12 October 2008
opinion
The late Mallam Sa'adu Zungur was indisputably one of our founding fathers that fought for Nigeria's independence from the colonial masters. He was described as a rebel with a good cause in his Hausa community.
He was the father of politics in Northern Nigeria. He had lofty dreams for a prosperous and independent Nigeria. Alas, he was not there to witness the independence anniversary as he left this earth precisely in 1958, two years to independence at the age of 44!
Thus, he has not been in the picture of what has been happening in his Northern Nigeria in particular and the country in general. He was said to be the first person to form a political organisation in Northern Nigeria when he launched the Northern Nigeria Youth Movement in 1939 in Zaria. He sought to use politics to create an egalitarian Northern Nigerian society. If the late Sa'adu Zungur were alive today, how would he feel about the greed, nepotism, ineptitude, jealousy and indeed hypocrisy that have taken over the entire leadership and thrown away whatever decency that remains in our dear Northern Nigeria?
I am sure he would prefer that we remained under British colony. How would the late Zungur have felt to know that our leaders today prefer to see the children of the poor being turned into almajirai or yan daba without offering any helping hand? And that even their rights have been trampled upon and they have been denied the power to complain? I can remember that one of Zungur's songs was on the ills of begging, especially in the Hausa community. The hard truth is that Northern leaders have forgotten the contributions of Mallam Sa'adu Zungur in developing our North. Most of our leaders are rulers who are bent on achieving their agenda by any means. Such rulers have no business other than promoting crisis to further disintegrate our people.
But it is not only the leaders that are to be blamed. The followers are worse than their leaders as the masses are busy carrying their crosses waiting with their thwarted hopes for more social and political freedoms in the shadow of poverty. It is disheartening knowing the fact that most of the masses do not know their rights. Some voters collect a token amount of money to vote and allow electoral manipulations. Some put leaves on their heads on Election Day to indicate that they are for sale. I believe one cannot find these in other countries like Kenya or Zimbabwe.
Our youths in particular who are referred to as leaders of tomorrow have a vital role to play in bringing to reality the lofty dreams and ideals which our founding fathers lived and died for. We must rise to the clarion call to duty and service in the spirit of our national anthem "with love and strength and faith". The seeds of lofty dreams planted by our founding fathers must not be in vain. We must be educated on the fact that patriotic leadership begets patriotic followership while unpatriotic leadership frustrates patriotic leadership.
When leadership is unpatriotic, irresponsible, alien to transparency and accountability and is without the welfare of the people at heart, how can it elicit patriotism from the led? Finally, let me use this medium to call on our respective governments to embark on developing the minds of the voters through sound education and enlightenment on the lives and legacies of our heroes like Mallam Sa'adu Zungur, his disciple, Mallam Aminu Kano, Sardauna of Sokoto, Joseph Tarka, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Tafawa Balewa and the rest. Education and only education has the mission of leading the society to realise its aims and objectives.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
