Kudos to Adamu Adamu and Related Matters

Crispin Oduobuk

Penultimate Friday’s ‘Mayhem in the name of God’ by Adamu Adamu on the back page of Daily Trust struck the right chord in this quarter. In the thick of production that Friday (February 24, 2006) a colleague mentioned Adamu’s column with animation. But there was a hurry to finish and hit the road to Jos for the Festival of Theatre. In that hurry, the paper got forgotten. So it wasn’t until Sunday night when, groggy from the three-and-a-half hour return trip, your correspondent looked at the article.

Right from the first paragraph, sleep fled. Adamu Adamu was amazing! What unbelievable courage! For your correspondent it was like a shot in the arm. Here, at last, was a ray of hope, in the midst of confusion; something to look up to—something to applaud.

According to the writer: “What I heard almost made me die of grief. The reports said Muslims were demonstrating their distaste in the cartoon controversy in Nigeria, which was to be expected, but some churches had been burnt in Maiduguri, which was just too unfortunate. What had churches got to do with it? The Christian Association of Nigeria, even ahead of Muslim organizations in the country, had condemned the cartoons. His Holiness Pope Benedict VI had expressed solidarity with Muslims. Why should anyone attack churches or anything for that matter?”

Hope to Build a Nation

There was an instant connection to the humanity that could feel this grief that had lowered spirits in this quarter since the Maiduguri news first broke. Here was an understanding of the immense hurt that had enveloped this writer, evoked by a feeling of being taken back years in too many parameters to number here. And when Adamu wrote: “I bow my head in shame and put up my hands in penitence and condolence to Ndigbo and to all those non-Muslims who have had to suffer loss as a result of the stupid acts of those who, without knowing Islam, have become its vanguard,” there was that resurgence of hope again; perhaps with humility such as this we might yet build a nation.

For the record, let it be stated here that this writer has had cause to disagree with Adamu’s views in the past. Primarily, this was on account of his role in foiling last year’s Abuja Carnival, in which context your correspondent wrote:

“In two articles, ‘Abuja Carnival: Sex and foreign exchange’ (Daily Trust, back page, Friday November 4, 2005), and ‘Salute to CAN’ (Daily Trust, back page, Friday November 11, 2005), Adamu went beyond what may be regarded as fair commentary and delved into supercilious and gratuitous goading. Indeed, in the second article, what seemed to be an attempt in the first piece to shame religious leaders and royal fathers in the North into distancing themselves from the carnival, graduated into outright name-calling blackmail that left a rather sour taste as one struggled to read the column to the end. The effect, as seen in the recent pronouncements of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and some other parties, is that the warrior on a warpath to an untenable peace has cut a swath which runs deep. How unfortunate.”

This is not a withdrawal of the above. This is an affirmation of the principle that to disagree with a man’s views is not to have an aversion to him. Adamu Adamu deserves kudos here because, though one may not always agree with his stance, the exceptional courage he has shown in ‘Mayhem in the name of God’ earns him a place in your correspondent’s book of noteworthy thinkers of today, however insignificant this may seem. It is with thinkers like Adamu that there’s a pragmatic possibility to engender a genuine nation in this potpourri called Nigeria.

For when Adamu writes that, “Islam is the religion of peace, but this is not supposed to be some piece of theory to be quoted crisis after crisis. It is supposed to mean that you are at peace with God for having submitted to His Will, and at peace with God’s creatures for having given them their rights as ordained by that Will, and at peace with yourself for discharging (or for having faithfully tried to discharge) your obligations,” he strikes at a foundation of existence that no nation can do without.

A Theory of Peace

In the context of this discourse, it may be argued that the inherent capacity of the nation state to unleash violence on anyone or everyone whenever and wherever she chooses to do so appears to be the real reason why relative peace can be found in most functional societies. It has little to do with love or tolerance. When and where the state fails to harness this power of violence to enforce peace, then chaos reigns. This is the bigger tragedy of Maiduguri and Onitsha.

Moreover, it seems clear, when the struggle for peace worldwide is taken in a historical context, that those who are unwilling or unable to wage war would most likely not know peace, or would perpetually be preyed upon by others who do not flinch from mustering violence at will. Indeed, ancient and modern war histories point to one simple truth: the first condition for peace is the readiness to wage war (deterrence). Secondly, if a group or country is attacked, even as it sues for peace (the art of diplomacy), it must strike back to send the message that it will not be attacked with impunity.

And yet being humans, there is a moral burden to go beyond the mere technicality of achieving balance in the capacity to unleash violence and thereby keep the peace through this mechanism. This is where Onitsha is troubling even as one can understand, but not condone, the anger that fuels reprisals.

Now, regardless of what has been in this recent past—or perhaps because of it—in tune with Adamu’s premise, it is a good season to be talking peace. But we should not only talk peace; we should also live peace, even if our nation state perpetually fails at guaranteeing that peace.