₦airaland Forum

I dont know whether you opened this thread before or after I sent you that message asking for how your business was faring, but since you mentioned it in our 'Welcome to office' thread last year that you'd resigned from your IN job, I have been looking for you to ask wassup.

Your decision is one of the bravest I have seen by a Nigerian of our generation. From your well-paying, well-connecting job in the IB industry, you suddenly dropped the letter! ol' boy, you try o.

Your announcement of your decision last year got me thinking seriously since then, and(I hope oyb will not tell oga ), I have gone ahead to register my own company too early this year and still researching and testing waters. If things work out, never say never in the next 2 years, I'm looking at toeing similar line, but hey, ore, I no fit drop curtain on this job yet.  

Agric is an area I believe you can explore. There still lies undertapped opportunities there.

PS: It was JO you met in plane  !

Now, I know where you are coming from.

First, you know little about SLS, as it has shown in the comment above.

Contrary to what you wrote, Sanusi has Msc Economics(ABU, 1983). Plus almost 2 decades experience in banking, including becoming CEO of a financial group as big as FBN, he is eminently qualified for the job, irrespective of other qualifications he privately decided to pursue. I know CB bosses that hold no degree in Economics. So I don't know why the roof must be brought down because he decided to acquire additional, private knowledge.

Yes, a lot of northerners abuse their religion and culture to perpetrate bad acts, but to call for a sweeping discard of their culture and religion, is taking solution too far and feigning ignorance of cultural relativity. China and India have a number of 'wierd' cultures but that have never stopped their development. So I believe your blanket dismissal of their cultural and religious values as cause of their problem is uncharitable and only connotes absoltism, if not imposition. Their real culture/religion does not say women should not be empowered(current Education minister is a northern woman), that entrepreneurship should be discouraged( the biggest Nigerian entrepreneur today is a northerner).

Beaf:
This is not just any allegation. It is an allegation of taking part or conniving in the murder of an innocent man. Also, it is an allegation of a brand of extremism that is close to terrorism. They are not light allegations by any standard and require convincing rebutal, talking about the CBN governor not stooping low to defend his name is at best emotional and at worst a dodge.

This vertion of the rumour is even the saner one, I actually heard right here on NL that Sanusi did the execution. These aren't minor accusations that can be swept under the carpet.

I stand by my earlier response. If you have hard facts, publish it in a credible medium; anybody can say anything on the internet. I can wake up and say Jonathan killed my brother on the internet; the president will be stooping so low if he replies me. But if I say so in a recognized medium like newspapers of electronic medium, then it can carry the weight that will require presidential response. We have heard on the internet that Jonathan slept with someone in the plane(far back 2007 or so); it will be height of joblessness to reply such, but if such was published in a paper, it will surely be replied. That is teh analogy. If Eghes has his facts, let him publish it in credibel medium, not on FB or blog or Nairaland; then the CBN boss can respond.

RoadStar:
@Jarus, I cannot understand why u keep hiding behind pres. Clintons comments.
Bill Clinton like SLS might be right on the fact that poverty is fueling the violence in the north. We all know that.

But bill clinton never insinuated that the poverty was caused by unequal revenue allocation/resource sharing. (That is were I and most Nigerians have issues with Sanusis comments)

Many commentators over the years have highlighted that the major cause of poverty in the north and widening inequality when compared to their southern counterparts is the high level of illiteracy in the north. A man/woman who cannot read/write will not be able to do a lot.
Soludo had asserted to the fact in a speech he gave in kaduna while he was CBN governor.
Where he wondered how one state in the SE (Imo state) can produce more JAMB applicants (Pupils willing to go to University) than the 16 states in highly populated North.
Soludo even in that speech compared the poverty rate in Northern states to that in the SE (which is on even less allocation compared to the north) and which was faring far better on a per capita level.

In that speech Soludo berated Nothern governments for their lack of a proper policy on education
He also scolded  Northern elites for showing little interest to invest in their local economies.
All this he did knowing fully well that he could face a backlash for those comments. He ended up paying the price.
But the truth has to be said.

For SLS to turn a blind eye to the very obvious fact and allude that the poverty in the north was caused by 13% to oil producing states is a travesty of the highest order.
It is mischievousness deceitful and lacks intellectual content.

I never said that Sanusi is BH, and stop picking issues on things like whether he meant Christian south or not, all I am saying that his comments are very misleading,irresponsible, simplistic and unbecoming of the cbn governor.

You musn't back the guy all the way, he has done some good deeds but in this one, he is doing a disservice to both Nigeria and the Northern Nigeria.

Good, you didnt go the way of littleminds to insinuate that because of that statement, SLS is a BH sponsor of supporter. People have mixed explaining something, even if far off, from justifying it.

Like I said, Sanusi is a CBN governor and Economist, speaking to an international media and looking at issue from purely economic perspective, and poverty falls from an economic realm.

Also, at least we have a common ground now that poverty fuels the violence.

That said, my defence of SLS is not because I agree that inequality is the primary cause of the BH mayhem, but because I think one, he mentions poverty too and that is logical; two, the criticism is overflogged and a lot of conclusions were drawn that are very uncharitable.

I never agreed that inequality in resource distribution is directly linkable to the crisis. This I mentioned, not only in earlier posts here, but also in my article I published, posted above. I said he wrongly assumed that if more funds are available to northern governments, it will trickle down to masses, and history has shown otherwise, as it will only fattens the pockets of their leaders.

Beaf:
Nah, you are belittling the office of CBN governor.

That office is totally beyond reproach and any allegations against the holder of the office must be rebutted convincingly; if that is not done, then the vast majority of people will begin to be swayed to the possibility that Sanusi was part of the beheading of Gideon Akaluka.
The sheer weight of Sanusi's office calls for him to clear his name, the allegation is serious to ear-splitting decibels.

If you want to defend Sanusi, then provide convincing proof. We already know that Sanusi is a harc-core shariarist, we need to be sure that he is not involved in anything more extreme. It makes it worse that he has just been defending the excesses of boko haram as due to a negative imbalance in the distribution of oil wealth to the North.

If on the other hand, you don't have a convincing defense, leave wahala, cos you are doing far more harm than good.

If Sanusi should be replying every allegation made in private blogs and Facebook, then he will not have time for any other thing. Anybody can write anything in informal media, I have read people claim on NL here that SLS employs only northerners etc. Let Eghes make this allegation in a credible medium like newpaper or TV, not on Facebook or private blog, and come to public knowledge, if he is sure of his facts, after all he is also a known figure that speaks on TV programmes. Then, he can be taken seriously. CBN governnor will not stoop so low as to be officially/formally issuing statements to reply what someone wrote in one online forum or Facebook or blog. And if the allegation is credible and not baseless, you think it would not have made major news headlines since he made it on Feb 1?

It is therefore quite strange that you, Okunoba, said Sanusi, who has vocal against northern leaders all his life, is part of the northern oligarch that use the masses to achieve selfish aims.

I know a lot of people here are biased and will never change their mindset but there is nothing I can do to that, I can only bring facts to argue, I cannot crack people's heads and make them reason.

Muslim Leaders And The Myth Of Marginalisation

By

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi

Lagos, March 29, 2004



On Easter Monday, Muslim groups met in Kaduna under the aegis of the Jama’atu Nasril Islam and the chairmanship of His Eminence, the Sultan of Sokoto, to decide on a collective line of action in response to the “marginalisation of Nigerian Muslims” by the federal Government under Olusegun Obasanjo. According to newspaper reports, the meeting was rowdy and passionate. A leading Emir called for a Jihad by Nigerian Muslims against the Federal Government, before storming out of the meeting. Indeed so high was the temperature inside the Kaduna International Trade Fair Complex that, according to one newspaper, a leading northern politician, Second Republic minister and traditional title-holder from Bauchi state was slapped by a delegate. Every one who was present at the meeting reports that there was a charged atmosphere and that Muslims were angry at their alleged marginalisation.



As I read and listened to the reports, my mind went back to 1998 when southern politicians, and particularly Yoruba and Igbo politicians, launched an aggressive campaign against northern Muslims and “Hausa-Fulanis” who were accused of marginalizing the rest of the country. In those days the clarion call was for a “power-shift” to the south, and every one joined the fad. In that year, I gave a public lecture at Arewa House, Kaduna, (later published by the Trust newspapers), entitled “Power-shift and Rotation: Between Emancipation and Obfuscation.” To place the present intervention in context, I reproduce below and extensive quote from that paper:



‘To claim that the “north” has “exploited” or “marginalized” the south is linguistically incorrect and politically nonsensical. It is the equivalent of claiming that all or most of the human beings who are from the “north” possess or control the means of production, persuasion and coercion which are the source of power, while all or most of those in the South are dispossessed of these. Only the most hypocritical of analysts would pretend that he holds this to be even possibly true. A group made up of people hailing from different parts of this country controls these means to varying degrees and the vast majority of Nigerians, northerners and southerners, have been dispossessed and exploited by this group. What we have on the political stage today is an internal conflict among various subsystems of this class of oppressors, each trying to drag us into his camp by appealing to native instincts.’



Not too long after this lecture, elections were held and Obasanjo came to power. In 1999 when Obasanjo appointed his first cabinet, Muslim politicians and religious leaders claimed that Muslims were marginalized because the appointments were lop-sided in favour of Christians. Again I made a contribution to the debate in my published article entitled “Religion, the Cabinet and a Political Economy of the ‘North’.” In that paper, I was even more explicit and detailed in stating my position and I quote:



“That issues have come to this state is partly attributable to a patent lack of political education. Due to illiteracy of the masses and their manipulation by the dominant hegemony, the northern people are yet to comprehend the nature of the state, which is, as aptly described by Gramsci, ‘ the entire complex of practical and theoretical activities with which the ruling class not only justifies and maintains its dominance but manages to win the active consent of those over whom it rules.’ Through a dialectical interaction between structure and superstructure, between the objective and the subjective, a form of consciousness is diffused through the mediation of agents of ideological control to the extent that it has become part of the ‘common-sense’ of the northern masses. By manipulating the intoxicating agency of religion, the dominant classes have been able to create a contingent, socially constructed form of correspondence between essentially contradictory economic and political regions of the northern social formation. Consequently, the poor Muslim peasant farmer in Zaria, condemned to life-long penury by the circumstances of his birth, the inadequacy of his education and the deprived state of his general existence, feels a stronger bond with and affinity for his rich, capitalist emir than his fellow Christian farmer in Wusasa. Similarly, the poor Christian peasant in Zangon-Kataf is willing to kill, maim and destroy his poor Muslim neighbour on the orders of a retired general who was, and remains, part and parcel of the oppressive establishment.



“This anti–reductionist emphasis on the specificity of the ‘popular-Islamic’ or ‘popular- Christian’ in contradistinction to class demands and struggle, has enabled the dominant northern classes, Muslim and Christian, to appropriate under their respective wings the so-called ‘Hausa-Fulani’ and ‘middle-belters’, as instruments in what, ultimately, is competition and struggle among various class-fractions of the bourgeoisie with the state as the principal arena. Viewed in this light, the northerner is in a pitiful state, crying for a saviour he does not know. Only education of the northerner, and up-liftment of his consciousness, will provide him with the requisite power of introspection through which the nonsensicality of his common sense can become apparent. Only then will it occur to him that although Babangida, Abacha and Abubakar were Muslims, and although Useni, Shagaya, Mark, Bamaiyi and Dogonyaro were Christians, the rising social profiles and increased personal opulence of these members of the establishment was accompanied by the continued impoverishment, ill-health, and deprivation of the Muslim and Christian masses. Only then will he wonder where his emir obtains his fancy limousines and well-fed horses, where his church gets its millions, where his pastor finds his wealth when the school to which his child goes is empty and teachers are not paid, when there are no drugs in the government hospitals, when he can not afford one square meal a day. Only then would it dawn on him that the issue is not one of Islam Vs. Christianity, but of competing vested political interests in which he has no stake. He can never be a minister even if there were one hundred ministers from his faith. Nor would his son be one. He fights and is willing to die in the name of Islam or Christianity, only to facilitate access of some lurking and predatory kleptomaniac to the Federal treasury, whose license to this access is his capacity for the manipulation of religious symbols and effective use of slogans and other tools of opportunistic propaganda.”



These two quotes sum up my historical view on marginalisation. It was on this basis I criticized and debated with the tribalistic elements that formed Afenifere (see “Afenifere: Syllabus of Errors” for example). It was the basis for my debates with Urhobo nationalists like Darah and Ekeh. It was the basis for my long and intense altercations with Ike Okonta and his fellow-travellers among Fulani and Islam-hating Igbo intellectuals. I did not criticize southern advocates of the “marginalisation” thesis because of where they come from or where I come from. I criticized them on principle. I do not believe, period, that because the cabinet has more people who are Muslim then Muslims are better off. Each minister is an individual and he/she either performs or does not perform. Obasanjo’s government has failed to deliver on many of its promises. For the north in particular, the problems of poverty, unemployment, collapsing infra-structure and illiteracy are myriad and reflect incompetence and corruption on the part of Christian and Muslim public officers at federal, state and local government levels. We have every right to criticize the Obasanjo for incompetence. The North as a whole, has many reasons to complain. But to reduce Obasanjo’s crime to the number of members of the Muslim elite he has appointed-or rather not appointed- to key positions, and to pretend that if we had more Muslim appointees then Muslims would be better off automatically, to say this, is to speak from an ethically blind perspective.



The marginalisation thesis has too many flaws. The most obvious is that has not been borne by history. Indeed in 1998, northern supporters of power-shift like Balarabe Musa hinged their argument on the fact that northerners had not benefited from the political dominance of the north. The second, which is captured in my two quotes above, is that the real issue is not about the people, and what the government must do for them, but about the elite and which positions and perks they should be entitled to as their share of the national cake. To call this fight over the sharing of offices a jihad is to make a complete mockery of the Muslim faith. Third, it has nothing to do with religion. No Muslim has claimed that he has been stopped from practicing the five pillars of Islam. Our personal and civil laws-marriage, divorce, inheritance, custody, burial rites, contracts etc-are all governed by the shari’ah. Our courts have been given the right to implement Muslim criminal law, including amputations, even where controversy rages about the propriety of these punishments in the present circumstances among Muslims themselves. We build our mosques all over the country, and Muslims of all sects and denominations and orders from Shiites to Wahhabites, Malikites to Salafites, Tijjanites to Qadirites etc continue to worship God in the manner they choose without hindrance. So the problem is not about the freedom of Muslims to worship or practice their religion, but about sharing the spoils of political office. This is a legitimate political struggle and politicians have the right to negotiate for a larger share of these spoils. But it is not a struggle about the religion or the quality of life of the poor Muslim in the street and he should not be deceived and co-opted into it through the manipulation of sacred concepts.



But there is a more fundamental dimension to this. When a group is marginalized this is only possible because it is weak. Marginalisation, if anything, is a symbol of political fragility and decay. In other words, when a leader complains about marginalisation, he is like a doctor who addresses the symptom of a disease (say a fever) instead of addressing the underlying illness or infection. The point is this. If the Muslims, and particularly northern Muslims are today marginalized as is being claimed, this marginalisation is but a symptom of a more profound problem. We are marginalized because we are weak and divided, and our weakness comes from the loss of our solid political and negotiating base in a unified, multi-cultural, multi-religious north. As partners with Christian neighbours and compatriots, northerners in the First and Second Republic were able to form a formidable political group that was unbeatable in the race for office. The marriage was not always blissful for both parties and it had many internal problems, but while it lasted it served the best political interest of the North and, in particular the Muslims. The protection of Shari’ah and the preservation of our cultural values would have been impossible without control of politics. By losing this simple sense of political pragmatism and reducing ourselves to religious bigots, we weaken our hand in the game of politics and everything we cherish is now vulnerable. The rise of Muslim and Christian fundamentalism has been a major contributor to the fragmentation of the north and its binarisation through the reactionary process of reciprocal “Other-ing”.



We may dispute the reality or extent of marginalisation of Muslims, or Christians or northerners or southerners. I am even willing to concede, for the sake of argument, that because a smaller fraction of northern Muslim elite has access to the spoils of power then northern Muslims as a whole are marginalized. But this much must be acknowledged: The political asphyxiation of Muslims has been directly collateral, diachronically correlational and causally conjoined with the above-mentioned fragmentatory processes.

We are therefore left with a paradox. The more we resort to claims of marginalisation, construct religiously-charged political identities and threaten jihad, the more we divide the north and weaken its Muslim and Christian elite alike. We fell into a trap.



The problem of religious conflict and parochialism bedevils the north. Of course it is not the only problem, which is why a unified northern forum must address the common problems faced by all northern people. The north suffers from the neglect of agricultural production, the lack of proper access of cash-crop farmers to the international market, the collapse of industry, the debilitation of its infra-structure, lack of alternative source of power to hydro-electricity, among others. Most of all the north suffers from the general massification of its population that is to say, its collective subjection to the intense and deliberate processes of qualitative leveling for the purpose of quantitative maximization. As a result of this, politicians and religious demagogues and fanatics have a ready army of uneducated, unemployed northerners willing to participate in bloody riots and attend rallies where emotional inanities pass for patriotic leadership.



What we expect our leaders to do is to ask Obasanjo what he is doing about these things. More important, to ask our governors and legislators and Local government chairmen and councilors what they are doing to address these things. This should be done on the platform of a unified north, with common problems. Our jihad should be about changing these pathetic circumstances and this can be done by competent leaders. It is difficult for me, for obvious reasons, to take a position that is critical of the Muslim leaders who gathered in Kaduna. But I took this position on principle against those who claimed they were marginalized by the north. Where principle is concerned-and this is the real point-what is good enough for the goose has to be good enough for the gander.

http://www.gamji.com/sanusi/sanusi48.htm


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The Adulteress Diary
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, November 2001

If you choose to read my diary you must forgive my often vulgar, some times irreverent language. I hope you will also find the moral courage to give the following entries wide circulation, my crude vocabulary notwithstanding. The world should know what injustice is being perpetrated by northern Nigerian Muslim males against their women in the name of Allah and under cover of Shariah.

You see, my name is Safiya Husseini, recently convicted for the crime of having been born a woman by a Shariah court in Sokoto. I know you have been told that my crime was adultery, not womanhood. I also know, being a mere woman, that you think I am most probably talking rubbish. When you finish reading this record of my own thoughts, possibly after my death, you will make up your mind. My punishment is to be death by stoning at the hands of men.

I cannot tell you where I am, because I am hiding from the men of the Hisbah corps, the fanatical Muslim militia saddled with the task of bringing Shariah offenders to book. I have been told by the scholars, the mallamai (who happen to be men), that I should give myself up and face death like a good Muslim woman. Doing this is a patriotic duty that will cleanse my society of corruption and purify me from my sins.

You see our society has become rotten. We are fast becoming like the Jews in the time of Christ. You know Jesus called them a "wicked and adulterous generation". There is too much adultery, fornication and homosexuality. Women, as our mallamai swear our prophet said, are the source of all this evil and our scholars are convinced that the only cure for the fitnah is to put us to death.

I can understand how men can accuse women of being the source of all adultery and fornication. But what do women have to do with the widespread fitnah of men chasing men? Surely it shows that men also are evil and need no women to lure them? Do not mind me. I am but a woman-daft and senseless. Do the mallamai not say that the prophet said that women are deficient in religion and intelligence?

Back to the point, it is believed that my death will lead to a near-magical transmogrification of the caliphate’s ethical landscape. Our holy land, the land of Dan Fodio, Abdullahi and Bello, will witness a termination of the crepuscular routines of illicit carnality that regularly take place in shadowy alleys, state houses, guest houses and five-star hotels. Our men shall no longer be victims of temptation by evil women. Their purity shall no longer be stained by Intimate pursuits. In short every man shall become as clean and sinless as our Shariah governors whom I am told can each swear on the Qur’an never to have committed the capital sin of adultery.

This I am ready to believe. You see in Islamic Law it is the governor, as the Imam of our state, who is expected to step forward and cast the first stone. We will on that day prove to the Christians that we are better than Jews. When the Jews wanted to stone a harlot, Jesus threw them a challenge. "Let he among you who is without sin," said he, "cast the first stone". They all sulked away, the hypocrites.

If you heard our governor in his BBC Hausa interview, in all his righteousness, then you know that he is not like those hypocritical Jews. Allah ya sauwake! He will step up majestically and after giving me a magisterial rebuke cast his stone. The other sinless members of our society-the emirs, the mallamai, the politicians- will follow. With my death, as you have heard often, the land shall become cleansed of crimes of the flesh. In addition to this service to the community, I am told on the authority of no less than the prophet himself that submitting myself to this punishment is my ticket to heaven. I shall no longer face the humiliation of being treated like a lumpen-slut. I shall be transformed into a voluptuous, voracious virgin in paradise.

You laugh at this because you do not know the value of virginity to our men. I too did not understand this obsession until I read Jarasimus Mhanna’s Rasa’il al-Jahiz (The Letters of al-Jahiz). In one of his letters, the African poet quoted the second Caliph ‘Umar as saying to fellow men: "Marry young virgins; they have perfumed mouths and narrow vaginas."

Only Allah knows if ‘Umar actually said this, but I know our men have taken this advice far beyond ‘Umar could ever have intended. They marry the girls at too young an age when the opening is so narrow they end up with VVF when giving birth, at which point the men abandon them. But this is not my concern right now.

I was saying that I will become a heavenly virgin. No more menstruation, no more toileting, no more pregnancy and yes, I will enjoy pure unadulterated sex. I like that word unadulterated. I suppose unadulterated sex means sex that will not be called adultery. I know I am probably murdering the English language but who cares at this point? I will have my choice of men and believe you me I will ask for our shariah governors whose own ticket to heaven is through whipping, stoning and amputating the fornicatresses, adulteresses and common thieves in our society. Their own sins are forgiven if they ensure that we poor sinners, especially the women, are subjected to Allah’s laws.

I am told not to grieve over all those posh totties who hang around the high and mighty in this world and laugh at us because they use condoms and pills and can have abortions. Our illiteracy is in reality our saving grace. This is why we were removed from school and married off at a young age. Now I also understand why our mallamai have stoutly opposed sex-education. Those so-called "educated" high-class whores may escape in this world but they will pay in the hereafter. They are going to hell. Ditto the men who fornicate and commit adultery with us but get away with it.

Imagine that twit Yakubu denying that he was the one who impregnated me! But the alkali (bless his soul) could do nothing. His hands are tied. How could he take my word, mere woman that I am, that Yakubu was the father of my baby? The law says I should produce four male, honest, reliable witnesses who are to testify to having visualized the twittering ’s you-know-what physically embedded in my you-know-what like a kajal stick inside its hollow case! Unfortunately we did not Be Intimate in a nudist camp. And even if we did, the term honest, reliable male is an oxymoron. No man can possibly be honest and reliable, especially if his honesty would convict a fellow-man. How could I ever produce four? Since I could not meet this order then I am a liar, like all women. In the unlikely event that I speak the truth, Yakubu will pay on the day of judgement. As for me, I shall have the honour of a union of sorts with the holy governors.

Forgive my language, but just imagine what I would do on laying my hands on their collective Cores, with the angels looking the other way! But that will be in heaven, if they manage to make it there.

I listened to the mallamai with all respect, but packed my things and ran away the moment they left. You see I happen to believe that the law under which I was convicted is not Allah’s law. It is true that the alkali, (Allah bless him again), has told journalists this is Allah’s law and anyone who questions it is not a good Muslim, perhaps not even a Muslim at all. Somehow I have my reservations. It seems to me the law is what the alkali understands of what some men living at some time in some foreign land claim to be the Law of Allah. His understanding may be flawed.

Other men may have made different claims than these in the name of the same Allah. And of course in all this we have not heard the voice of women. Surely if I suggest that it is not Allah’s law I do not lose my faith? But you see I am only a woman. So I tell myself to stop thinking and challenging these things. It is not my place.

Let me tell you a few of the thoughts that crossed my mind and made me run away from this perverse judgement. Who knows, perhaps there may be some sense in me, after-all. You see according to press reports, my case started when some "unnamed informants" told the police that I, Safiya the divorcee, was pregnant without husband and "manipulated one Yakubu Abubakar, a married man in the same village, as being responsible for the pregnancy".

Ya Salam! Any one who knows Islamic Law knows this is not a case of adultery but of slander. These "reliable sources" should have been arrested immediately and charged to court. They are to produce four eye-witnesses to the crime of zina (illicit sex) of which they accused a believing woman behind her back.

This much is clear from books of Law and Ibn Rushd, the Maliki jurist, stated in his book al-Muqaddimat al-Mumahhidat that if anyone says "so-and-so is an adulteress" he must produce four witnesses. It is not enough for us to have been seen playing together, you know.

In the time of the second caliph ‘Umar, some companions reported one of his governors, Mughira Ibn Shu’ba, for adultery. Three of them testified to having visualized the governor’s dinky in the woman’s pinky but the fourth witness faltered. He said he saw some swinging bum bums but as for the real thing he could not swear. So the three of them, including one of the Holy Prophet’s closest companions ‘Ammar Ibn Yasir, were given eighty bulalas for slander.

This story is there in the books of Law as a precedent. I hear even books of history, like Ibn Katheer’s al-Bidaya wa ‘l-Nihaya have the record. Why was my case different? Why was I called to defend myself when the charge of slander had not been prosecuted? Point number one. May Allah bless the companions of the prophet who gave women the benefit of doubt.

A woman was brought before ‘Umar with pregnancy and she said; "O Caliph! I am a heavy sleeper and a man came upon me one night. I did not wake up until he had finished and turned his back." He let her go.

Another woman said to ‘Umar: " I was thirsty and I asked a shepherd to give me water to drink but he refused unless I lay with him so I did." ‘Umar said to ‘Ali, "what is your view on her?" ‘Ali replied, "I think she was pushed by necessity". So ‘Umar gave her a few lashes and asked her to go.

In fact a woman was brought to ‘Ali when he was caliph and he kept saying to her, "perhaps he romanced you? Perhaps he merely rubbed himself between your thighs? etc" until she took the hint and said "yes." It is not that the Caliphs believed these incredible tales. But they believed that the gates of Allah’s mercy were very wide. They knew that it is better for 1,000 adulteresses to escape stoning by man than for one innocent Muslim woman to be so stoned. Those who escape can always repent and be of use to their society and religion. Allah is a Most Merciful God.

This much the Caliphs, but not our generation of mallamai, understood. For this reason in every Sunni School of Law today I can go back to court and say I lied, that I do not know how I got pregnant, or that I was charmed or tricked or anything and I am free.

But not the Maliki school, which we insist on following in this matter. Here, pregnancy is evidence of zina and I am presumed guilty until I prove my innocence. If I say I was violated I must prove it. If I say I made a mistake it will be accepted only if "reliable men" in my village testify that I am a nice girl. It is a Law that contravenes the general principle that I am innocent until proven guilty. The fact of pregnancy is taken as proof of guilt even though zina requires, in addition to proof of intercourse, proof of consent and knowledge.

These points are documented in books of Law. You can check Ibn Qudamah’s al-Mughni, or al-Jaza’iri’s Kitabul Fiqh ‘ala ‘l-Mazahib al-Arba’. I know some Hanbali jurists, notably Ibn Taimiya, support Malik’s view. Fortunately, our mallamai have always taught us not to listen to that puritanical predecessor to the Wahhabiya and ‘Yan Izala. So who decides for me that I must be judged by Malik’s Law?

To ask me to prove my innocence contravenes Islamic Jurisprudence, Fundamental Human Rights and the Nigerian Constitution. To bring me to court, even after I ran away in terror the first time, nullifies my confession. It was clearly extracted and not voluntary by virtue of the circumstances. This seems clear from Shaikh Wahba al-Zuhaili’s work, al-Fiqh al-Islami wa Adillatuh.

If my confession is invalid, then my conviction is based on the fact of pregnancy and valid under Maliki Law only. Why can’t I be judged by the Law of Shafii, Abu Hanifa or Ibn Hanbal? If Malik’s Law is "Allah’s Law" then whose Law do the Shafii Muslims (of Indonesia, Malaysia, East Africa etc), and the Hanbali Muslims (of the Arab Gulf), and the Hanafi Muslims (of the Indian sub-continent) operate? But you know I am a woman. I cannot argue with the alkali.

There are other interesting points to note is that stoning to death, as punishment for adultery, is not mentioned in the Qur’an. Believe me. The Qur’an says in Chapter 24: Verse 2: "The woman and the man guilty of zina flog each of them with a hundred stripes." This is what the Book of Allah says and the word zina refers to intimate intercourse between a man and a woman who are not married to each other. No verse of the Qur’an was revealed abrogating this judgement or amending it ( If you discount the problematic claim by some that ‘Umar said that such a verse existed at a point. Its text was abrogated but its verdict remains!).

However, Muslim jurists make a distinction between fornication (or zina by one who has never been married) and adultery (zina by one who has passed through Ihsan and become a Muhsan). A Muslim becomes a muhsan once he/she consummates a valid marriage in a state of adulthood and sanity. So if he/she is found guilty of zina the punishment, according to jurists is stoning to death, based on the Traditions of the Prophet, not the Qur’an. Most jurists of Sunni and Shiite Islam accept this position. Some early jurists, particularly among Kharijites, reject this distinction as a baseless innovation.

In addition to the verse quoted above, a second verse makes the matter most problematic. In the Qur’an Chapter 4: Verse 25, Allah encourages Muslim men who cannot marry free women to marry Muslim slaves with the consent of their families or owners. He then adds: "If, after their Ihsan, they are found guilty of indecency their punishment is half of the punishment of Muhsanat." Now if the punishment of the free-born adulteress is 100 lashes then the punishment of the slave adulteress is 50 lashes and there is no problem there. If however we say the punishment for the muhsanah is stoning to death, what does Allah mean by prescribing half of that for the slave?

You must forgive me, for I am a mere woman. I am unable to calculate half of stoning to death. Is it stoning to half-death? Or half-stoning to death? Or stoning half to death? The Kharijites gave our ulama a lot of trouble on this point.

One of our best brains, Ibn Qutaiba, wrote spirited defences in two books, Ta’weel Mukhtalaf al-Qur’an and Ta’weel Mukhtalaf al-Hadeeth. On this point, though, I am not sure he answered more questions than he raised. It seems to me he ended up saying that Ihsan does not mean consummating marriage so he turned everything we read in Law on its head. He also resorted to drawing an analogy between woman, on the one hand, and a cow or she-camel, on the other, to wriggle out of the problem.

Anyway all this is water under the bridge. The reality is that this debate has been buried so deeply it cannot be revived-certainly not before my sentence is due to be carried out. In any event, the Kharijites are counted among the lost sects (al-firaq al-dhaallah) so their view carries no weight with our scholars. 

You see, dear reader, I remain faithful to our scholars. I do not challenge them, even where I have my doubts. Ask the alkali. As he pronounced his sentence on me, I said nothing to indicate I knew these things. I am a woman, totally invisibilized behind the veil and inside kulle. I know my place. But one thing I cannot accept is to die alone when I know and the alkali knows I could not have made this baby alone. I mean I am not the Virgin Mary! Even that inyamiri, Anyim Anyim, has said so.

The jurists, including Maliki jurists, who produced the body of knowledge called fiqh (or law) lived at a point in time in history when there was no way of establishing the paternity of a child. I can understand if they said pregnancy is evidence of zina, even though it is a harsh verdict, but I know the only reason they prescribed nothing for the man was because they had nothing to go on apart from the woman’s word.

Today the alkali has options. Science can establish who is telling lies between Yakubu and I, and DNA tests are used by courts all over the modern world to settle these matters. Of course they are not 100% faultless but my guilt has also not been 100% proven. At least he should take that one step of testing for paternity. But no, this will not happen because men will also die. If we stick to the law as inherited from the past, men of the present can impregnate us and deny us. Brilliant, aren’t they, these men? They commit a crime in the 20th Century with rooms and curtains and air conditioners available but can only be convicted based on a Law of Evidence made for the 7th Century with

people doing it in the open desert or makeshift tents!

Four eye-witnesses to sex in the NICON Hilton in 2001? So Bariya was whipped, Safiya will be stoned, who next? All the men escaped because of lack of evidence. So long as men are not punished for impregnating women nothing will change. And herein lies the injustice of the Law. I sleep with Yakubu and get pregnant. Because only I will be punished, I insist that my crime is not adultery, but pregnancy. Since only women can be pregnant this means that the real crime is being a woman. The man will always commit adultery and escape. The woman is the only one who can ever conceive, the unknowing depository of the traitor’s Fluid.

It is not Allah or his Prophet or even Malik who says so. It is our scholars, our men, who hide behind the lie of being loyal to the past to perpetuate the crimes of our present and escape. Now you know why I said I was convicted of being a woman. Maybe it makes sense to you, maybe it doesn’t. I have no illusions, for I am a mere woman.

I am glad Nigerians are talking. I have already filed an appeal. I am not asking for my death and Yakubu’s. I want to be given the benefit that the early Caliphs gave all those women. I want the chance to repent. Allah has opened His doors to his servants who go astray and wish to repent, why should men close that door in my face? I want the Law to be truly Allah’s Law and not a concoction by men. And if men themselves differ on what Allah means, who is to decide Allah’s true intent? With your help I may yet live. I only pray I will not be back on trial for murder.

You see, given my experience with my husbands, my lover, my fellow-villagers, the police, the judiciary and even my governor; I have come to see men in their true colours. I have seen, first hand, the extent to which they have cheated women, and the lies they have spun in the name of Allah and His Messenger. Now this is my fear. If any man after this as much as winks at me, I will most joyfully slice off his you-know-what.


http://elombah.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=861:the-adulteress-diary&catid=25:politics&Itemid=37
For this article, Sanusi was pilloried (even threatened with death or physical harm) by stooges of the decadent regressive feudal lords of the North. In fact, that article so struck awe and demystified the hypocritical  leaders of the North that its link, at Gamji.com, is disabled.

Okunoba, you definitely don't Sanusi, because your allegation that SLS is part of those that impoverished the North is laughable, and you appear to assume that everybody that holds positions is automatically part of the oligarch . SLS has never been part of northern feudals. He has always been on the side of the masses. He has criticized the northern oligarchs for using their people. I will bring few quotes from him to buttress this.

[b]“Very recently, the Katsina State Government tried to pass Bills banning the sale of alcohol and the operation of LovePeddler-houses in the metropolis. As a consequence of this move (and, it is said, failure of the House to approve the Bill), irate Muslim youth, shouting Allahu Akbar decided to burn not just beer parlours, hotels and whorehouses, but also Christian churches.

“Now, the Qur’an (Hajj. (ch. 22): 40) specifically forbids tearing down monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques. Yet the leaders of Muslims have not come out strongly enough to condemn this violation of the rights of Christians, nor considered the implications of Christians in turn burning mosques in retaliation. It is also worthy of note, that christian morality does not approve of alcoholism and prostitution.

“A second example is the recent furore over Obasanjo’s appointment of northern Christians into his cabinet. I have elsewhere made my views on this known although several people have branded me, and others like Col. Umar, anti-Islamic or anti-north for not joining this hypocritical farce

“In failing to rise above bigotry and chauvinism, northern Muslims act against injunctions of their faith. The Qur’an expressly preaches freedom of religion [see, for example: Al-Baqarah (ch.2): 256; Yunus (ch.10): 108; Hud (ch.11): 121-122; Kahf(ch18):29;  andAl-Ghashiyah (ch.88) :21-24]

It is also pertinent for those who criticize us to recall that Allah specifically instructed that trust and leadership should be given only to those worthy of them and to judge between men with justice (Al-Nisa (ch.4): 58). Also, if anyone believes that false witness should be given for or against a man simply because he is a Muslim or Non-Muslim, he should read [Al-Nisa (ch4): 135; also 105and Al-Ma’idah ((ch.5): 6]. Finally for those who object to our inviting good muslims and good christians to come together and give the poor people of this country the good government preached by both faiths, please read [Al-Imran (ch3): 64] which provides a basis for coming together on common ground.”[/b]


- Sanusi Lamido Sanusi(Issues in Restructuring Corporate Nigeria, 1999)

Me I be political bolgger o

As for you, Beaf.
The burden of proof lies in the 'accuser'. It is not about claiming something. Everybody can claim anything. But provide hard facts, maybe prison records, or more easily, newspaper cuttings to show it happened, after all such a thing cannot happen without it being reported in the media.

I have presented what SLS was doing and where he was from 1983 to date. He was in Khartoum University 1992-1997. Prove otherwise, after all, the Toronto goers were exposed.

The burden is on you to first prove your assertions with hard facts.

@ Roadstar,
If you think Sanusi is the one that used 'Christian South' in the article, then there is no way I can help you. It has only shown your unfamiliarity with the way international media classify Nigeria. The word 'Christian South' was not a direct quote of SLS and it is well known that that's how international media classify Nigeria: Muslim North, Christian South.

Here are Sanusi's direct quotes in the interview:

“There is clearly a direct link between the very uneven nature of distribution of resources and the rising level of violence,”
“When you look at the figures and look at the size of the population in the north you can see there is a structural imbalance of enormous proportions,” Mr Sanusi said. “Those states simply do not have enough money to meet basic needs while some states have too much money.”

Christian South came in in the FT's further analysis, as foreign media do in all their writings on Nigeria.

Now, that said, my defence of SLS is never because I agree totally with his poverty-violence theory, but because of the exaggerated and hypocritical cries that followed it by Nigerians because the man that said it is Sanusi. Bill Clinton has independently said same thing in his recent interview, rather what I hear from Nigerians is: I concur! How hypocritical! Whether you like it or not, poverty bears relationship with violence. And no less a researcher than nobel prize winner in Economics, Amartya Sen, has buttressed it. On a personal level, I believe a few religious fundamentalists caused this, that poverty further fueled it cannot be wished away. Sanusi is a Central Bank Governor and Economist speaking to an international media as such and his perspective will largely be economic.

What interpretation do you want? That Sanusi is BH abi? The statement is clear enough: he said poverty and inequality bred violence in the North.

Onlytruth, since you were installed Eze Ndigbo gburugburu Nairaland, I observe you have become more mature, refined and fatherly in your posts. Leadership skills? Seems Ndigbo Nairaland have not made a wrong decision

No wonder. Only Great Ife breeds these minds.

Maybe your eyes missed my post #19

Has anybodt said it is an excuse? SLS never gave it as excuse or justification, neither did Clinton.

Explaining something is not giving excuse for it.

By the way, I don't hold that opinion, mind you.

Looks like witchhunt to the freelance activist to me.

Can you tell me the missing period because this is Sanusi's whole adult ife and it is in public space

81-83. ABU Zaria Msc
83-85 - ABU Zaria, Lectiurer
85-92 - iCON Merchant Bank, rising to become Area Manager
92-97 - International University, Khartoum, Sudan
97-2005, UBA, rising to become GM
2005-2009 FBN, rising to become CEO
2009 to date, CBN

Oya, tell us another story?

Lol

I don't open blogs, especially those directed via foruns to gain traffic, but your creativity in putting that suspense-inducing quote, defeated my principle. I opened the blog and read the article.


One First Lady with small brain and an air of intellectualism at last.

naijaking1:
@Jarus
Thanks for your stout defense of SLS. You almost got me by approaching the questions numerically as stated, unfortunately you forgot the Basic elements of Logical Reasoning. In this undergraduate course work, you're taught that unless you're in a Socrataic environment, any attempt to answer a question with another question is either a fallacy or a red-herring. A lot of folks here a way too educated to be misled with a fallacy. We know when you answer the questions and when you lunch a verbal counter-attack.

I not almost, I got you and Eghes.
I didn't commit redherring, neither did I violate basics of logic. In all the questions, I raised my points/answers, only buttressed with questions that border on obvious. Accept you and Eghes(the article writer) have run out of logic.

Because of the area(bad road, pot hole-ridden) I was living then, I did for my Honda Civic in 2009. I never experienced any effect.

EXERCISE BOOK = [b]E[/b]de X [b]E[/b]de, [b]R[/b]emi [b]C[/b]oni [b]I[/b]ya, [b]S[/b]egun [b]E[/b]lere [b]B[/b]oolu, [b]O[/b]daabo, [b]O[/b]daabo [b]K[/b]ayode

Faabu o, ko ma roos

Tinubu's stroke story was the biggest news in the media in the last one week and you think his return should not make hompage here? Every Nigerian newspaper that reported it put it in front page. It's big news

I think Emenike still deserves another look.

Needless and sounds vindictive.

Amosun should face his job and stop hunting(or appearing to hunt) his predecessor.

Is still guy for real or a populist? Still forming opinion

I don't think there was any attack or their system was compromised. I think it's just a network irregularity for few hours. I experienced it and after some refreshing, I carried out my transactions smoothly.

RoadStar:
“There is clearly a direct link between the very uneven nature of distribution of resources and the rising level of violence,” Mr. Sanusi told the Financial Times in an interview, arguing that it was now necessary to focus funds on regenerating other regions if Nigeria wants to secure long-term stability.

@Jarus, some of us have jobs and in my own time I will go through all your write-ups but one small favour, in your words and interpretation, did Sanusi make the above comments in an interview with FT and if he did what is your own interpretation of the statement ?

Sorry, some of us are jobless too.

Bill Clinton has same thing thing. Reuters' analysts and reporters have written same thing. Hell was not let loose. SLS offered same view, roof is being brought down.


If you don't agree with them, present your arguments, not labeling(Sanusi only, pitiably) supporter of BH.

My own view: while religious fundamentalism by a few extremists cannot be wished away as a root cause, the rising poverty in the region fueled it by providing, for free, an army of illiterate, vulnerable, easily brainwashable youth for the violence. You can't fault that!

agabaI23:
@ Jarus,

Like I said earlier, some of the insinuations cannot survive unbiased scrutiny and those include most if not all the questions.
I am actually interested in the incarceration allegation. That's a very weighty allegation which should land the author in prison if it is not true.

Good you understand that. The incarceration allegation is a lie and SLS has called him that he will sue him for libel.
Note that this article was not published by any credible newspaper , just the writer who put it in his blog and Facebook note(he has other anti-SLS articles in his FB notes). No credible paper has published it, if it was truth, it would have been major news headlines. Sanusi may truly have had brush with Abacha(he was a strong Abacha critic whom he called 'son of cigar seller in Fagge quarters in Kano' and also a director in Radio Kudirat), but never because of religious violence and I am not aware that he was ever detained.

And, does anyone believe such a thing would have happened and not being in public domain since at least 2009 that SLS has been controversial, not least from Renaissance professionals, who spent hundreds of millions to 'expose' Sanusi?

8. Alhaji Abdul Mutallab, the Chairman of Jaiz Bank, former Chairman of First Bank and father of the failed "pants-bomber", is well-known as Sanusi's "god-father". Sanusi was also known to be a mentor and close friend of Abdul Muttalab's terrorist son who was an Al Qaeda recruit. What role did Sanusi play in radicalising this his protege?I am now convinced that Mallam Sanusi is too dangerous a religious extremist and a Jihadist to be in government how much more the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria!

Any top northern banker of SLS generation who doesn't see Alh Muttalab as his father is not worth his salt. It's like a southern banker not having relationship, no matter how far, with Subomi Balogun or Pascal Dozie. These are idols in the trade. Mutallab snr, FCA, FCCA, is an accomplished banker since the 70's, former CEO of UBA in the 80's and until retirement in 2009, Chairman of FBN. One way or the other, directly or indirectly, you would have worked under him and, probably seeing you as an exceptionally brilliant northerner, might have developed personal relationship with you. Is there any offence in that? Now, can Eghes prove that SLS has an extra relationship with Muttalab Jnr, who was a rebel in the family and cut ties with the family for engaging in banking(haram)? You think SLS have time to know all Muttallab's 16 children and relate with them on personal level? You think SLS will ever support terrorism? Or killing? No, you don't know SLS.

As for the Abacha-detention allegation, SLS was in Sudan 1992-1997 and Abacha ruled 1994-98. If anyone believes that ill-concocted allegation, he will believe anything.