Sule Ya'u Sule
4 December 2008
analysis
I have always been fascinated by the steady progress being made by Ghana, Nigeria's historically linked neighbour to the West Coast and increasingly a choice investment destination for expanding Nigerian businesses as well as tourists.
Of course, Ghana is a small pond compared to Nigeria's mighty ocean of riches and opportunities but to the credit of their well-cultured people and fairly responsible government, they have kept it simple.
Ghana does not boast of Nigeria's international hotel brands but you will find comfort and security in their alternatives. Theirs is a more disciplined and ordered daily life and what they lack in infrastructural size, they compensate with an admirable maintenance culture and self-contentment many Nigerians find both self-effecting and laid back. But Ghana marches on with a slow and steady pace.
Like Kano, their national elections are credible. Ghanaians are not embarrassed to seek answers to questions that challenge their development dreams. They fancy their beautiful, modest cities as idyll conference centres where people from all over the world are welcome to exchange ideas on any topic under the sun.
It was under this ambience of knowledge-seeking that His Excellency, the Governor of Kano State, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, was invited to a two-day International Conference on Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities, held at the Aviation Centre, Accra, under the auspices of Al-furqan Foundation on October 25, 2008 (Shawwal 25, 1429AH).
As in Nigeria, Malam is always the centre of attraction at such international conferences, be they in Europe, the Americas or Africa.
He delivered a keynote address: "Toward Understanding Shari'ah", the main focus being the sharing of experience with the conferees on the challenges of institutionalising and nurturing the structures of Shari'a based society even in a country where Shari'a law is viewed with suspicion by elites inebriated with the excess indulgences of secular jurisprudence.
Malam's 30-page, highly thoughtful address was divided into segments - introduction, definition of Shari'a from scriptural and methodological perspectives; the experience and numerous challenges of Shari'a implementation; his famous institutional paradigm (the people-first approach, which has made the Kano model of Shari'a implementation the most admired and most sought-after) and lastly his thoughts on the emergence of a new methodology of study and implementation of Shari'a.
Malam explained that, "Because of the intrinsically divine basis of the Islamic family legal system, its preservation and effective implementation is integral to, and is at the heart of the preservation of the Muslim community itself, its distinct identity, character and ethos and classified and family legal system of secularization of the state and its institutions in many countries."
In defining "Islamic law (aknowledging that this definition is not only limited in scope but does gross injustice to "one of the most profound, all-embracing and complex notions of Islam), Shari'a, he explained, "is sacred and divine ...based on the Holy Qur'an and the Sunnah of the beloved Prophet (SAW) as well as the lesser category being the product of our efforts to understand the Will of Allah and transform it into the path that leads to the fulfillment of this Will."
Classical Islamic scholarship, he told his audience, identified four basic sources of the Shari'a: the Holy Qur'an, the Sunnah of the beloved Prophet Muhammad (SAW), Ijma, or the consensus of the scholars and Qiyas or judgment by deductive analogy.
Passionately exhorting Muslims to develop a proper understanding of Shari'a, Malam posited that from the Islamic perspective, this is important "not merely for theological advantages but also to restore and reclaim the dynamism that enabled Muslims under the leadership and guidance of the Prophet to lay the foundation of a great community, leading to a vibrant society and civilisation, worshipping God and serving the humanity in His path."
Rendering his report card as Chief Executive of Kano, Nigeria's largest state and a model in modern day Shari'a implementation, Malam espoused the welfare and distributive content of Shari'a which has won him accolades from far and wide. Regarded as one of Nigeria's most honest and transparent governors, critics appreciate that Malam has been able to sustain the Shari'a legacy in Kano due to his personal example and integrity of character.
The Kano model is based on meeting the real needs of the citizenry; Malam said, "Rather than wait to catch a thief and amputate his hand, we made efforts to create situations and circumstances comfortable enough to make stealing unnecessary; and rather than focus on stoning the adulterer, we introduced programmes in many forums to educate the people on the sanctity of marriage and the health hazards and moral dangers inherent in adultery and fornication."
He explained the rationale and working of Shari'a supporting institutions in Kano - the Shari'a Commission, Zakkat and Khubsi Commission, the Hisbah Board and other vital Shari'a implementation agencies. Highlighting these achievements to the appreciative audience, Malam spoke glowingly on the focus of the Hisbah Board.
"Reconciling about 5,500 disputes within families, between families and between neighbours in just the last eight months; disputes that would have otherwise resulted to carnage or would have been referred to the courts for settlement."
Within the same period, the Board converted 1,091 persons to Islam, controlled 10,476 movements of intoxicants, offered assistance of well over N4 million to the needy and carried out over 3,000 Islamic propagation activities.
"We established the Shari'a Commission to guide the people and the government to act according to the principles and tenets of the Shari'ah to inculcate enterprise, civility, morality, peaceful co-existence, fulfillment of obligation, selflessness within the people and to urge them to abhor all acts of wickedness and selfishness.
Thus our passion for the Shari'a from the beginning was rooted in the prospect that when successfully implemented, it will render the courts quiet, rather than busy condemning poor souls."
In a goodwill message to the conference, the Chief Justice of Ghana, Justice (Mrs) Georgina TI. Woode, regretted, "Registration of Muslim marriages under the Marriage of Mohammedans Ordinance (CAP 129) has over the years been observed more in the breach than in the observance, largely because majority of Ghanaian Muslims are wholly ignorant of the law," and regretted that, "it is a matter of some wonderment that the significant large Muslim community in Ghana, led by their scholars and intellectuals, have not sufficiently scrutinised this piece of colonial legislation for the purpose of proposing appropriate recommendations for the review of the law or even for its replacement with a relevant enactment."
*Mr. Ya'u Sule, is the Director of Press and Public Relations to the Governor of Kano State.
Although currently resident in the United States of America, I have keenly followed every inch of the political events in Nigeria, especially my own State of Edo. May I also add that I was home before, during and after the April 2007 elections and I am, therefore, no stranger to all the events that took place.
Since the pronouncement of the verdict of the Edo State Governorship Appeal Tribunal in favour of Comrade Oshiomhole, there have been countless allegations of financial impropriety, fraud and corruption against Osunbor, during his tenure as governor. The accusations may not all be true but the public mood in Edo State at the moment does not seem to be in sympathy with the Professor of Law who turned to politics, became a senator and then a governor.
The question is: How will posterity judge Professor Osunbor? Will he be referred to as a naive academic who rushed into politics and offered himself as a tool, freely and readily used by those who understood the game better or will he go down in history as a master of the game who, out of greed, outplayed himself?
Two interesting, but diametrically opposite answers, were given to this question by recent newspaper publications, one an article by Johnson Momodu titled: "Edo Governorship: The Rise and Fall of Osunbor" (Vanguard of November 14, 2008) and the other the editorial of Daily Champion of November 27, 2008, with the title "Osunbor as Metaphor".
While Momodu believes that Osunbor was a self-serving politician who fell from grace to grass because he plotted against the very political machinery that brought him to power, the Champion editorial is of the view that the Law Professor was no more than a "point-man" used by Edo "master-practitioners of the acts of electoral malpractices" and that he was "caged by those who exploited his intellectual star power to capture Edo State". Still, the editorial found Osunbor guilty of "corruption, kleptomania, sleaze and sensory incontinence that plagues our society".
Those referred to as the "master-practitioners of the arts of electoral malpractices" are, by inference and implication, the leadership of the PDP on whose platform Osunbor contested the Edo State governorship election. On this, one can only say that although the verdict of the Appeal Tribunal has been accepted by all, it does not by any means tell the full story as to which party-the PDP or AC- committed worse electoral malpractices. Someday, hopefully, the truth will be told of which party removed genuine ballot papers and replaced them with massively thumb-printed ones, presented to the tribunal as exhibits.
To suggest, as the Champion editorial does, that everything Osunbor did while in office was forced on him by his "godfathers" is an insult to the intellect of the Professor of Law as well as the academic institution that conferred that status on him. Consider how he demonstrated that he was his own man: for instance, after a few months in office, he organised parallel congresses last year against the leadership of the party in Edo State. The intention was to wipe out the structure that brought him into power.
Now sample some allegations trailing him: Osunbor was alleged to have hurriedly withdrawn N500 million on his way out of Government House; spent as much as N1 billion on security in one month, "extorted" money from chairmen of local government councils. Even his aides were not left out as they were accused, and some even arrested, for allegedly looting Government House in Benin City and the Edo State Liaison Office in Abuja.
Significantly, Osunbor derailed politically; and the only godfather who encouraged him to derail was former President Olusegun Obasanjo from whom he was taking instructions and whom he regarded as his true leader. When the national leadership of the PDP decided on a reconciliation formula for the resolution of the internal crisis within the Edo State chapter of the party, Osunbor insisted he was the leader of the party in the state and would take no instructions from anybody.
Using the resources of the state, he instigated a court action against his own party and paralysed its activities in the state. He appears determined to continue his act of disloyalty even now that he is no longer governor. Can such a man be said to have a godfather in Edo? Now, Osunbor owes the people of Edo State an apology because by his own actions, the state has been edged out of mainstream politics. The heart-beat of Nigeria cannot occupy a peripheral position in the affairs of the nation, all because of the self-serving interests of a few individuals.
If Osunbor had any godfather in Edo State as it is generally believed, that godfather should have shared in the former Governor's reported massive loot of the state treasury. The revelations are coming from the government of Oshiomhole in torrents! The belief is that of the billions of naira allegedly mismanaged by Osunbor, he alone should be vicariously liable and held accountable for it. At the risk of sounding patronizing, I am sure that the man referred to as "Leader" in Edo politics would never be party to the looting of that state.
I stand to be corrected on this assertion. It is on record that the Leader invested his own personal funds in the running of a previous administration and did not take a kobo in return. For the period Osunbor was governor, he was his own godfather. Well, if he ever had a godfather, that virtual godfather was in far-away Ota, where he took his directives and planned strategies on how to disorganize his own party in Edo State. The Ota man was said to have strongly encouraged him to write petitions against the leadership of the PDP in Edo State, in response to the decision of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party which did not go his way.
Now that former Governor Osunbor has, through deliberate acts of disloyalty, tried to weaken the PDP in Edo, the honourable thing to do is to resign from the party. The PDP in the state needs massive reconstruction, reconciliation and rehabilitation. Genuine members who have been misled by greed and avarice must now regroup and rededicate themselves to the ideals of the party.
*Dr. Eriagbene, writes from Verona, Pennsylvania, USA.
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