to the mind even in academic circles was that he was a victim of the power struggle between the fiery cleric Mallam Zakzaky's Islamic movement and the J.T.I. (jamaat tadjdeed islami) formed by his former disciples who broke away from his movement to form their own in Kano and such a sensational daring was their way of generating followers and making a loud statement that they were a force to be reckoned with.

But the real underlying factors are much more ingrained and go deeper than most pple will care to admit. In my sojourn around the world I have found that we practice in northern nigeria the most reactionary, conservative, static and redundant version of Islam that is only comparable to that of Afghanistan. Coupled with that is the irrational, illogic, hysterical and almost paranoid fear of our xtian compatriots. for instance I could recall when i was attending secondary school at Rumfa College there was this Arabic teachers of ours mallam Husaini Garba who once came to inform us of yet another xtian conspiracy to harm Islam. According to him there was a badge that pple pin to their clothes with Nigerian coat of arms and he told us that it had been discoverd that it had a hidden cross behind it that was visible if you removed the pin and that it was an attempt by xtians to make Muslims inadvertently wear the cross. And we all beleved him. Or the rumor circulating then that a miniature version of the quran had been produced by jews or xtians, depending on the narrator, and inserted in shoe soles so that muslims wearing it would unknowingly be 'stepping' on the quran.
sometimes these kind of bottled up rage are what is vented whenever there is a break down in law and order during riots and demonstrations.

i beleive that our pple need exposure so that they can see that things have gone beyond what hey think. All over Europe any one can easily walk into any bookshop and buy any Islamic materials without any hindrance. in many Muslim countries historic mosques are regarded as archaeological and architectural monuments visited from all over the world by pple of all denomination and sects. try taking a chsristian into the kano central mosque and see what happens.

But the biggest culprit is lack of education. UNESCO just noted recently that hausa women are the most deprived educationally in the world. according to the research it conducted in northern Nigeria, 97% of Hausa women between the ages of 17 and 22 completed less than 2 years of in school. imagine the kind of women those kind of women will bear. one would think that such a terrible prognosis is limited to western education and that Islamic education would be better. but that is even worse.

there are hardly any formal school for Islamic instructions apart from the informal' makarantar allo' run under the trees by itinerant mallams. everything is learnt by rote. the girls stop going after a few years to be married off. while the boys take to street begging or menial jobs. more than 99% of pple in the north can not understand Arabic the language in which most of the available islamic texts are written. therefore the clerics hold a complete and total monopoly over the interpretation of islam since very few pple can read the original arabic texts and challenge them. when i was in Egypt myArab friends will marvel at the fact that i can recite a large portion of the qur'an off head but can not understand arabic language. i tell them that i learnt it by rote just like the way we sing Indian songs without understanding a sentence of Hindi.

what most pple bandy around in the name of islam are learnt through hear say and old women's tales. serious amends needs to be made but our leaders are there looking for power not for us but for the betterment of themselves and their family.

the idea that sunusi is a reformer is the most laughable i have ever heard. i will challenge any one to name any reformer in the world who has 4 wives and fifteen children. this is not the mindset of a reformer but someone steeped in the traditions of his forefathers which are nothing but autocratic and feudal.
in his altercation with the late radical cleric jafar mahmud adam a few years back, he constantly bombarded anyone who cares to listen with his royal and privileged roots and called the learned scholar a 'glorified almajiri'

in an interview on the bbc hard talk programme about three weeks ago he stilll reiterated that he came from royal lineage and that is where he is going back to.

how would you reconcile someone with a feudal ambition with reform?! sunusi's ambition we all know is to become the emir of kano and continue with the feudal subjugation that has enslaved and kept the pple of the north down for centuries.

we all know that the actions and institutionallised subjugation of pple like his forefathers are the reason for the backwardness of the north and the region will never rise to a lofty height so long as the traditional rulership is perpetuated even by so called 'educated' 'reformers' pple like sunusi lamido. just last month you will cry by reading the UNESCO report on women education in hausaland. according to the report  hausa women are the least educated in the world. 97% of those ages 17 to 22 have completed less than 2 years in school. wont it be better for sanusi to aspire to become a commissioner for education in kano or jigawa instead of running after a pple who come from regions where the aspiration to excel in education is almost genetic and where school enrolment in a single state dwarfs that of the whole of sunusi's north? go to page 20 of the report in the following link

 http://www.unesco.org/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/GMR/pdf/gmr2010/gmr2010-gender-overview-beijing15.pdf

i still stand by my postulation that during the  yaradua regime two kano men manned the finance ministry. go to this wikepedia link to read more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_President_Umaru_Yar'Adua

let me tell you guys his appointment was nothing but a game plan by yaradua to perpetuate himself in power. kano is the most influential state in the north and as i have noted in my earlier post every northern ruler must bow down before the kano gods. just like the way every american leader must do for israel. what more for a shaky government like that of yaradua. only a blind person will fail to see these things.

@johnie
badamasi is not a yoruba name.
it is an arabic name al-badamasi
yorubas i think corrupted it to badamosi or gbadamosi
some even anglicise it to badmus

i wont like to be dissecting too many scandals of my pple on the pages of nairaland.
sule lamido is a full blooded fulani man who still speaks the language fluently. contrast him with buhari who once went to a world fulani conference i think in senegal some few years back and had to make his address in english. he is a fulani man that has lost his heritage. but you will still be surprised that the fulani still retain their tribalistic ways that demean the hausa. several of my friends have told me that buhari's trust starts with you being a fulani man. for instance if you make a call to his home phone if you cant speak fulani you get a very rough reception. buba is a fulani name so his very close confidant engr buba galadima is also one.
sule lamidos vice is homosexuality. this is is a common knowledge in kano you can ask any body.
babangida aliyu is a nupe man. just look at his scary negroid features. almost like obasanjo.
maitama sule hold the traditional title of dan masanin kano.
very talkative man and there are many folklores about him. one was that he once went to visit babangida when he was a head of state. when he was leaving ibb ordered that he be taken home in a govt vehicle, a brand new peugeot. when they reached his residence in kano maitama sule collected the key of the car from the driver and told him to go back and tell ibb that he wanted the car. babangida laughed it off. his major vice was that he fathered a child with his daughter.
common knowledge in royal circles in kano .

kwankwaso is the son of the hakimi of madobi. there is no doubt about his claims. the rumour came about during the retaliatory killings of pple of yoruba descent in kano in the aftermath of the crisis in shagamu when the hausas of kano felt justified to kill every living yoruba person in kano. kwankwaso new the game very well that it was an attempt to destabilize obasanjos government and it could only start from kano. he gave a shoot at sight order and many rioters were killed by the police and the army. so it was the anger over this that made pple to mischievously claim that he was defending his yoruba folks. but his father is a well known traditonal ruler in madobi. he even walks with a slight limp. i know his father very well

@hercules07

of all the 'security reports' comeing to Yaradua non alerted him about james ibori, one of the most corrupt individuals ever to come out of Nigeria. He was so influential that he even nominated some very key persons in the saintly Yaradua govt. in the banking industry nothing has changed and the banks will still be standing today even without Lamido's 'reforms'. whether he was recommended by mukhtar or mutallab it only stands to buttress my point. why recommend another kano man?