The Need for Government of Transformation

By

Ali Bukar Ahmad

alibuks1975@yahoo.com  

Ideally, democracy shall be the wishes, desires and opinions of the people following a particular leadership. But in some cases, it is essential for the leaders to reject the demands that will not favor the life’s of the people. The leaders shall reject, explaining clearly with reasons why they dissociate from particular demands. This is however, when we are talking of the leadership that focuses on development and not the one that is attending to personal problem of naming ceremony rams and sweets, my wife has delivered, building mosques without the worshipers or buying kettles and marts for the mosques but the one that will provide the needs for the entire socio-economic wellbeing of the people.

Many a times in Nigeria , the leaders are quite aware that many requests of the electorates do not tally with the basics for transforming a society and yet they go ahead to implement them for political recognition and “crowd- fooling”. If I can cote Mallam Shekarau correctly, I had him saying: “if you have a visitor and without presenting food to him, you went ahead and gave him water for ablution, you have not been fair to him”. Because, it is when you are without hunger that you will have the compassion to pray. But the people in power usually resort to decorating mosques, buying plastic kettles or marts to various mosques mostly within the local government system as they studied the mentality of the common man in the country to win his political mandate not because it is the priority.

We have enough mosques in such a way that some do not witness visitors openly, others only have two or few visitors while a number with no congregational sessions throughout the five daily prayer times. In many cases you will see prayers taking place  not more than 20 yards away from another group. Every group will not agree to join another in prayers. So, re-establishing unnecessarily will not create any thing but more disunity among us.

The struggle to get involved in decision making of a state by fanatic Ulamas is seriously contributing to our backwardness. The certainty of going for pilgrimage for which many have started sacrificing to their children and relatives, because they have been to it a number of times and the meetings they attend with government that is associated with allowances and other privileges, makes them to be struggling for recognition and relevance even if they will deviate from the right path.

The common man in Nigeria is ignorant of his ideal needs, then reject the un-productive and go for the productive ones. Creating more emirates will not aid development, it may even reverse it. It will not contribute to boosting the economy but reducing its strength. More emirate councils, means more vouchers for payment to feed the horses and more money to cater for the entire needs of the created emirates. So even if the people requested for them, I believe the governor of Yobe state knows that they requested without knowing that they don’t need them. They are ignorant, they don’t know what is government, they don’t know the functions of government, and they don’t know the projects that will facilitate development. But Bukar went ahead and did “this” just to protect his political power by earning the support of the people that are supporting him because of something done to them that is realistically gibberish.    

In 1973 in Kano state during the late Audu Bako regime, there was a policy to alleviate poverty through construction of irrigation channels in many villages. But some places rejected violently in their areas, saying it will destroy their lands as it was the hypocrisy of the west. Today they are regretting, because the areas that the channels were successfully constructed are richer than the areas that refused. Now apart from forgiving him for taking the decision that was against the people’s wish, they are even thanking him and making good prayers for him. You see, he has done what he felt was good to people not what people demanded in that case and they have realized now. The people of Nigeria need serious enlightenment so as to reduce the level  of Illiteracy. For instance, my present job is associated to mixing with rural Dwellers. There is no a single day so long as I go to one village or the other that I will not come across an event that lack of awareness has caused. There was a time I went to zangon- gulya village of ajingi local government area in Kano state I found the road very difficult ,I was driving while almost half of my tires were sunk in the sand. when I reached there I was complaining to the people about the condition of their road ,they told me that you have made a mistake by coming trough that road, no body is using it now you are even lucky that you were not been hooked. They continue to say “ this governor of Kano state Shekarau has cheated us, we elected him and he spoiled our road” I had to quickly intervene, I explained to them the way they will understand because I had seen a sign board that indicated the executor of the project to make them realized that it was their local government that did it.  When it comes to the issue of NEPA, the perception is even worse. When they don’t have light, they will say the governor. This is rampant in more than a hundred villages I use to visit. they can not distinguish among the federal, state and local governments own properties and or projects. I throw this blame on the government that is not trying to improve their awareness . 

In Nigeria ,  we have serious problem with religious knowledge.  Not more than three weeks ago, I was watching an AIT program, some  people were interviewing Christians going home from church to mention  first and second commandments of the bible. A lot of people were asked  and many of them their answers were “I have forgotten the rest or I forgot”.  The same thing when it comes to we Muslims there is this type of  problem. We need to know the teachings of one other’s religion apart from knowing the individual own as it will increase respect among us. with it Muslims will not say that Christianity is about singing and dancing or the Christian to say Islam is about prostration on the ground but the explanation behind the songs-dance and the prostration.  

Take for instance the “sharia issue”, a lot of people among the Muslims does not know the meaning of Islamic sharia system not to talk of those outside the religion. Many people thought that the Sharia legal system is a system of governance that is bounded by making the life of the people miserable or uncomfortable, by perceiving it to be dealing with offences and capital punishments alone. Not only the common man but also the advanced, whenever the Sharia issue is raised, you will hear them saying “we are happy that Sharia has come, who ever steals, his hand is going to be amputated and who ever fornicates will be caned.” You will not hear them calling aspects of Sharia like the sovereign equality, improving the quality of life of the people or even judicious uses of resources alike in which are the primary concerns of the system. The Sharia legal system declaration, is a total submission to justice in all ramifications which identifies among other things the rights of the non- Muslims within the system over the Muslims. For example, it is spelt out in Nigerian constitution that a worker in Nigeria after retirement is entitle to pension. So, there is no reason what so ever the government should deny such a worker his right. 

Taking Kano as a case study, retired workers were denied such a right by previous governments, but with the inception of the present government of Shekarau, is taking care of it. This is one of the teachings of the Sharia system because justice has been seen and done. I am not saying that the governor is performing excellently, but I am trying to use some of his good policies to elaborate the concept of Sharia. In a nutshell, I am appealing to governments that may reason with me, the one that may consider illiteracy as a disease and the non governmental organizations to attach significance to public enlightenments and advocacies to improve the level of literacy so as to make the society to achieve rapid development.    Ali Bukar Ahmad (jnr),   Writes from Kano Nigeria