Nasir
El-Rufai and Islam in the FCT
By
Sanusi
Lamido Sanusi
LAGOS
,
AUGUST 8, 2004
lamidos@hotmail.com
The
title of this essay must appear strange to most readers. The FCT
minister, Nasir el-Rufai, has never, to my knowledge, declared that he
was going to “launch” the shari’ah in his territory. Non-Muslims
in the FCT have never had cause to feel threatened by his
administration. If anything, he recently ordered the demolition of
places of worship, including (sacrilege of sacrileges!) mosques, for the
minor and inconsequential oversight of the builders in not obtaining
appropriate authority for their structures. A man who can actually
demolish a “house of God” cannot be in any one’s books a believer.
El-Rufai
,
Nigeria
’s brilliant FCT minister, has a reputation for
controversy. At BPE, if it was not the fight with those who misled the
investors in AP, then it was his public and acrimonious altercation with
the raving beauty of the cabinet, Mrs Kema Chikwe. The first month he
became minister he was embroiled in controversy with the leadership of
the Senate, over his assertion that he had been asked for a bribe to
“smoothen” his confirmation by the upper house. He next proceeded to
demolish the houses and other properties of well-connected, eminent(!)
citizens that were at variance with the approved master plan of the FCT.
In this crusade not even churches, and not even mosques, were spared. Of
recent, he has introduced measures aimed at making sure that all scams
involving land allocation at FCT are exposed by revoking certificates of
occupancy and demanding all land-owners to go through a screening
process leading to re-certification.
But
to dismiss Nasir as being “controversial”, as many are wont to do,
is a disastrous mistake. First of all, in spite of the fact that he has
ruffled a quite few feathers (including many ostrich feathers), his
actions have been met with the quiet approval of the majority of
Nigerian society. What is termed controversial is in fact a stubborn
desire to be different, not just for its sake, but for the sake of
making a difference, a small positive contribution to a system in need
of change. Without growing a long beard and wearing a turban, without
shouting Allahu Akbar at every mundane and hypocritical political rally,
e-Rufai has set the pace of letting actions speak louder than words, and
being guided by conscience in the conduct of public trust.
He
did not have to do that. He could, like many before (and around him),
have continued with business as usual. He could have negotiated a
settlement with rich house owners, spared their houses in return for a
payoff. He could have ridden on the wave of corruption in land matters
at the FCT and allocated plots to himself or his proxies, or even sold
prime land for a large personal fortune. Hew could have done all this,
while blowing his siren everyday to announce that he is going to mosque,
and making inflammatory statements as proof of his loyalty and
commitment to the Muslim ummah. He could have demolished churches, and
found an excuse for not demolishing mosques. He could have stolen money
and paid for the ulama in his town to go to
Mecca
on hajj and umrah, or, in the case of the younger,
smarter, more materialistic Wahhabi types, given them some nice corner
plots to sell for a few million naira. He could spend his time mouthing
nonsensicalities about the dress code of women or other matters of
personal morality, while conducting public trust himself in the most
immoral manner.
He
could, like many Nigerians, have shivered at the thought of engaging
powerful men and women-including uniformed officers and those in
retirement- in conflict. He could have thought of the need to be
careful, to protect his life and that of his family, from those who
would stop at nothing to protect what they have amassed at the expense
of the public. He chose not to. He opted for the difficult path of
confronting, head-on, a national malady, of risking everything in the
name of his conscience and his country. No one can say if el-Rufai will
last long in government if he continues like this. No one can tell which
powerful toe he will step on that will kick him out of office. But if
that happens, and when it happens, at least we will know he stepped on a
toe, something that we, as Nigerians, have been too timid to even try.
I
do not agree with everything Nasir has done or said. I certainly do not
share his complete confidence in market forces, or at least the bit of
it I saw on display when he was at the BPE. My own development as an
economist was mixed with an orientation and affinity to Marxian
political economy. I therefore have a healthy skepticism for market
forces and find myself ideologically opposed to the monetarism of Milton
Friedman and the
Chicago
school. This means I probably will find much to
question in economic thinking of Nasir and his close friends in the
Ministry of Finance and the Central bank. But while I disagree with him
on some points, I respect
him and also find many areas of common vision.
Nasir’s
courage, and principle, are refreshing for many reasons. One reason is
that for those who have lost hope in
Nigeria
the message is that not all hope is lost. Along with
the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Information, Nasir is one of
a handful of cabinet appointments made by Obasanjo since he came to
power in 1999 that Nigerians can be truly proud of. Practically every
other cabinet appointment, starting from his choice of running mate, was
an unmitigated disaster. One or two potentially good hands did not last
at all because they would not play ball. The point here is that we now
know there is still hope.
But
there is also freshness in the absence of hypocritical moralization and
pretence of religious fervour. We live in a country reputed to be the
most religious in the world. We have Muslim fundamentalists of all
shades and sects, and evangelical, born-again Christians and prosperity
churches. Our churches and mosques are full of worshippers. Our roads
are blocked on Fridays and Sundays by those who have parked their cars
and blocked the road for those who do not worship God in their own
church or mosque, or who worship Him at a different time in a different
manner, or even those who choose, as is their right to, not to worship
Him at all. The worshippers at the redeemed camp, on the Lagos–Ibadan
expressway, make the road impassable when they go for camping and night
vigil.
Yet
Nigeria
is the most corrupt nation in the world. We are
known for the plunder of public funds, for economic and financial crime,
for drug trafficking and counterfeiting and forgery. There is no
security of life and property. As more Nigerians sink into poverty,
religious leaders are coming out of it and prospering. Obviously if the
God we say we worship is as we say He is, it is not He that we worship
if this is our character. Our president spoke to God and he contested
elections based on this personal conversation. There was no witness but
we will take his word that, at least someone who he believes to be God
spoke to him. One of his special assistants, a pastor with a history of
drug addiction, insists that the president is anointed of God and
threatens fire and brimstone and God’s wrath on all who dare criticize
the messiah. Muslim politicians, particularly at state level, have
become religious demagogues. At every forum now Allah’s name is
invoked, the shari’ah is referred to, and there is this big
competition to prove commitment to the faith.
In
all this, we have done a great disservice to God and religion. By
dragging both into the murky waters of our politics, by mentioning God
at every trivial opportunity, by reducing religious symbols to political
jargon and propaganda instruments, we have desacralised that which was
holy, tarnished that which was pure, and lowered that which was exalted.
Religious scholars have become contractors and political opportunists.
This is not new of course. It is an old insight, going back at least to
Gramsci’s Prison Notes, that the religious(and traditional)
establishment is often co-opted by political society as an active
element in the persuasive machinery of the hegemonic state. This is why,
for many of us, the emergence of overtly political religious movements
of the Christian right and Muslim fringe, was always viewed with
suspicion as a threat to our corporate existence as a polity.
In
all the years of shouting religion, most of these politicians have
continued to steal, to lie, to cheat, and to give and receive bribes
with impunity. This is why it is those like Nasir, who make no claims
but act in a manner that is consistent with honour and good
conscience-it is to leaders like him that Muslims should turn for
direction. While those who claim to be the guardians of religion are
busy selling it and desecrating it, those they condemn as irreligious
are restoring its dignity while distancing it from squalor.
This is what it means to be a Muslim, or Christian, leader in a
multi-religious, multi-ethnic country. It is to serve all its citizens
to the best of your ability without fear or favour or discrimination. It
is to act in a manner that is in keeping with the best traditions of
your faith, so that you earn for your religion not ridicule, but
respect.
Ultimately,
people like Nasir are standing against a very strong evil current. The
power of that current should not be underestimated and they could well
be drowned by it or swept aside. But for now they are still standing.
What they need is simple. They need more and more Nigerians to stand up
with them. For more politicians, religious leaders, armed forces
personnel, civil servants, bankers, intellectuals, labour leaders, emirs
and chiefs etc to say “no” to the system we have been running so far
and which has led us into this abyss out of which we are just trying to
crawl.
If
you cannot raise your voice, much less your head, to be counted among
those who stand for change, then please do this one small thing for me.
Say, along with me, whisper if you like, a silent prayer: “May Allah
protect them, may Allah help them, may Allah guide them in changing this
country for the better.”
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