On the Islamisation of Politics & the Politicisation of Islam (Revised)
By
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi
This
article seeks to build on the foundations
laid by my earlier paper “The
Muslim Activist and Multi-religious
opposition”, published in the Weekly Trust of June 5th and 12th
, 1998 . (General Abacha died between
the two dates). That article articulated the following propositions:
That Islam did not prohibit an alliance between Muslims and non-Muslims in the fight against such oppression; and
That the ultimate test of the “correct” strategy for a Muslim activist lies in whether or not it makes the society closer to the Islamic ideal than it is at present.
As
we live in the euphoria of the post - Abacha days, and the country gets divided
into ethnic/religious camps with self-appointed leaders stepping-out
as defenders of specific interests, a clear understanding of the
political environment as well as articulation of a political philosophy and
strategy are essential for the Islamic movement.
Muslim
activists tend to be idealists. Holding up to themselves and to society the
model of the prophetic state, they devote their lives to the attainment of the
ideal. In essence, some of them remind one of Marxists who continued to define
the problems of Nigeria in terms of class struggles. Believing fervently that no
solution could be found until a communist state was established, these young
revolutionaries find themselves now without focus, without roots, after the
collapse of the Soviets Union.
The
problem here is not one of having ideals. Every one who hopes to change society
ought to have some ideal at the back of his mind. Like the philosopher in
Plato’s cave, he sees the utopia, and tries to govern society to proximate it.
The principal problem with many activists is that they fail to understand the
reality on ground which they seek to change. Although they hope to move society
towards an ideal they somehow feel they can do away with an understanding of
that society and its processes. They have an ideal, who needs reality?
As
Bertrand Russell aptly points out, “ it is only in marriage with the world
that our ideals can bear fruit: divorced from it, they remain barren. But
marriage with the world is not to be achieved by an ideal which shrinks from
facts, or demands in advance that the world shall conform to its desires’”.
This
is precisely what inflicts large sections of the Islamic movement. Committed to
the Islamic ideal but blissfully ignorant of reality and what it takes to change
it, the movement has kept itself apart from the very processes that need to be
controlled if society is to be changed. Holding on to slogans and declaring its
commitment to an Islamic State and no other, the movement has been left holding
up an ideal incapable of bearing fruit. Instead of Islamizing the politics of
the country, the movement has succeeded in
in politicising Islam, using it to gain some popularity and, in some
cases, turning Muslim youth into vandals and drop-outs with little hope for
building a life of their own, not to talk of leading society to the path of
progress.
If
my earlier article was a defence of Muslim
activists who joined a multi-religious opposition to the Abacha regime, this one
seeks to encourage good Muslims to form alliances with well-meaning Nigerians
from across the religious divide and thus stop power from falling into the hands
of evil men of whatever faith.
Our
greatest task is to fight against those politicians who seek to gain or hold on
to power in the name of Islam or the north, as a route to looting the national
treasury and treating the country as a private estate to be shared among
family-members and friends. Without a doubt this country has been brought almost
to its knees, its citizens victims of the highest degree of economic
mismanagement, political repression and breach of faith on the part of leaders.
Without a doubt, every government in Nigeria over the past two decades
(excepting Shonekan’s 3-month Interim Contraption) has been headed by a
Northern Muslim. In each of these governments, Muslims and northerners have held
important portfolios.
These
Muslims and northerners have not achieved any thing worthy of note on behalf of
the North or Islam. The last government in particular waged a relentless war
against sections of the Islamic Movement, subjecting its leadership to arbitrary
and extra judicial executions, arrest and detention. General Abacha is not known
to have made a single contribution to Kano, his adopted state, or Borno, his
original home state. Even his choice of governors in Kano seemed designed to
appoint those with a tendency toward kleptomania to run the commercial nerve-centre
of the north. The reputation gained by Administrators in Kano
is one of devising ingenious ways of selling off state assets like land
and black marketeering in petroleum products.
Unfortunately,
even though northerners and Muslims were victims of these criminals in every
same sense as other Nigerians, we have become the target of attacks and enmity
from certain other sections of the country. We have refused, correctly, to
accept responsibility (as Muslims) for the un-Islamic actions of past rulers. We
have also refused, again correctly, to plead guilty as northerners to the charge
of having “dominated”, “exploited
”, or “ marginalised’’ , other Nigerians. We must continue to
resist, correctly, the pressure to give up our collective right to present
Northern Muslim candidates for leadership of this country on account of the
actions of criminals who happen to be northerners and profess to be Muslims but
who acted purely on their own with support from other criminals from the same
and other regions, professing the same and other creeds.
But
of one thing the political leadership of the north stands guilty as charged: Its
contemptible and cowardly silence, its toleration of evil and its open
fraternisation with despots- all of which could be variously interpreted as
passivity, complicity and support. As an example, the silence of Emirs and many
notable political and religious leaders in the face of the injustice to which
Chief M. K. O. Abiola was subjected is inexplicable. As was their silence in the
face of injustices meted out to Obasanjo, Yar Adua and co. Most significant was
the bewildering speech read by the Sultan of Sokoto endorsing the Abacha
candidacy.
If
these represent the true views of these leaders, they have condemned themselves
in the records of history as apologists for a corrupt military dictatorship. If
they represent a case of silence in the face of a detestable act and speech in
contrariness to real beliefs, then they are even worse. They are either greedy
sycophants or cowards and hypocrites; unable to stand up for what they believe
in and undeserving of the honour of being leaders.
At
the most rudimentary level, the June 12, 1993 elections had produced a Muslim president and a
Muslim vice-president for the country. On this ground alone,
Muslims should have spearheaded the opposition to its annulment.
A
second example has to do with the alleged “ Diya” coup. I do not intend to
speak on the authenticity of the evidence put up or even
if justice was done to the plotters. But no one denies that at the time
of the alleged coup, Nigerians were demoralised and in a state of despair.
Everyone was looking forward to a welcome kind of divine intervention and a coup
at that point would have met with the overwhelming approval of the populace.
Thus the country was ripe for a coup. It is easy to dismiss Diya, Olanrewaju and
Adisa’s motives for the coup.
They had all benefited from the Abacha presidency. Olanrewaju and Adisa had just
been dropped from the cabinet. Diya could be an over ambitious officer not
content with the No. 2 position.
But
this does not alter the fact that officers, primarily of northern extraction,
and prominent among them Muslims, displayed one of the most base of human
attributes: Breach of Trust. These
officers pretended to be genuinely
concerned about the corruption and megalomania associated with Abacha. They pretended
to love the nation enough to risk a coup. They deceived
colleagues, many of whom were from the South-west into active complicity in the
coup. And then they left them to face the death-sentence.
If Diya was a fool, his foolishness lay in believing he was dealing with human
beings with remnants of a conscience. If the participation of Diya, Olanrewaju
and Adisa can be viewed as a disgrace for Yoruba land , the ignominious
role reputed to have been played by such characters as Magashi, Sabo and El-mustapha
was an even greater disgrace for the north and Islam. Treachery, aimed at
leading a man to the gallows, but couched in the language of laudable
objectives, is a negation of all that is preached by Islam, by good culture and
by natural principles of human decency. In the final analysis, their action was
not designed to promote in any way the ‘interest of the North and Islam’. It
has only gained us more enemies and earned us a bad reputation.
If
I concentrate on “northern Muslims” it is not because all northerners are Muslims, or vice-versa. The truth is that Southern
Muslims in the main had
the courage to speak out against the injustices of the last regime. It is
also a fact that when politicians in this country speak of a ‘ power-
shift’, they mean a shift from the Muslim north. Few of them would object to a
Solomon Lar or Sunday Awoniyi or Jerry Gana or Dan Suleiman- even though they
are all northerners. However, Adamu Ciroma, Jubril Aminu, or Umaru Shinkafi or
until recently even a Sola Saraki would clearly be out of the question.
Most
of us from the north know that these gentlemen have little or nothing in common
with Abacha or Babangida. Ask any well-bred son of Kano and he will tell you
that the moment he heard that the son of a cigarette-seller, born and bred in
Fagge quarters had become Nigeria’s Head of State he knew the country was done
for. We were not entirely surprised that a Fagge-boy should steal the
country’s resources, that his children should behave like touts and area boys,
that he should suffer from a debilitated liver as a result of heavy drinking and
that his final moments on earth should be spent in dramatic entanglement with
Asian beauties. Perhaps General Danjuma put it best when he said” what do you
expect from people born in the gutter, who spent their lives moving from gutter
to gutter?”.
As
northerners, many of us know this. But how many non-northerners know what Fagge
means in Kano?( With due apologies to the minority of Fagge indigenes who are
unblemished). Did we not take it for granted that other Nigerians would
understand our silence, our non-chalant attitude toward this national scandal?.
In Abacha’s lifetime , a few of us recognised the damage being done to the
North and Islam not just by his actions but by the deafening absence of
a Northern opposition. As Allah would have it, a few northern elders also
seemed to realise that damage and in various ways took appropriate steps. One
man who stands out was M. D. Yusufu, for his courage in openly confronting
Abacha. Next the eighteen northern leaders of thought led by Adamu Ciroma which
metamorphosed into the G.34. This newspaper, the Weekly Trust was a product of this new tendency. Patriotic
Nigerians, committed to this country, but conscious of their heritage as Muslims
and Northerners, proud of it and ready to defend it against enemies-as the
Marines say- foreign and domestic.
At
the time, most of the opposition we faced came from the North. Not because our
views were wrong, but because people did not see the need, or wisdom, of
expressing them. It was not safe. It was abusive. We were not saying anything
NADECO had not said, so we were not adding value. Today, with the revelations on
Abacha, Gwarzo & Co, and, perhaps more important, with Abacha dead, mouths
have opened: so they too knew.
The
point in all this is that Islam has a lot to contribute to Nigerian politics.
Those politicians and soldiers who presented and still present themselves as
representatives of northern Muslims in the political and military establishment
and then perpetrated crimes against this country are still waiting in the
sidelines. They could not have had the first chance were it not for the
complacency of other Nigerians (civilian and military). But particularly of
those from their region and faith.
It
is time now for those who stuck out their necks, the minority who stood up
against those who like the Hausas would say “borrowed our mouths to chew
onions” thus unjustly leaving us with an unpleasant odour, teary eyes and
running nose. It is time not to lose the momentum. Time to be on our guard
against those who seek politicization of Islam, its use or abuse for selfish
ends.
The
time is now to reach out to well-meaning Nigerians, to introduce honesty,
justice and equity to the system. To awaken the spirit of great leaders like
Ahmadu Bello and Mallam Aminu Kano. To create an environment conducive to the
fulfilment of our desire for Islamic revival and progress. To produce leaders
that will be a credit to Islam and the north.
We
should not ab initio withdraw from political participation at all levels.
But we should not allow evil characters of whatever persuasion to have a second
chance. If one good thing came out of the Abacha regime, it is that it brought
out everyone in his/her true colours. Those that fail to see that must, indeed,
be colour-blind. Our task will not be achieved by trying to stop these
characters from political participation. It will also not be achieved by
stepping back in the name of our “purity” and letting them take control of
the political process. The dirt in Nigerian Politics is not cleansed by
preaching and by self –righteous indignation. It will be cleansed by getting
in there and flushing it out by struggling to ensure the victory of good over
evil.
In this process, some compromises will have to be made. But those unwilling to give and take, can not find relevance in any political dispensation. What is important is to keep in view our ideal - and to move relentlessly on towards attaining it.
You can read more about my article from my web page at http://www.gamji.com/sanusi.htm
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