Lagos

April 27, 2007

My two articles, “In Defence of Reverend Father Mathew Hasan Kukah” and “Muslim Leaders and the Myth of Marginalisation”, were bound to generate controversy. In a sense, this is a positive development because dialogue is best fostered through unfettered inter-subjective communication, and without the right to criticize and be criticized we are not likely to arrive at truth, as opposed to wishful thinking. Some of the most direct criticisms have come from “Sheikh” Ja’far Adam (the Kano-based religious demagogue), and my dear friend Mohammed Haruna, the front-line journalist who, unfortunately, always gets himself into trouble by not being above stretching the truth a little to win an argument, or by his penchant for prolixity and verbosity in the deployment of incoherent, or at least not fully understood, concepts. I will respond to Mohammed Haruna in subsequent interventions, so that this article, which will itself be in two parts, can focus on Ja’far’s criticism and deconstruct the origins of his perverted, morally empty conception what is a true sense of Muslim or Fulani identity.

In an interview in the Weekly Trust of April 16, 2005, Ja’far Adam made the following forceful statement: “I saw so many write-ups along that line, 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 had 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.”

Before I proceed with my philosophical discussion on the ethics of identity, let me make the following observations on the quote above. What Ja’far is clearly accusing Dangiwa and myself of is that we are not tribalistic enough, and he is holding up as role models for good human tribalistic and parochial leaders, at list based on his description of them above. The implications of this are obvious to a beginning student of Islam. Ja’far may claim to be the living defender of the Prophet’s Sunnah, but he glorifies tribalism, a vice condemned by the Prophet in many well-established traditions. Secondly, Ja’far 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. In truth we all have multiple identities-as members of an ethnic, regional, gender, national, racial, class or family grouping. Not every identity is important, and the context of discourse defines the relevance of the referent. This point will become clearer as we move on. Finally, and most revealingly, Ja’far 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. 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. This will be the subject of my piece today.

The debate on identity is an old philosophical debate. Put simply, the following questions have been raised and continue to be raised. Which is more important: Who a person is or what he/she is? Is a white man better than a black man by virtue of the what of being white or black, or is there some other measure of virtue? Is a man better than a woman? Are Yorubas better than Igbos? All people like Ja’far, who argue 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. Nasir el-Rufai is a Muslim and a northerner. So is Ibrahim Mantu (or, courtesy of Adamu Adamu, Mantuwa). But are they the same? Murtala Muhammad and Sani Abacha were both Muslim generals from Kano. That is where the similarity ends. This point was in fact made, thankfully, by the Governor of Kano State, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, to Ja’far and his fellow-travellers in the self-appointed “Supreme Council” for Sharia in Nigeria. In addition to correcting the false data the group had been bandying around, the governor told them point blank that the real issue is not that a Muslim should be in an office, but what kind of person among Muslims. In other words, the who, the individual, is more critical than the what, the group that he says he belongs to. It is usually those who are suffering from a sense of deep personal insecurity who feel the need to build up identities out of biological accidents, fate, providence or serendipity and attach moral worth to morally ambivalent facts. At some point in this piece I will explain how Ja’far’s emphasis on the need for identity construction is linked to the story of his life as an up-rooted, rudderless exile.

The issue is not that Dangiwa and I do not have an identity, but that we do not subscribe to an identity that is divorced from moral content. I do not expect Ja’far to be familiar with philosophical works on this topic. For example I doubt if he has read the books of the contemporary African philosopher, Kwame Anthony Appiah, such as The Ethics of Identity or In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. I doubt if he has even read Majid Fakhry’s Ethical Theories of Islam or Sohail Hashmi’s Islamic Political Ethics: Civil Society, Pluralism and Conflict. I do not expect that he has ever come across Segun Gbadegesin’s brilliant article “Yoruba Philosophy: Individuality, Community and the Moral Order”; Anthony Kirk-Greene’s ‘ “Mutumin Kirki”: The Concept of the Good Man in Hausa’; or Sa’ad Abubakar’s equally insightful analysis of the concept of Pulaku among the Fulani in his master-piece of Adamawa history, The Lamibe of Fombina. If he had read any of the above, he would know that among the Hausa, or the Yoruba, or the Muslims or Christians, or whites or blacks, or men and women, there are “good” people and “bad” people and this goodness or badness is a quality that is separate from and distinct in itself from the colour of the skin or the ethnicity or the gender or the faith of the person. To say I will always prefer a Muslim minister to a Christian or even atheist minister is to be ethically blind, unless by “Muslim” I mean not just a man who professes the Muslim faith, but a certain kind of person who actually is guided in politics by certain ethical values.

The problem we have with some of our scholars is their presumption that every Muslim must rely on them for mediation not just in understanding religious texts, in which they may or may not have achieved a standard of competence, but also in matters beyond their competence, such as the question of negotiating the difficult terrain of politics and developing true concepts of citizenship in plural societies. There is nothing wrong withan Imam participating in political discourse, but he must understand that memorizing thirteenth century texts written by Ibn Taimiya will not make him an authority in contemporary political thought, nor provide him with immunity from ridicule, the just recompense for pretentious posturing.

Whereas Ja’far may not have read the above books or articles, he seems to at least claim that he reads my writings. I am assuming that his understanding of the English language is sufficiently deep for him to understand what he may have read without relying on amateur interpreters. The history of his life and education, which we will come to briefly below, does not support this assumption. But we have no choice other than to believe him-after all an Imam does not tell lies. I would therefore remind the “sheikh” that I have actually published articles on identity, and stated clearly my understanding of the concept. To refresh his memory, and that of readers, I will rely on two pieces that focus, respectively, on ethnic and religious identity.

The first one is “The Fulani Factor in Nigerian Politics”, published in June, 2000 in defence of the Fulani against attacks by the parochial Igbo journalist Ike Okonta. The article was published in ThisDay newspaper and landed me in a controversy with an array of Igbo intellectuals for about six consecutive weeks. In that article, to go straight to the point, I had stated clearly what I believed was true Fulani identity and in doing that I relied on Sa’ad Abubakar’s work referred to above. I wrote: “Pulaku, as Sa’ad Abubakar tells us…is a code whose essential elements are as follow: Semtende (shyness), munyal (patience), hakkilo (care and forethought), doutare (obedience), mangingo (respect for elders), Yerduye (trust), chusu (courage) and ainoldina (strict observance of religion). Strict observance of Pulaku is expected of every true Fulo and violations can earn sanctions like ostracism (hombondu) or a fine (nyamtol). Furthermore, the leader (Ardo) of any Fulbe clan is supposed to be an embodiment of Pulaku, its head (mando) and guardian. The first point to note here is that Pulaku is entirely based on values and conduct-nothing else. 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”. This in turn has several implications….First, a people who define themselves by their values are not, by definition, tribalistic…. Second, the combination of the values enshrined in Pulaku produce the quintessential decent human being. Since the leader of Fulanis is the embodiment of Pulaku he invariably commands the total respect of all decent human beings….The Fulbe are taught that leadership is about service. Princes learn the Arabic phrase “sayyid al-qawm khaadimuhum” ( the leader of a people is their servant).”

This was my understanding of Fulani identity, and the identity of a prince. And I should know. Readers who wish to know why Ja’far cannot know this are referred to the man’s biography, published in Ousmane Kane’s book, Muslim Modernity in Postcolonial Nigeria, (p 108-109). There, we read that Ja’far was born in daura around 1962, even though he was known for most of his life as Jafaru Katsina. From the age of seven he became an itinerant almajiri, ambulating among villages like Tagwayen Kuka in northern Nigeria and even Niger Republic. He came to Kano in 1979, settled in Fagge, and because he had memorized the Qur’an he “manufactured charms, amulets and sacred water(rubutun sha)” for the clientele of the Mallams around him. He later learnt Qur’anic psalmody, tajwid, at the Egyptian Cultural Centre in Kano, won a Koranic reading competition in Sokoto in 1987 and participated in the international version in Saudi Arabia. It is possible that at this point he then harboured the desire to obtain one of the lucrative scholarships offered by Saudi Arabia to students with the potential for being brain-washed into Wahhabite apologists. In any event he soon became a prominent preacher in the quasi-wahhabite Izala movement and got a scholarship to study in the Islamic University of Madina, Saudi Arabia. We now know that on his return he was recruited by al-Muntada al-Islami, an organization financed by Saudis, who built his mosques and schools for Wahhabite evangelism. Every year he goes to Maiduguri, during the holy month of Ramadhan, and reads Qur’anic exegesis under the sponsorship and in the mosque of a notorious businessman and close associate of the Bush family. This patron of Ja’far had, a few years ago, brought in one of the brothers of George Bush as his guest in Maiduguri and hosted him in Mai Deribe’s palatial residence before the owner moved in. His preaching is marked by intolerance for Muslims who do not agree with Wahhabite anthropomorphism and literalism, and open attacks on traditional Sufi hierarchies and even traditional rulers, who he sees as supporters of these “heretics”. Ousmane Kane’s analysis of the social base of Ja’far and his class of preachers suggests certain common attributes: lowly social background, alienation from their environment, and a radicalization that is the product of both. For most of them, extremism is a route to recognition and vertical social mobility.

We thus have the picture of a man born in Daura and bearing the epithet “Katsina”; an ambulant who grew up without stability or parental care; a charm maker who turned into a fanatical wahhabite; an alien and settler in his place of abode; a Nigerian who was educated on the charity of Saudi Arabia and whose mosque and school-his source of livelihood-are funded by Arabs; a strong advocate of anti-Americanism whose patron is doing good business with the Great Satan himself; in other words, a man whose life has been a series of dislocations, contradictions and alienation; an exile throughout his life, groping for terra ferma beneath his feet; an unknown quantity that rides on the back of religious fundamentalism to gain social relevancy. Such a person needs an anchor desperately because of his inherent insecurity and instability, and he finds it in paranoid and parochial identities. He needs an identity, because without one he is nothing. And if he has none, he must construct it. This is why we must understand, and view with compassion, the fanaticism, the irresponsible propagandism, the absence of patriotic nationalism and even the disrespect for our social hierarchy that emanates from such a character.

The truth is that, by virtue of Divine providence and the circumstances of my birth, up-bringing and education, I have no need to announce my ethnic, religious, racial or family background, nor seek recognition on that basis. I take them for granted and I am more interested in who I am, in the sense of how do I become an exemplar of what I am? This is something Ja’far can never understand, and that is as it should be, because that is the difference between an exile without roots and his opposite.

For reasons of space I will stop here. Next week insha Allah, I will conclude my analysis of identity by referring to the second article, “Values and Identity in the Muslim North”, published in January, 2001 as a review of Dr Mahmud Tukur’s excellent book on the political ethics of the leaders of the Sokoto Jihad, Leadership and Governance in Nigeria: The Relevance of Values. I will show that my views in that article are a tailor-made response to Ja’far, and to others, such as the infinitely more polite and educated critic who thinks I am not proud of my Muslim identity. Subsequently, I will turn to Mohammed Haruna and expose the frailty of the intellectual foundations of his defence of the marginalisation thesis. For now, I will only note with pleasure that northern delegates at the National Conference have come together and are speaking with one voice, and that Father Kukah and Professor Oloyede are resisting gallantly the attempt by Waziri Mohammed and Jerry Gana to extend the tenor of President Obasanjo through the back door. If this is any comfort, it shows at least that for now, the northern political agenda is being set by the governors and politicians, not by fanatics and ethnic bigots. It is also instructive, for those clamouring for a higher Muslim quota, that among those struggling to push Obasanjo’s self-succession agenda they will find many Muslims from the north.