WHAT REALLY IS THE BIG PICTURE?

Cyberspace experienced many commentaries and analyses when news broke that the Emir of Kano was going to have or had in fact taken a fourth wife. The problem in this case was not really about His Royal Highness Lamido Sanusi, 54 getting married to another wife but the attempt by many to comprehend the significance of the number eighteen (18).

For some commentators, the fact that the Emir was taking a young bride equated being a pedophile. To them an eighteen year old female is only but a child, immature and at risk of Vesicovaginal fistula (VVF). #Childnotbride trended on twitter but one tweet in particular had me giggling; someone put up a picture of Bruce Jenner’s daughter Kylie clad in only a bikini with the “childnotbride” hashtag so people could imagine what  eighteen year old girls could potentially look like (this is not to conclude that all girls develop at the same rate). Some others did not really have a problem with the age but with the difference between the ages of the groom and the bride which is 36years.

The reason why I  decided to write this article is to address those who attempted to link the relative educational deficiency and female illiteracy to the action of the Emir. A few people voiced their displeasure that a highly educated and cerebral mind could indulge in what they perceived to be primitive cultural practices and also speculated that this move by the former Central Bank governor would only serve to embolden average Northern men to indulge in child marriages and even rape. They were disappointed that a well-respected monarch had failed in his duty as a standard bearer for the entire North of Nigeria.

The level of historical, geographical and cultural illiteracy constantly exhibited by Nigerians on public platforms is truly heartbreaking. Away from the issue of the young lady’s age; how is it possible to focus so much attention on that and yet ignore the important fact that she is the daughter of the Lamido of Adamawa? It is sad that a lot of Nigerians do not have a clue or possess little information about the history of the Emirates in Northern Nigeria and how closely tied they are through marriage. This may be part of the reason why many Nigerians do not understand the concept of Nigeria; the feudal system which the British adopted and how we ought to use the knowledge of this irreversible beginning to forge a united nation.

Some individuals have speculated that the issues of child marriage, polygamy and female suppression are characteristic of the entire Northern Nigeria. It is possible that such issues as these are more prevalent in Northern Nigeria but one cannot help but highlight other parts of Nigeria that experience similar conditions. It is myopic to scream and shout that a 54years old man has taken an 18years old bride when young girls and ladies from other parts of Nigeria are practically sold into slavery and the sex industry both home and abroad. I once overheard the conversation of two young ladies (they were not Northerners) who sat in the seats directly before mine on a flight from Madrid to Lagos in late 2012. They talked about their escapades and those of others known to them in parts of Spain and Italy; one important part was how to gain citizenship of those nations by successfully having babies for Caucasians. Many potential housemaids are regularly transported to Nigerian cities from all over the country with more than a few suffering rape, molestations or varying degrees of maltreatment without justice. In the same country where children are married off, some others get murdered for being tagged witches. Many young ones hawk wares across southern Nigeria; how different are they really from the Almajiris who roam certain parts of Northern Nigeria?

Is the North of Nigeria really that averse to educating the girl-child? Available statistical data may or may not accurately describe the situation of female education in the North but anyone with a little experience of Northern Nigeria will know that females attending school is not total abomination as some seem to suggest. The middle-belt states obviously have it better although children are still being taught under trees in parts of Benue and long kilometers across difficult terrain have to be conquered daily by young ones in parts of Plateau. I have had the good pleasure of visiting a few higher institutions in Northern Nigeria such as the Benue state University, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi and Gombe state University amongst others. These schools especially those in Bauchi and Gombe definitely had females attending lectures and walking freely within the premises of their respective campuses. If they truly abhorred girl-child education, then there would not have been cases of kidnapped female students from the Federal Government College Buni Yadi, Yobe state and the Government school in Chibok.

I interacted with a colleague on Facebook with respect to the Emir’s marriage and constantly asked him to focus on the bigger picture instead of Sanusi. What really should be the bigger picture here? Does the girl-child in Southern Nigeria have a better chance at achieving greatness through education than her Northern counterpart assuming the factor of terrorism is excluded? What is the quality of education available to Nigerian children across all rivers and forests? Are they inspired or stimulated enough to aspire for something beyond the basic/ minimum standard of education available in Nigeria and many parts of the African continent? Do we really have a quality minimum standard of education in our nation? Is there a difference between the “lure” to become the nth wife of a monarch e.g. the Alaafin of Oyo and that of a university undergraduate becoming the mistress of a professor, cheating bank executive or a thieving  politician? 

A good number of schools in Northern Nigeria do not have enough well trained teachers; National Youth Service Corps members help to provide the much needed cover at secondary schools and even at some colleges of education. These are some of the issues we need to focus on instead of trying to legislate on the matrimonial practices of an Emir. I agree that the Emir of Kano is too educated not to be a role model but we must remember how vast Northern Nigeria is and understand the waning influence of monarchs in Nigeria. Although some Northern Emirs still retain some power to influence their territories, I think it may be inaccurate to suggest that such first class Emirs are able to make proclamations that would have effect far beyond their respective caliphates.  Is it Emir Sanusi who should be held responsible for any shortage of qualified teachers and facilities in Kano? Is he also responsible for drawing up and executing the budget of Kano state? Is it the Emir or Sultan who provides scholarships for Northern students sent to higher institutions in the Arab Emirates, Sudan, Egypt or America?

The average middle-class and educationally inclined Nigerian couple will most likely guide their daughter through primary school and then through secondary school till she graduates just before or after her 16^th birthday. In present day Nigeria, such a girl could get enrolled into a private University to study a four year course and by her 18^th birthday, she could jolly well be prepared for her final year. I was on a mission to Badagry earlier this year and met young girls from Nigeria and Benin still in secondary school at 18 or 19 so an Adamawa princess who is done with secondary school at 18 should not be treated as an unusual case.

Northern Nigeria is deficient on many levels and the monarchs, religious leaders and political elite all have to take the blame. Some past leaders have done better than others but the cumulative effect is still widely unfelt. There is no excuse whatsoever for  the poor state of education and development in Northern Nigeria. Any trace of discrimination against the female gender must be extinguished and more parents encouraged and compelled as the case may be to enroll their female children in school. There is no doubt that a well educated female population could aid the recovery of this hitherto denigrated region of Nigeria. The equivalent of secondary school education in the days of our fathers earned them jobs and opportunities at that time. Higher degrees are not meant for all and sundry; some folks should joyfully learn vocations and prosper therein but those who opt to earn only a minimum secondary school certification should still emerge as high quality individuals.

The Emir of Kano did not marry anyone universally accepted to be underage and from all indications she was not bought or dragged into the palace. I understand perfectly the union between traditional empires via marriage contracts and I think the Emir should be left alone to exercise his rights and privileges. If he had forcefully taken the teenage daughter of his driver or cook as a fourth wife then I would have joined in the process of eviscerating him but I chose to focus on the big picture.

HRH Emir Lamido Sanusi and the former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. dailymail.com.ng

WE SERIOUSLY NEED HELP

I sat beside a man who was travelling with his son from Ilorin to Lagos on Sunday. The teenager was seated behind us and I wonder what he felt when he saw his father toss an empty coke bottle out of the window.

It is indeed sad to state again that we have not had good leaders at all levels of government. The quality of roads we had to travel on clearly indicts just about anyone who has held one political office or the other of corruption. Ilorin became a home for many migrants from core northern states who fled both real and imagined threats of terror over the past few years. The city is developing fast but infrastructural development is basic and stunted. I think this is the case because the people do not complain loudly and have simply gotten used to driving their vehicles like boats driven by currents.

We were soon past Kwara and undulating through Ogbomoso. Oyo is one state I seriously doubt a governor presides over. From the moment one gets on the road that goes past the Federal Government College Ogbomoso to connect the Baptist seminary, everything appears like a war zone with craters everywhere and multiple tankers lined up as if poised to crush the smaller vehicles before them. The most aggravating thing about the state of this road is that it was probably only reconstructed a few years ago. Someone in the vehicle commented that the fellow who got awarded the contract ought to be arrested; I think everyone involved in the deal should be prosecuted.

Broken down trailers and tankers blighted the narrow road to Oyo with occasional charred remains of buses and tankers which were most likely involved in collisions and numerous deaths. We eventually made it to Ibadan and trust me that city is filthy. There were heaps and pyramids of garbage everywhere; there were movable notices written in both the English and Yoruba languages warning people against dumping refuse but this appears not to have had any effect on the psyche of many Ibadan people. The sight of this quantity of filth irked me but it did not prepare me for what I saw next at probably the Sawmill or Olorunsogo axis of the road from Iwo but close to a certain Malli filling station.

I saw people walking casually past a heap of refuse situated on the wide road divide. As I turned to focus on the book I was reading, I noticed a bloated corpse with limbs sticking out from underneath paperboards used to conceal the deceased. I noticed what looked like female clothing around the left arm and assumed the corpse was that of a woman. How people could saunter past this horrifying scene still baffles me till now. Some people could have stepped on the outstretched fingers of this poor woman and would not have noticed.

Mowe which is situated between two very prominent and immensely popular camp grounds was equally as filthy as Ibadan. I wonder how we manage to take foreigners past these roads without cringing with embarrassment. Or do we simply blindfold them or fly them from place to place to save face? I think government officials and elected leaders should be banned from flying within their geopolitical zones and for journeys not more than 4 or 5 hours. I think they spend too long with their heads in the clouds to bother about what the common people on the ground suffer daily. If their stomach contents got tossed up and down and static from chronic traffic logjams, maybe then they would do their jobs and indeed serve the people.

There was the occasional overzealous Road Safety official and the comical anti-terror policeman who greeted any potential benefactor happy weekend. These ones embarrassed themselves but the overall embarrassment ought to felt by us all. We need to own this country and all her liabilities before we can truly imbibe the change required to fix her. At the moment, it seems we are resistant to change; we have become too selfish to think outside of our comfort zones and live for the greater good.

A people who will drink soft drinks and fling the bottles or cans out of moving vehicle need to have their heads examined; it does not matter if such individuals are on their way from church or if they are top government officials. How can we best describe women with children on their backs and dragging two other infants crossing Ikorodu road with its characteristic fast moving vehicles? Many throng to dash across these roads sometimes directly under or in the vicinity of foot bridges built to safeguard lives.

We need help when our compounds and streets are filth laden and we assume that some unpaid humanitarian will pass by and clean up after us. We need help when we see people dispose refuse into drainages and say nothing for fear of getting insulted. If we do not own up to our failings we will never change; it does not matter what religious or socio-economic rights we claim. Dirt will not simply disappear, someone has to sweep it.

It was a daily requirement for students to clean the dormitory back in secondary school. We all had morning chores to do and everything we did daily was geared towards a somewhat grand inspection on the Saturday at the end of the week. We lived according to classes in my school unlike sport houses like in some other schools. The competition to win the inspections was usually keen but my set somehow found it difficult to excel in this task. We were sent back from our classrooms on more than one occasion to clean up our hostels because certain people failed to do their “portions” or a minority smeared what was already done. A few failures meant the entire crew failed; there was no need for explanations or excuses.

On one of the days we were sent back (we were in SS1 then), many of us sang songs and got together to clear the mess. We got the job done quickly instead of playing the blame game and we were back in class thereafter. By the time we got to SS3, we were able to win the weekly inspections we had hitherto struggled with on a fairly regular basis against all expectations because we had learnt how to work as a unit for the common good.

Nigerians need to believe there is a common good about this nation asides sectional interest. We have to realize that our actions and/ or inactions come around to affect us eventually. We are in need of help and an opportunity to learn how to do things differently is here. Individuals and entire communities need to have their attitudes transformed; I do not know if I will be right to suggest that an “enforced” transformation is the way to go since enforcement is one language Nigerians may easily identify with.

One more thing, we should find a solution to the amount of human beings roaming on our highways and inner city roads. We have fallen incredibly short with our handling of mental health in this country and that is a tragedy.

A CALL TO BE HUMAN AGAIN.

I decided to remain seated in my car when I got home from work yesterday to read an article which I wrote sometime last year. I think I was suffering from an acute lack of inspiration to write anything so I thought looking backwards could help chart a new course forward. I must have read only a few lines from my phone when I heard a gentle knock on the car window where I was seated. I looked up and there outside of the car was a dark skinned young boy beckoning on me to lower the window so I could hear what he had to say.

He had balanced effortlessly on his head, a small sized blue bowl containing various tools, rubber and leather and in his right hand a small wooden tool box. The lad could not have been more than 13 years of age and I quickly figured that he was one of the northern kids popularly referred to as “só bàtà” or shoe shiners. His voice was tired and in the best English he could conjure, he first of all apologized for intruding before telling me that he had walked all over without patronage and was in need of money to eat.

All I felt for the kid for pity; I wondered why he thought I would be offended by a young boy barging me from my blind side in search of what to eat. I quickly dipped my hand in my pocket and gave him money to grab some food for which he was grateful and walked away. Why does any human being have to go through this in order to eat? I stopped reading immediately and alighted from the car; I had just realized that inspiration resides in the lives of others if only we paid enough attention.

I was ruminating on the plight of this young boy and thousands like him when the unfortunate accident which had occurred at Ojuelegba probably an hour before I arrived home came to my attention. I saw a few photographs published on a very popular blog of what used to be an SUV crushed by a most likely fully loaded container that had fallen from a significant height. There appeared to be no chance of survival for any occupant(s) of that vehicle. It is regrettable that avoidable accidents like these are allowed to occur every day on our roads and highways.

Nigerians gathered as usual like vultures around a carcase while next to nothing is achieved to control traffic buildup or conduct any rescue operation. The Federal fire service building is situation only a few yards from the site of that accident; I seriously doubt if that agency is capable of any rescue or firefighting business assuming an explosion had occurred from the carnage. The occupants of that SUV could have been anyone, I pass that route occasionally and it could have been me or anyone close to me.

Someone had suggested on twitter that there has not been any drastic fallout from the events of Tuesday evening because the affected individuals are anonymous and only when people affiliated with the government are affected would there be drastic action and judgements. Must there be special treatment and privileges for selected few at every level of government in Nigeria? Must a VIP or his/her relative die in a public hospital before we realize that oxygen and adrenaline are scare commodities at such hospitals?

If 7 young men were sentenced to death on September 7, 1977 for wounding a businessman and robbing him of a lorryload of 492 cartons of sardines, then I am certain that there are presently laws which ought to govern just about every aspect of our lives as Nigerians inclusive of intentional or unintentional acts. It is human beings who steal the aluminum railings of bridges and divert funds meant to construct or rehabilitate roads. The dearth of infrastructure that characterizes just about every sector of our nation cannot be blamed on spirit beings or cosmic particles. More than a few “human beings” have brought so much shame, misery and reproach on an entire nation and in effect an entire continent. Actively or passively supporting and indulging those who commit these crimes against humanity and particularly Nigerians is more or less equal to committing the same acts. I may be wrong.

It is high time the state enforced the laws of the land and where those laws are inexistent; the lawmakers must be maximally pressured to do the jobs they currently get overpaid for. I listened to a Sunday radio show prior to the elections where the incumbent governor of Lagos state was interviewed and grilled on his plans for Lagos. One important aspect that stood out for me was his plan to get Lagos roads fixed through the local council development areas (LCDA). If I could advise the governor, I will tell him to focus on transportation during this term and get on with his roads agenda as soon as possible. The roads need to be fixed and laws that will prevent such accidents like we saw yesterday also have to be enacted and enforced. The lawlessness exhibited by all road users especially articulated vehicle operators and transporters simply have to stop. The use of inappropriate vehicles to hurl certain goods has to be discouraged such as the use of motorcycles to transport animals or the use of cars to transport objects on the roof of such vehicles. these items are usually secured by the hands of the driver and any other occupant(s).

Many Nigerians have become immune or resistant to change. Littering the environment is like a hobby for many; there seems to be no level of education that is capable of instructing such individuals to desist from throwing garbage from their cars or while walking on the street. When a government decides to clamp down on such behavior, it would be met by stiff resistance and protests. I am uncertain of the amount of public campaigns that will be able to convince Nigerians to properly pack their domestic waste in thick refuse bags for example; what we eventually see are roads, drainages and the areas underneath bridges loaded with heaps of refuse disposed off indiscriminately. I want to assume there is a garbage fairy who visits at night to clear the streets of these waste materials. Similarly, some Nigerians are quick to defend treasury looters because of ethnic or religious reasons but these same individuals would readily lynch soup thieves and other petty crime perpetuators. If it will require some form of highhandedness to curb drug smuggling then such should be supported by the Nigerian people. It is a source of embarrassment when our citizens (and the organizations they work for) get caught for transporting concealed cocaine, heroin and other banned substances because of financial gain. Nigerians should not celebrate individuals suspected of ill-gotten wealth; we should not also perpertually bow down for criminal politicians to constantly bruise our heads.

One of the reasons for this pollution in our society, especially in Lagos and other more economically diverse cities in Nigeria is overpopulation. The harsh economic climate in Nigeria coupled with endemic corruption has limited any meaningful development to only a handful of states. This has only served to promote migration along this economic gradient leaving these cities with much more people than the infrastructure can handle. A host of individuals lacking basic etiquette and responsibility to state flood the cities in search of better living conditions; a few will find a way out but many more will become a burden and contribute immensely to waste generation and crime.

The same reasons that will convince someone to leave his hometown in an overcrowded vehicle in search of Eldorado will most likely have been the same reason why the shoemaker who knocked on my window yesterday (or his parent before him) journeyed to Lagos from wherever he arrived from in the north of Nigeria or beyond the northern border. I thought that Lagos state could take responsibility for such boys and help them with shelter, food and education but I was instructed yesterday that such a move would only serve to increase the pool of migrants or emigrants to a region of high concentration of basic amenities. It will definitely not be solving the fundamental issues as regards insecurity and mismanagement by the governments concerned. Migrants move across Nigeria to just about anywhere that seems to provide a better life or opportunities. I wrote a while back about the individuals who had occupied my late grandfather’s house in Ekiti. When I met them in late 2004, they definitely spoke a language which is most likely from the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria. Their lives was all about farming and as long as they did not cause trouble, the indigenes were happy with them just like the Northerners who were there to cultivate kolanut and bitter kola. The children who I met then will most likely speak the local language by now and will be indistinguishable from the original indigenes. However, these ones may most likely have been starved of much needed basic education and exposure.

The shoemakers in Lagos are not necessarily lazy or resistant to education. Many privileged in Lagos and similar cosmopolitan cities will simply walk past such individuals and may very well feel threatened by them because of the antecedents of a certain violent group domiciled in Northeastern Nigeria. I met one young boy in Ibadan a few weeks ago. He had escaped from Bornu and was being looked after by a pleasant couple and enrolled in school. If we know we will be uncomfortable with the idea of accommodating migrants in our comfort zones, we should be more than ready to canvass for equity in the land and compulsory development. Many children in the certain parts of Nigeria still get taught under wooden sheds and we should not feign ignorance of this fact. As some Nigerians are plotting to relocate to other climes, other Nigerians are also plotting to shift base from rural to urban areas. The governments at every level must be held responsible to stem the tide and carry out their primary function which is to serve the people. In the interim, we should be more human and help to keep our brothers, sisters and children. We can do more than just patronize those young boys and girls hustling and laboring in the sun and on the highway. We should do more than just pray for them, we can help defend their rights and get them justice where applicable. Christmas can be a great time to learn how to be really human again. The countries we look up to for refuge are not better than us because they pray harder or fast drier. They ensure that their young children and old people do not have to walk from street to street looking for food to eat; this may have been so a century ago in those climes but common sense has since prevailed.

May the souls of the departed rest in peace and may their families be comforted and receive justice. Amen.

I prefer to look at the brighter side. joleeakeju2014 @liverpool