Nurudeen Muhammad
5 July 2009
opinion
Abuja — The special adviser on media affairs to Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, Mr. Adagbo Onoja was recently in the news (again) with his characteristic eloquence, this time around writing not only about his boss but his very self too.
I read how he went to considerable length, educating the public on how safe and at home he feels in Jigawa, as a guest columnist in the May 25th-31st edition of the Peoples' Daily, through a piece titled "Adagbo Onoja is very alright in Jigawa State". One thought that was just overstating the obvious, because in Jigawa the Benue man already has a Hausa pet name. That is the highest honor the custom confers to a non Hausa in that society. But Onoja, left no one in doubt that he was reacting to an article in the Kano State owned Daily Triumph of April 18th 2009.
In the now much quoted diatribe, which has since ignited media fire works in both the print and the electronic media, the author of the Daily Triumph piece said Lamido is about to meet his political waterloo in the hands of a named aspirant, and accused Lamido of corruption and his children of siphoning Jigawa State's money. The writer also alleged that Lamido has betrayed Mallam Aminu Kano and Saminu Turaki. Lamido, added the opinion writer, is also guilty of hatred against President Umaru Yar'adua and that the appointment of Adagbo Onoja, as the special adviser on media affairs, undermines Islam. This is the lowest even a Nigerian politician could descend to, and this fellow seemed to have no problem about that.
The author's ingenuity in malice is dwarfed by the two contrasting personalities he claimed Lamido had betrayed, Mallam Aminu Kano and Saminu Turaki. It is laughable that one can betray the two politicians at the same time, as the two are mutually exclusive, and I believe even to the author in his sober moments. While many regard Mallam as the most prized possession politically in modern Nigeria, not a few see Turaki as a politician who has lost every right and moral standing to be betrayed. Simple logic would have informed that, by betraying Saminu Turaki and bringing Mr. Onoja to the spot light of his administration against all odds, Lamido couldn't have betrayed Mallam. Infact 'Mallam Aminu Kano too would have been very alright in Jigawa State'.
Mallam was a persona extraordinaire, not only for his Spartan and austere ways of life, but his intellectual/philosophical sagacity, moral superiority, pragmatism, uncommon courage, unlimited stamina and above all, how he inspired millions of people to a successful ideological revolution. As a student and subsequently a teacher, he wrote plays denouncing colonial tyranny; as a politician and leader, he challenged ideological dogmas and ridiculed royal pomposity and even in death, he had moved generations to resist oppression by simply saying no! All these, he did, in a conformist feudal society that was under colonial bondage and conspiracy. Mallam was indeed in the left, the far left of his times.
Mallam thought of religion particularly Islam, as a source of wisdom which shall never belittle a human being. In his brilliant interpretations, religion presented no barriers in realizing and utilizing individuals' capabilities. He cautioned against the use of religion but not ideology in power struggles. In this and many of his other views, he was ready to take Kano society and by extension the whole north head on. He criticized the Sabongari areas of the major northern cities, where mostly southern Christians live and subsist as an example of culturally and religiously segregated society. He reached out to the Sabongari area of Kano and made many of his friends and political associates and advocated equal rights for all Nigerians wherever they might choose to stay in their fatherland.
Whichever way one chose to view it, the fact is that, among Mallam's disciples, it was either Lamido listened to his political teacher the most, or perhaps he was the most susceptible to indoctrinations because of young age at that time, or simply he is the only one now with the political power and courage to actualize Mallam's ideologies. But certainly Lamido is not Mallam. Lamido is impressively tall, and Mallam was short,
It is an enlightened opinion that the appointment of Mr. Onoja by Lamido to a prominent position ever attained by any Christian, either an indigene or non indigene, in any northwestern state, except Kaduna, is a vindication for Achebe that Nigeria cannot be the same again because Aminu Kano had lived here. Apparently, Lamido just like Mallam would have done, didn't intend making political gains about it, before some supposed political opponents inadvertently brought it to national prominence by oversight though. To him is just another of Mallam's ideology put to practice.
It may therefore interest all those fabricating the stories of a supposed hatred between President Yar'adua and Sule Lamido, to know that they are simply being gullible and ignorant of history, lest they create a phenomenon they cannot contain. Lamido is happy where he is, watching his project, the Lamido project unfolding. Whether the project culminated in to another wave of resistance and revolution, largely depends on how it inspires the younger generation and achieves a national spread.
Mohammed writes from No. 86 Ankun Gabas, Hadejia, Jigawa State.
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