By Christie Doyin
I read the article ‘Where is your hijab?’ Which focused on the non adorning of hijab by Kano Emir’s daughter, Khadijah Lamido Sanusi and diverse thought rushed through my mind. The headline actually attracted me to the piece that prompted this write up.
Where is your hijab? Is just not a question by Nigerians directed only at Khadija Yusra Sanusi to tease her but one that is meant to wake up d conscience of the emir, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) after a photograph emerged on the social media in which she is shown having a handshake with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in Kano.
In the photograph, the Emir appeared to had introduce his beautiful daughter to the vice President, Yemi Osinbajo who was on a visit to Kano. She had a simple scarf on her hair and was not wearing the hand socks or gloves common with Muslim ladies, who want to avoid shaking men’s hands.
The question that came up as regards the handshake and bare head is pregnant with meanings and not just for Emir Lamido and Khadijah but meant for all those hypocrites saying one thing and acting something else, especially those at the helms of affairs in the country.
While some condemned her for what happened, some other Nigerians felt it is her business. For instance, someone wrote “No doubt she is a disgrace”, in another reaction, one Saint-Paul considered what transpired as her cup of tea, he wrote “Please leave her alone. She has every right to shake anyone she likes”. Another wrote, calling the attention of MURIC with sarcasm.
“MURIC the emir’s daughter is not putting on a hijab and she is shaking not just a man but a pastor, is it not haram for a woman to shake a man in Islam. There is even sharia law in Kano state o… This is unacceptable”, another Nigerian identified as “Vicdom’
These actually aroused my interest.
The north and it’s leaders have continuously considered people from the Southern and Eastern part of the country as infidel, putting themselves way above others in piety, right and privileges. They are too bloated to know that the fact that other Nigerians are peace loving and tolerant do not make them cowards and foolish not to know what is good for them.
I read somewhere something allegedly said or written by Aliyu Gwarzo and the response by Femi Fani-Kayode (FFK) and I honestly still want to believe that it was culled from someone’s imagination and that Gwarzo wouldn’t be so callous and mentally drained to write or say such. Please permit me to believe so.
Perhaps reading it might make you agree with me that no sensible person not to talk of a statesman would be credited with such.
According to the article, ALIYU GWARZO SAID: “The problem with you Southerners is that you can never understand the north. We are a mystery to you and you cannot comprehend us despite all your boasting that you are better than us.
“You claim to be educated but in fact you are uneducated and uncivilised. What do you know about education and what has it done for you?
“We Fulani toss a small bone to you from our table and you betray and fight each other like dogs for it. You crawl before us and beg us for crumbs.”
The article went on to credit him as also saying that “That is your lot in life. You are nothing more than beggars. Cowardly and contended slaves!
“Just like your fathers served us, so you shall serve us. Just as you serve us, so your children shall serve us. And just as your children shall serve us, so their children shall serve us.
“We are born to rule. Leadership is our blood. No-one in this country can stop or change it. No-one can touch us. Allah has given us Nigeria. It is gift to our forefathers from him”.
I am still at a loss as to where he got this illusion. I don’t want to imagine the effrontery! He was quoted further to have said, “Our great grandfather Shaik Osman Dan Fodio and the Mujahadeen fought for it. Our grandfather the Saurdana, Sir Ahmadu Bello expanded our borders and frontiers.
“Our father President Muhammadu Buhari has come to complete the job and he is doing very well.”
Actually, this got me scared and worried.
“You see the most effective chains are the invisible ones. We already have you in those chains but you just don’t know it. We took our power back in 2015. We will not release it to southerners or unbelievers again. Not in the next 100 years!”
“It is true that we came from Futa Toro and Futa Jalon many years ago and conquered the north. Now every inch of it belongs to us. Every Fulani, whether from Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Niger, Chad, Cameroon or anywhere else is our brother and has a right to be here with us. We are Fulani before Nigerian and our allegiance is to our Fulani brothers all over West Africa more than you.
“Now we will conquer south and we do it in the name of “one Nigeria”. In that “one Nigeria” we shall remain the masters and you shall remain the slaves!”
In reality, this is the aspect I like most.
“None of you are going anywhere. Nigeria will never break. We will not allow it”- Aliyu Gwarzo.
Yes, I agree with him, we are going no where, they have to go! Sure it is about time we decide who is going and who is staying and of course, who henceforth call the shots. Enough of bad rubbish.
On the response of FFK, which in all sincerity I hope is true if Gwarzo was rightly quoted, I call him a true born, an omo oko and not omo lole lo gb’esi wa. According to the social media site, response goes thus
*Femi Fani-Kayode responds:*
“The problem with you is that you have allowed your delusions and lust for power and control to get the better of you. You and those you speak for are truly lost.
“You threaten and boast as if you are God, forgetting that He alone has the final say. You are not the first Fulani to speak like this and you will not be the last. A man called Hassan Kontagora said similar things many years ago and where is he today? The south is still standing and despite all we are not yet conquered!
“With apologies to William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, permit me to say this: yours is a sorry tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!”
Wow! Macbeth said it all, kudos to William Shakespeare for the choice of words. Anyway, Fani-Kayode allegedly did not stop at that he wrote:
“I read your words and I shook my head in utter disgust. Such insolence! Such arrogance! Such hate! If you are incapable of learning from history are you also incapable of learning from the ancient scriptures and the Holy Books?
“Can satan defeat God? Can injustice prevail against justice? Does the suffering and captivity of the righteous last forever? Can the children of God be enslaved or subjugated in perpetuity?
“Can our God ever abandon us and hand us over to you? Can darkness overcome light? Though we may weep through the night does our joy not come in the morning? Is our God not faithful and is the vision not for an appointed time? Your threats and boasts make me laugh.
” Is this not the way King Sennacherub of Assyria boasted before King Hezekiah and the children of Israel at the gates of Jerusalem? Do you believe that our God, the God of Hezekiah, is dead? Is this not the way that Goliath boasted before David in the field of battle? Do you think that our God, the God of David, is no longer alive?
“Is this not the way that Pharaoh boasted before Moses in the halls of his palace? Do you believe that our God, the God of Moses, has gone to sleep? Is this not the way that Jezebel boasted before Jehu from her balcony in Jezreel? Do you think that our God, the God of Jehu, no longer rules in the affairs of men?
“Hear this and hear it well: as long as Jesus sits on the throne you will never conquer southern Nigeria! You can try but you will continue to fail.
“And neither do you own the north. You only think you do and, as was the case with Icarus the Greek, your inordinate ambition, crass and inappropiate arrogance and hubristic pride will lead to your nemesis.
“I make bold to say that hell will freeze over before we bend the knee and bow before you and before you have your way! Death would be preferrable to such an ignoble capitulation!”
Really, I want to stop here though there are more to read and write however I must not fail to add a little bit more from the response by FFK.
“The difference between us is like the difference between night and day. We love but you hate. We seek the light but you seek the darkness. We believe in life but you believe in death. We delight in peace but you delight in war.
“We crave for progress, stability, security and prosperity but you lust for anarchy, chaos, bloodshed, destruction, terror, conquest, power and the perpetual domination and subjugation of others.”
I wonder if the President saw, read or heard this. Like I wrote earlier, I want to consider all the above as figment of someone somewhere’s imagination.
My take is that it is about time for the President to openly come out and tell us his take rather than saying one thing and in the same breath saying another thing. From all indication what was said, President Muhammadu Buhari was not initially against the setting up of Amotekun as a security outfit in the southern Nigeria to collaborate with the security agencies in the country until some of his men and the Miyetti group rose in opposition to it. Sadly, the North, just like one of its son, Buhari has refused to ‘adorn the hijab’ and walk his talk.
However, I can assure you that just as some of Khadijah’s critics said it was her business to wear or not to wear the prescribed hijab, I also want to state here that it is the business of the southern states governors to secure their people the best way they can. And the problem or otherwise of the citizens to keep mute or shout out loud for or against the Amotekun outfit exactly the way MURIC is taking Emir of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido’s daughter non wearing of hijab.
The reaction and non reaction of the president to Amotekun and the different state’s security outfits in the north is too loud a silence to be comfortable as well as much a noise to be condone by well meaning Nigerians wherever they may be. In the words of FFK, “Hisbah is OK but Amotekun is illegal!”
Really, if this is the stance of the president, then it is most unfortunate that a man who got into governance on the podium of integrity, resolve to fight insecurity and claim to unite Nigerians is swaying to a side in obvious lopsidedness rather than being balance and remaining in the corridor of justice.
Like FFK, many a Nigerian believe that “Nigeria is not one, has never been one and will never be one unless and until we firstly learn and accept the basic and fundamental principle that all men, regardless of race, religion and circumstance of birth are equal before God and secondly that we must restructure and devolve power from the centre to the six regions and zones”.
Failure to do this, God forbid, will eventually result in the implosion and violent breakup of the country. I certainly am not one to want the breakup of Nigeria, however, if the stance adopted by Gwarzo is anything to go by, then in no distant future, the eventuality may happen and then it will be good riddance to bad rubbish. How can this not be when each time, it’s one scenario of bias, partiality and prejudice when it comes to ethnicity, regional or political matters?
*Doyin writes in via [email protected]
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