The enviably good writer just needed to kind of revenge what he seemed to consider as an unwarranted attack on his person by Shaikh Ja’afar Mahmud Adam to incur the wrath of some populist writers and those who hide behind religion, which has been selfishly monsternized in Northern Nigeria, to unleash pseudo-intellectual criticisms on the non conformist writer in order to earn cheap popularity.

This rather mystification of Sanusi is too defeatist, yet it is spreading like a wild bush fire, consuming on its path even university Dons like certain M.K.

Banu az-Zubair of the Oxford University, England who seemed to have been so overwhelmed by the passion that he forgot that populist intellectualism leads to kamikaze intellectualism and dare devil scholarly engagement with all the attendant embarrassment.

Like most of the other Sanusi’s critics, Dr. az-Zubair gave the impression that he was motivated by religious zeal. But study of his rejoinder indicated contrary motives. That reminded me of the observation that Africa is becoming so scientifically despondent that even their scientists are increasingly involved in profitable pretentious religiosity, an attitude that is fast forming part of the so-called Afritude.

The trigger was Sanusi’s rejoinder entitled “Identity, Political Ethics and Parochialism: Engagement with Shaikh Ja’afar”, published in the Daily Trust of May 26th and 27th 2005. Dr az-Zubair, who tactically admitted that Sanusi is “a thought-provoking writer” even though he did “not always agree with him” nevertheless branded Sanusi’s rejoinder a disappointment, devoid of substance and also dismissed him as a “Philo-sourpuss” (rather than a philosopher) which he defined as “he who loves being bad tempered”.

The University Don claimed that he intended, via his interventionist article, “to demonstrate three things: that the charges Lamido makes against Shaikh Ja’afar Adam are false and unjustified on the basis of the interview published in Weekly Trust of 16 April 2005. Secondly, I will show that some of Sanusi Lamido’s philosophical positions reflect a fundamentally deficient grasp of philosophy and profound superficial understanding of Islamic theology. Finally, I will demonstrated that Sanusi Lamido is philosophically inconsistent” And to give an impression that he intended to actually address the issue objectively, Dr. az-Zubair re-quoted the contentious aspect of Shaikh Ja’afar’s statement quoted by Sanusi. And for the purpose of making the matter clearer, I too re-quote Shaikh Ja’afar thus, “I saw so many write-ups along the way, especially those written by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and Dangiwa Umar……. Anyone who reads these people’s writings will know that they don’t know where they come from. They don’t have the identity of the religion they belong to. They equally don’t have the identity of the tribe they belong. President Obasanjo has his Yoruba identity and Christianity as a religion, which he overzealously protects; Sardauna has a northern identity and that of Islam, which he overzealously protected; Awolowo had his Yoruba identity……… Ojukwu had his Igbo identity… Every person who knows what he is doing must have such an identity” On the basis of these statements in particular, Sanusi accused shaikh Jaafar, as equally quoted by az-Zubair also, thus, “Before I proceed with my philosophical discussion on the ethics of identity, let me make the following observations on the quote above. What Ja’afar is clearly accusing Dangiwa and myself of is that we are not tribalistic enough…” “Secondly, Ja’afar assumes that one can have a tribal or religious identity (a presumption that is itself problematic) but that one cannot, or at least should not have a national identity….” “Finally, and most revealingly, Ja’afar assumes that identity is in itself a moral category, that there is virtue in simply being Fulani or Hausa or Yoruba, or professing to be Muslim or Christian”.

At this juncture, instead of addressing the contentious issue in the quotation, az-Zubair started his showy intellectualism by pedantic lecture on the subject “identity.” Az-Zubair, who portrayed himself as more educated and intelligent than Sanusi, however, while “addressing” the contentious aspects of the quotation steered clear of the key word in what looks like a cowardly intellectualism. Going by the quotation, the key contentious recommendation of Sheikh Ja’afar is “overzealous” protection of Sanusi and Dangiwa’s religious and tribal identities and that obviously was why Sanusi accused the Shaikh of branding him and Dangiwa as not being overzealous Fulanis and Muslims or, to use Sanusi’s actual words, ‘not tribalistic enough…’ ” However, Az-Zubair wants readers to believe that the phrase, “they do not have the identity of the tribe they belong” in the quotation was just what provoked Sanusi’s response. That is scholastically dubious and cowardly. The charge of not being overzealous in defense of Fulani and Muslim identities is scholastically the key contentious accusation and not just lack of “the identity of the tribe they belong” as az-Zubair claimed.

So az-Zubair should have demonstrated that by recommending the alleged religious and ethnic overzealousness of Sardauna, Awo, e.t.c for Sanusi and Dangiwa, Shaikh Ja’afar Adam, nevertheless, did not mean to say that the two non conformist writers were not tribalistic enough, rather than trivializing the issue.

After this off-track argument, az-Zubair indulged in needless and diversionary ‘lecture’ on identity and its forms and added that “Shaikh Ja’afar’s statement, that Sanusi Lamido and Dangiwa do not have the identity of the tribe they belong, may mean, among others, that, they do not behave like, or, have the values and culture of the tribe they claim to come from. Sanusi’s charge that, this implies he and Dangiwa are not sufficiently tribalistic is simply his own presumption (Really?), but not the meaning of what Shaikh Ja’afar said. Neither could Sanusi Lamido read from the statement that he should or ought to, be tribalistic, at least he cannot linguistically or logically make that claim on the basis of the quote above. He may only rightly ask what Ja’afar meant by the phrase ‘identity of the tribe they belong’, in other words, ask Ja’afar what that identity is that they are lacking”. What a pretentious ignorance! Scholastically, az-Zubair should have expected Sanusi to ask Ja’afar what he meant by expecting him and Dangiwa to emulate those who “overzealously protect their religious and ethnic identities” if that is not implying that they are not tribalistic and religiously bigot enough (overzealous).

The only way to explain away sheikh Ja’afar’s contentious remarks is to suggest that the Shaikh was being merely metaphorical by the word ‘overzealous’ as he (Shaikh Ja’afar) himself is not evidently overzealous on matters of religion and tribe. But by running away from the key contentious remark of the respectable Shaikh and instead hammering on the periphery, az-Zubair is only logically indicting the person he intends to protect. What an irony! It is ridiculous for az-Zubair to argue that Shaikh Ja’afar could not have expected Sanusi to have been more tribalistic since he (Jaafar) believed that Sanusi “does not even know the identity he was supposed to have, or is lacking… you are first to be tribalisitc before someone can make a judgmental statement of whether it is enough or you need to be more so. His (Sanusi’s) charge is, therefore, false”. Nonsense! So by urging Sanusi and Dangiwa to emulate those overzealously protecting their tribal identities, does that not at least imply that he considers Sanusi and Dangiwa as not tribalistic enough? When you call on some one to be overzealous like another supposed overzealous person are you not at least, implying that he is not doing enough? For even if Sanusi and Dangiwa were tribalisitic, that was not enough for Ja’afar; even if they were very tribalistic, that was still not enough for him; in fact, even if they were zealously tribalistic, they still had to improve for he would settle at nothing less than their being overzealously protective of their tribe. Thus Sanusi was even being simple and conservative by concluding that the quotation implies that he and Dangiwa were not tribalistic enough. It is unfortunate that a University Don would think that by the phrase, “they don’t have the identity of tribe they belong” the Shaikh meant so in the absolute or literal sense of the phrase to the extent that he (the Don) would indulge in analyzing such an obviously metaphorical phrase literally.

Dr. az-Zubair said also that, Sanusi Lamido’s second charge, that, “… Ja’afar assumes that one can have a tribal or religious identity but that one cannot, or at least should not have a national identity” completely misses the point. But can az-Zubair tell us how one could be overzealously protective of his tribe or religion and at the same time be a nationalist? For, logically, the two conditions are mutually exclusive.

Dr. az-Zubair continues, ‘finally, Sanusi Lamido says, “…Ja’afar assumes that identity is in itself a moral category, that there is virtue in simply being Fulani or Hausa or Yoruba, or Christian.

But this is an assumption that merely reflects a lack of training in philosophy, and also a lack of understanding of Muslim thought at any level beyond the superficial and literal”… yet, again, this charges is false and is not justified. Shaikh Ja’afar did not, at least it cannot be read from the interview, that he implied or indicated that being Fulani or professing Islam is a virtue…. He believes Muslims and ethnic groups like the Fulani and Hausa should emulate the examples of the people he cited earlier, in recognition of Nigeria’s Realpolitik.

Just imagine! So az-Zubair was so desperate to defeat Sanusi in argument that he would rather associate such a symbol of morality like Shaikh Ja’afar Adam with such selfishness as Realpolitik? Is it not more appropriate and sensible to conclude that Shaikh Ja’afar was motivated by morality than a near immorality like Realpolitik especially since religion is involved? After another unnecessarily verbose talks on identity, az-Zubair said, “…Sanusi Lamido charge, that, those “… who argue that we should have identity of our tribes and religions, focus on the fact of what we are rather than the value of who we are” is an indication he does not know the difference between the ‘who’ and ‘what’ of identity. He assumed that ‘tribe’ and ‘religion’ are a ‘what’ property of a person and, he is wrong. The ‘what’ of a person is an intrinsic property, while the ‘who’ is an extrinsic property. A person’s ‘tribe’ or ‘ethnicity’ is a ‘what’ of the person, like maleness or femaleness, while a ‘religion’ is not. So putting the ‘tribe’ and ‘religion’ under a ‘what’ property of a person, as Sanusi Lamido did, is nonsense and false….” Is az-Zubair pretending that even though he is a Don in the Oxford University, he does not understand English Language very well? How does he lecture his students? That Sanusi knows that ‘what’ of a person is intrinsic is obvious in his associating the ‘what’ of a person with ‘fact’ (suggesting permanence, reality or intrinsic nature): and that he knows that ‘who’ of a person is Extrinsic is manifest in his relating the ‘who’ of a person with value’ (suggesting subjectivity, dynamism or extrinsic natur). So it is cheap to argue that Sanusi does not know that tribe is a ‘what’ of a person while religion is a ‘who’ of a person. In fact, from Sanusi’s statement earlier quoted by az-Zubair, “Is a white man better than a back man by virtue of the ‘what’ of being white or black?” is very evident too that Sanusi is not ignorant as charged.

As az-Zubair, himself, said. “….. inherent in ‘identity theory’ are certain properties of identity, such as sameness, quality, numerical, who, what, type, and kind, the relevance of these properties depending on the categories of identity under discussion….” Yet Sanusi accurately described the debate on tribal and religious identity as a debate on ‘what’ and ‘who’ and he did not stop there but described being of black or white race (and, implicitly, tribe) as a ‘what’. Impliedly, religion must be the ‘who’ in his statement. Dr.

az-Zubair should stop his triviality! By saying, “….who argues that we should have identity of our tribes and religion, focus on the fact of what we are rather than the value of who we are” Sanusi is merely alleging parochialism on the part of Ja’afar.

And that does not logically or scholastically imply that Sanusi assumed that tribe and religion fall under the ‘what’ of an identity especially since he had earlier categorized them under ‘what’ and ‘who’ of identity respectively.

No wander az-Zubair wants to trivialize Sanusi’s excellent demonstration of the need to focus on the value of ‘who’ of a person rather than the fact of ‘what’ of a person. Talking about the value of ‘who’ of a person, Sanusi, as quoted by az-Zubair himself, said eventually that, “…Nasir el-Rufai is a Muslim and a Northerner. So is Ibrahim Mantu…. But are they the same?” by this example Sanusi is obviously demonstrating the importance of the value of who a person is; that is, it is not enough for el-Rufai to say he is a Muslim and a Northerner because even Mantu is so (and vice versa). In other words, it is not enough to be a Muslim or a Northerner, what matters is the value of being so.

That further proves that Sanusi indeed knows the deference between the property of ‘who’ and that of ‘what’ contrary to what az-Zubair wants us to believe.

Perhaps sensing that his falsification of Sanusi’s explanation might not be convincing to a careful and informed reader, az-Zubair than tried to take readers into another wild chase of Sanusi’s supposed blunder by indulging in some very diversionary, unnecessary, off-syllabus and off-context academic display of pedantic intellectualism about the meaning of the ward, ‘same’, citing some subjective examples. He said “the word ‘same’ is used sometimes to indicate similarity, as in ‘Mohammed is the same age as Kabir’. Nevertheless, similarity comes in degrees and under different categories and relatedness of things is not as straightforward as it might appear. According to Wittgenstein in Tractus Logico-Philosophicus, ‘….to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense (really?), and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing at all. That is, to say A is the same as B when A and B are distinct, is false, but to say that A is the same as A is to speak tautology. But to the external that language is a means of (sensible) communication and expression, the above quotation is too argumentatively academic and subjective. Such an argument is like saying the quantity 7/(888)n can never be Zero as the exponent ‘n’ approaches infinity since 7 is not Zero and zero can’t generate back the quantity 7/(888)n. Of course that is scientifically right. But we know that as ‘n’ approaches infinity the numerator, 7, is infinitely fractionalized and effectively becomes zero thereby making the quantity 7/(888)n zero. That is the power of reason.

In fact, az-Zubair behaves like a medical Doctor who knowing fully well that the quantity of an impurity in a vaccine being administered on his people is clinically zero but for the purpose of just whipping up sentiment, obtains a sophisticated scientific test of the vaccine to prove to his people that the vaccine contains the undesirable substance thereby scaring them away from the beneficial vaccine. Can you say that a medical Doctor can be ignorant of the fact that a scientifically noticeable impurity may well be clinically non-existent? Please, az-Zubair don’t mislead the readers by employing complicated academic tricks.

Even in mathematics there is the concept of sameness or congruency of two entities. When either of two entities can be substituted for the other in all mathematical operations, they are mathematically identical, same, or congruent. Period! Thus, if A is mathematically identical with B, then when B=4, A is likewise equal to 4 and so on; even though they are separated by time and space.

Similarly, on the debate on ‘Pulaku’, which was similarly over indulged upon by az-Zubair who, nevertheless, ultimately ended up saying just what Sanusi had said in better ways than he’s (az-Zubair’s). It must be pointed out that Sanusi did not claim the authorship of the enumerated Pulaku virtues. He credited them to Sa’ad Abubakar’s work and he has not implied that the Abubakar’s work has the exhaustive list of Pulaku virtues. Sanusi only said he “relied on Sa’ad Abubakar’s work” for the purpose of the illustration in his article.

It is instructive that Sanusi concluded, as even quoted by az-Zubair himself, that, “Being Fulani is not about belonging to an ethnic group or a language group or geographical area. It is a quality, earned by living in accordance with an established code, deviation from which leads to rejection and effective stripping of the right to one’s ‘Fulaniness’ ”. Therefore the imitative ‘conclusion’ of az-Zubair that, “… to claim that a Fulani is defined by Pulaku is nonsense” is very unnecessary as that was what Sanusi had implied.

Similarly, where Sanusi said that Shaikh Ja’afar, “…. assumes that identity is in itself a moral category, that there is virtue in simply being Fulani or Hausa or Yoruba, or professing to be Muslim or Christian”, az-Zubair countered, “… to profess a faith is to accept the totality of its precepts,…” But that is not true. To profess a faith could mean to pretend to practice it or to simply belong to it irrespective of the extent or “to accept the totality of its precepts” (as az-Zubair said). It depends on the context.

So az-Zubair has more to do to convince us that he is truly more informed than Sanusi, as is proved to be the motive of his so-called defense of Shaikh Ja’afar Adam.

Ka-Almasih is a Kaduna-based Journalist.