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Renegade Youths Versus The Rest Of Us By Abdullah Musa I respect Professor Ibrahim Alkali Ayagi on many fronts. The area I respect him most is on the definition of self; meaning, what one is about in this world. It is not a coincidence, though one may be right in saying that it is an act of Providence that he has established a name for himself as having set certain enviable standards in education and human excellence. For instance he established Dr Hassan Gwarzo schools complex. To my limited intellect, the mark of a man or woman of distinction is the creation of an idea, a goal or an institution which has positive returns on the society one is serving or born into. This discourse is not about Prof Ayagi; far from it that he be described as the title above indicates. The point of reference and relevance of Prof Ayagi to this discourse was an interview he gave to News Line, an NTA network program long time ago. Responding to the question on the driving factor behind the establishment of the schools referred to earlier, he said they (Prof Ayagi and Co) wanted to train children to grow up and be “like us”. A renegade child, to put words into the mouth of Prof Ayagi , would be one who refuses to be like them. We all have ideas of our own selves. What we are, in most cases, is not tradable with something else , even though that new identity may be better. We give credence to the saying of Hausa man: sabo turken wawa. As fathers or mothers, we are proud of our proprietary rights over our children. We seek to impose our character, our preferences, our norms and ethics on our children. Through silent reproach, threats, harassment, actual physical punishment, we leave the children in no doubt that we are the models and we must be followed. Many parents are lucky to pass almost all their genetic characteristics to their children. Seeing them is thus ( in conduct and in flesh) seeing us ko da mun yi stepping aside! A renegade as defined in the Dictionary is one who has left a particular party or set of guiding principles. As Muslims, we believe we belong to the party of God, (jundullahi) and a renegade would be one who willingly ostracizes self from such party by insisting on a behavior pattern that goes against the very principles of our party. It seems clear that our efforts at molding our children into as near mirror-like as possible nature similar to ours is not always successful. We expect, we actually in our own limited ways hope that, our children should be our ambassadors and worthy successors. They should strive to be like us or even better than us. But they should not be less than or even antagonistic to us. Europe and America have come to accept a new code of living that gives the child the right to rebel from early age, and the right to be catered for in his or her rebellion by the ‘renegade’ parent. The assumption, which is given credence by the practice, is that the child is a different individual from those who sired it. In order not to ‘prejudice’ its mind, an atmosphere should be created where the child may grow up with the ability to choose the set of ‘values’ that will guide its life. To my thinking, what comes out of this preposition is that you do not own the child. Western society gives you the right to buy a dog; to train it to serve your purpose; but it is trying to show that you do not have the right to mold your child to serve your purpose. The recent dust raised by the introduction of the child’s rights Act is a pointer to the direction we are heading to: kuturu ya ga mai kyasbi…. We are thus being exposed to the possible annihilation of our values by the determined thrusts of others who happen to believe that they have the final say on what is right and what is wrong. (eating their cake and having it. is it not?) The reader is right in being impatient in the length of time spent laying the foundation for this discourse. Our interest is on the youths within our society whose parents were not successful in bringing them up in ways acceptable to the teachings of Islam. I usually pass by the corporate headquarters of the ‘deceased’ Bank of the North on my way to work every morning. Last week, I passed by as usual, but an unusual sight (against the backdrop of money spinning institution) caught my attention: two male youths were engaged in a fist cuff and the face of one was badly bruised. A third, with a ball of rags stuffed in his mouth suddenly ran in front of the car behind me, and crossed over the ‘Berlin wall’ partitioning the two lanes of Zaria road. I would not know his intention of running, but he might be running to escape the quarrel or to call for reinforcement. To those without street- knowledge, the stuffed rags in the youth’s mouth contain sholisho, that was why he was oblivious to the danger of moving directly in front of moving car. The scene described above had been with us in varying forms for the past 25 years or more. Governments since then had tried to address them in their own ways but we are saddled with them to date. Imagine a Director in the civil service, an Imam going to the mosque, a trader in his shop, or even a bus driver going around their respective assignment with sholisho-laden rags stuffed in their mouths! The first principle thus comes out: the renegade youths form the sholisho generation. They are not the type of children Prof Ayagi is training; they are not like us, and we are not like them. This distinction is of no comfort to us for we are not separated by any iron curtain between us and them. They are part and parcel of our society, and may even where appropriate, have claim over the landed properties of the persons they chose to hate, (by not emulating them) their parents. On our part, those of us who are not victims of this failure as parents, we are not immune. For it is from such groups that party thugs, armed robbers and petty thieves are recruited. The primitiveness of our political system thrives on the tool of intimidation in order to rig elections. In real fact, earlier on, people who considered themselves as masu mutunci were never seen at polling booths for fear of thugs. And those that use the services of these thugs are assured of free playing field to perpetrate their dastardly acts. A question deserves our attention here: at what level do you place the collective intelligence of a people where they can acquiesce to being led not through free and fair election, but by the use of thugs to intimidate them and drive them away from the election area? It is even more humiliating to let the perpetrators to rule in comfort after the rape of the fundamental right: the right to choose! Newer Manifestations: if you believe in personal responsibility, if you are inclined to believe that you are a responsible citizen, who endured the training imposed on you by your parents, and as a consequence have built up a respectable career with your children going to the right schools, then you may choose to be oblivious to what happens to the renegade youths. But that comfort is no longer sacrosanct. This is more so if your respectable career is in the civil service. The politician who gets appointed as either a Commissioner or even as head of parastatal has to work with the civil servants. To do this she or he has an office in the Secretariat. Within the hierarchy of those running the machinery of Government are the Permanent Secretaries and the Directors. Of recent at a public function, a permanent secretary implored the leadership of Directorate of Societal Reorientation to look into the problem of the renegade youths who move from office to office pestering officials for stipends to keep body (without soul) alive. This practice itself is not new. What is new is the trickle down effect: if the Commissioner is unavailable or absent, then the permanent secretary is expected to cater for yan’ jami’iyyah, or else he is tagged as ai ba namu bane! A glimpse at successes: this administration had trained some modest thousands of youths through the office of Special Adviser on Youths Development. But it looks like a drop in the ocean. What is more worrisome is the fact that the renegades are not trainable due to the lifestyle they have adopted: drug abuse. This office cannot thus cater for the category of youths who are the new havoc to civil servants. Institution Building: our failure to develop stems from the fact that we do not want to build impersonal institutions. By impersonal institutions we mean places where activities are run according to laid down rules and regulations. But you may chip in to say that all Government departments are supposed to run that way. ‘yes’ but they don’t. We like to be kings. We want our citizens to come to us as subjects and out of our magnanimity we put hands in our pockets or drawers and we dish out favors. It is this practice that led the civil servants to the condition they find themselves in. Civil servants are the ones to run the institutions, but it is they that ruin the institutions by disregarding procedures for either personal gain or in fear of reprisal from the new political master. Who killed the Housing Loan Board? The civil servant. This is ironic for he is the sole beneficiary, instead of any partnership with the general public. Of recent I went to the Kano office of the Agricultural Loan Bank. I wanted a loan for the on coming farming season. The official told me it is not possible, for the branch in Kano cannot give a single kobo loan. All powers are domiciled in their Kaduna office; and before the papers leave Kano to Kaduna and back, it would be deep into the season, and it would be rejected as late; better luck next season! A season that would never come, for those who are not ‘connected.’ If we want to succeed as a people, we must learn to make institutions to function, to achieve the objectives for which they are set up. This requires discipline, and above all being trustworthy. We may want to abuse trust and think it will never catch up with us. What we are seeing now is the tip of the iceberg. It may be an extreme in forecasting the future, but if we go on this way, one day a group of renegades may enter a Permanent Secretary’s office and refuse to leave till either their demands are met, or offering an explanation as: cigaba da aiki, hutawa muke! You see the issue is that of declining integrity. People are perceiving public servants as thieves. With this mind set, it is getting more difficult to believe that the practitioners are above board. If they are not, then the renegade, who under normal circumstance is not law abiding would get bolder by the day demanding for his share in direct cash grant. Who needs a remedy? We do not need a remedy for we cannot muster enough courage to initiate steps to reverse the trend. But in case someone somewhere is concerned, then the following may be some steps to follow, while other brains work at the problem for the years to come: a) establish an agency for the treatment and rehabilitation of drug abusers. b) Pass a law making it a criminal offence for any public servant (political or civil) to donate money to the public while in office c) Establish a social security agency with guidelines on the social security issues it will address. d) Study and redefine how the public servants are to interact with the general public. Our people do not respect the office culture: friends do drop in for chats! e) Mass campaign to sensitize people on what the governments stand for. f) The leaders of political parties do not carry along respectable members of the society and ordinary people with stable and upright lives. They keep close to themselves, stinking, hemp- puffing idiots, who have lost both soul and direction. How can the parties not exhibit the same tendencies? g) For there to be any positive change, steely, steadfast men and women of conscience must brave the odds and take the ropes of the parties. Otherwise, our write-up for today would join the numerous others that would of certainty end up in the refuse dump. And the rot continues because we are so much in hurry to wait, ponder, plan, and resolutely execute.
Special Assistant to Kano State Governor On Societal Reorientation |