El-Rufai, Education and Ramadan Iftar things (1)

El-Rufai, Education and Ramadan Iftar things (1)

I have heard someone say – I can’t remember whom, though – that you should be careful what you pray for. In other words, can you stand God’s answer to your prayer?

Last week, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State stunned many people in the State when he came out to categorically declare that, under him, the State will no longer fund the spiritual, or religious, bills of anybody. Such include the State paying for people to go on pilgrimages to Mecca and Jerusalem, and also giving people foodstuff and the likes for the breaking of fast during the period of Ramadan and also during festive periods like Eids and Christmas. According to the governor, all of those religious endeavours are a personal affair and must, therefore, be kept as such without bringing the state government into it. He also went ahead, when he received a group of religious leaders at the weekend, to justify his government’s position with the argument that such policies, instead of benefiting the poor whom they are purportedly for, have only served to line up the pockets of a few through the granting of political favours by way of contracts and also in order to curry political patronage.

Only naturally, many people have been crying wolf on the governor’s decision, some of them the very poor for whom he intends that the policy ultimately benefits. The governor has argued that under the present state of finances in the State, and even the nation at large, he cannot afford to use State funds on such endeavours as there are more pressing challenges which, if met with the limited resource available, will benefit the generality of the people of the state. Of course the most vitriolic of the critics are the opponents of the ruling party in the state. But that is not unexpected; and this is the period of Ramadan, quite apt for the whipping up of sentiments on such an issue.

The scenario playing out in Kaduna State presently is a metaphor of the larger state of things in northern Nigeria. How it pans out is going to determine how serious the entire region is about the change that it clamoured for in the run up to the last elections. Of course on virtually all indices of development, the north sorely lags behind. Is it in health, in education or in economics? One readily remembers the figures that the erstwhile governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Charles Chukwuma Soludo, released on the north while he held sway in the apex bank: despite the controversy that the Soludo report stirred, and despite the living in denial, the reality on ground in the north only points to fact that the region indeed in the margins of the socio-economics of the nation. Little wonder that analysts, including elements in and from the north, have attributed the appeal of the Boko Haram ideology to the youths of the region to the sorry state of things in the region, hence the belief they can find in the group a way out of a system that has oppressed them.

The clamour for change boomed in the north of this country more than any other part, and the change was realized at the polls but it looks like the people are not yet ready to let go of old habits. I am trying to remember the name someone called a person that does the same thing and expects a different result…

It was in one of the northern states that a certain former governor was challenged by the press that he never delivered on the mandate that his people gave him to govern them. The ex-governor in question brazenly argued that he more than delivered on his campaign promise. He said that he made three promises to his people: to establish Shariah in the state, to sponsor people to go on Hajj, and to feed people especially the indigent during the Ramadan fast for free; all of which he infact did. But really, as someone upon whom trust is reposed to lead masses out of the woods, is that just? We have also seen other governors in the region who, apart from doing such things, have gone ahead to sponsor mass weddings for divorcees in their respective states from government coffers.

It is not necessarily wrong for government to do all of these for her citizens where possible, but sure enough, we all know that these governors who have done all of these never did them with any sense of altruism because given the reality that has persisted in northern Nigeria, it is easy to see that there have been more pressing needs confronting the people which have required urgent attention. These needs border on the dignity of the people as human persons. These needs border on equipping the people to face the challenges of the twenty-first century with their heads above their shoulders.

To be continued…

 

BLUEPRINT Newspaper; Thur. June 25, 2015; p2

Knights of St Mulumba: Patron Saint’s Day (2)

Knights of St Mulumba: Patron Saint’s Day (2)

Another core dimension of the Christian knighthood is what Lou Whitsworth, in a 1997 essay, refers to as True Manliness, a biblical model of Christian manhood lived in Christ as examples of godly men.

In the documents, available in their website, The Order of the Knighthood of Our Lord and His Holy Mother – another order of knights in the Church – note this of a Christian knight: “‘A Knight was a man who intended to place himself completely at the service of a noble and difficult cause, a pure and arduous ideal. Fighting evil, promoting good, defending the weak and the oppressed against injustice. Bringing low the arrogance of the more powerful. Courage and unselfishness, generosity and readiness to make sacrifices, to the point of heroism, even to the point of death, if necessary. This is the picture – the ideal picture, let us say – of the Knight in the original meaning of the term. Not for nothing was St. George the martyr, who fought the dragon to protect the defenseless maiden, the prototype of the Knight, and still is.” Little wonder then that C.S. Lewis wrote, as noted by Whitworth, that “the disparate strands of manhood– fierceness and gentleness–can find healthy synthesis in the person of the knight and in the code of chivalry. Here these competing impulses–normally found in different individuals–find their union.” He, Whitworth, goes on to expound that “were one of these two bents given full rein, the balance required for authentic Christian manhood would be lost. Strength and power, without tenderness, for example, give us the brute. Tenderness and compassion without masculine firmness and aggressiveness produce a male without the fire to lead or inspire others.”

Whitworth’s essay, which is a review of Roberts Lewis’ book – Raising a Mordern-Day Knight – identified the latter’s three ideals of a modern day knight. The first is A Vision for Manhood, which is that real men reject passivity, accept responsibility, lead courageously, and expect the greater reward.

The second ideal is A Code of Conduct – The code for modern-day knights comes from the pages of the Bible: loyalty, kindness, humility, purity, servant- leadership, honesty, self-discipline, excellence, integrity, and perseverance. Modern-day knights, he notes, must know that absolute values exist and that the commandments of God are liberating, not confining. The knight “needs to understand that he has a work to do that is in keeping with his inner design. This work is not just his profession or trade, but refers to work in his home, church, and community. Life is certainly more than a job, and your son should hear this from you lest he get the mistaken perception that manhood is just one duty and obligation after another. Another responsibility for the modern-day knight is a woman to love. The code of chivalry requires that all women be treated with respect and honor. Sons need to see and hear from their fathers the importance of caring for women in general and loving, leading, and honoring their wives in particular.”

The third ideal is A Transcendent Cause; that “life is ultimately unsatisfying if it is lived solely for self. Jesus said if you give up your life you will find it, so if you live for a cause greater than yourself, you’ll be happy and fulfilled.”

Of course apart from these ideals, there are virtues that define a christian knight today and these vary in number, depending on who is speaking or whom one reads. However, Waitsel Smith, in his April 25, 2010, publication, identifies some twelve of them which generally capture the submission of other writers. These virtues include obedience, courage, integrity, purity, loyalty and charity. The rest include defense, faith, stewardship, wisdom, humility and righteousness. An indepth reading into the discourses on these twelve virtues may be found on www.christianknighthood.com. The discourses are indeed profound.

In living out these Christian ideals and virtues of the vocation of knighthood in the catholic church, the members of the Order of the Knights of St Mulumba Nigeria are called upon at all time to offer their time, talents and treasure at the service of the church and society. They especially pledge themselves to the service also of the nation.

Indeed Nigeria, nay the world at large, needs knightly men; men who are not afraid to confront evil; men who will be ready to uphold the dignity of the human person and will be firm for truth and justice despite what else other forces hold; men who are real models to their children and husbands to their wives.

BLUEPRINT Newspaper; Thur. June 18, 2015; p2

Knights of St Mulumba: Patron Saint’s Day (1)

Knights of St Mulumba: Patron Saint’s Day (1)

On Sunday, June 7, 2015, members of the Order of the Knights of St Mulumba, of the

Catholic Church, celebrated their Patron Saint’s Day – St Mulumba. The occasion provides one with an opportunity for some discourse on this page, albeit briefly, on the knighthood in the Catholic Church, which is an esteemed apostolate of service. But before that, a little about the person of St Mulumba will suffice here.

The story of Matthias Kelemba Mulumba, born in 1836, is by and large the story of the martyrs of Uganda; twenty two of them. Bob French, in an article in the August, 2008, edition of The Word Among Us (a Catholic Devotional Magazine) recounts the arrival of the White Fathers – a missionary group of catholic priests presently known as the Missionaries of Africa – to the Kingdom of Buganda in 1879 during the reign of King Mutessa. The king welcomed them as he did the protestant missionaries and muslims before them. As time went on, Mutessa, an astute king, would favour one group now and the other another time depending on political expediency. Many Bugandans came to accept Christianity but because of the erratic nature of the king, they often found themselves in grave danger. Yet the missionaries took advantage of the favourable periods to catechize their converts so well that a hunger was soon ignited for the living word of God, and not just the historical facts of salvation, as Lwanga Mpoza, a Ugandan historian, put it. Thus, when King Mutessa became hostile to, and expelled the White Fathers from his kingdom, the converts continued to win more converts into the faith.

King Mutessa died in 1884 and was succeeded by his son, Mwanga who proved to be even more unstable. Mwanga perceived the Christian coverts to be more loyal to another king, “the God of the Christians”, than to him. The evidence of this, for him, was the effrontery of Joseph Mukassa, his personal attendant and head page, himself a Christian. First, Mukassa “dared” to dissuade the king from putting to death the newly arrived Anglican Bishop, and then he taught the younger pages – boys – not to let themselves be sodomized by the king. This enraged the king and he went after them first by ordering them renounce their faiths and stop further proselytization.

These Christians would not renounce their faith. King Mwanga began to put them to death, first Joseph Mukassa, then Charles Lwanga and then others followed, among them Kizito who was only fourteen years of age and Mulumba, the more advanced. Some of them were chopped to death while others were burnt alive. They valiantly accepted death for their faith. They were canonized saints of the church in 1964.

Knighthood in the Catholic Church dates back to the middle ages when the faithful had to form themselves into small armies to protect pilgrims enroute the Holy Land from persecution and molestation in the hands of Muslim Arabs and Saracens. Ultimately, the knights would fight fierce battles to repel incursions by jihadists into Europe. They fought in defense of the faith.

Today, knights in the church have assumed a different type of “fight”: that against evil by promoting good wherever they find themselves. They are at the service not just of people of the catholic faith but also of the larger society wherever they find themselves. They are called to uphold in a very special way the light of the gospel of Christ: justice, fairness mercy and compassion. The documents of the Knights of St Mulumba specifically note that knights “set themselves the necessary task of uprooting the systemic and structural evil in the society.”

The Order of the Knights of St Mulumba was founded in June, 1953, by the late Anselm Isidahomeh Ojefua, a Nigerian priest and monk. It was a response to the prevalence of groups and fraternities outside of the Church whose activities the Church could not vouch for, and were at best clandestine. The move was to arrest any attraction such groups offered by providing an alternative, since life abhors vacuum. It is open to all practicing catholic men and their wives. In a reflection on the occasion of the thirty-fifth anniversary of his initiation into the Order this year, the Deputy Supreme Knight, Brother Mike Mary-Nwosu noted that “a member of KSM Nigeria is expected to turn from a life of selfishness and sin - a 'Me First' life - to a life of Spirit-filled generosity and love. He becomes a man full of discipline and obedience, a man ready and willing to serve the Church, the Order and others, a man whose integrity and conduct are beyond dispute, a man of peace, and a man always ready to forgive, a man full of zeal and the Holy Spirit.”

Another core dimension of the Christian knighthood is what Lou Whitsworth, in a 1997 essay, refers to as True Manliness, a biblical model of Christian manhood lived in Christ as examples of godly men. Whitworth’s essay identified Roberts Lewis’ three ideals of a modern day knight. The first is A Vision for Manhood, which is that real men reject passivity, accept responsibility, lead courageously, and expect the greater reward.

BLUEPRINT Newspaper; Thur. June 11, 2015; p2

Buhari and Me (conclusion)

Buhari and Me (conclusion)

Tomorrow, Gen Muhammadu Buhari will be sworn in as president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It has been some nine weeks since he was declared winner of the 2015 presidential election; the run up to which probably brought out the worst of us as a people in the way and manner both active players and their supporters conducted themselves. Finally, Nigerians spoke and it became clear – in spite of the huge sums of money and other less than honourable arsenal in the kitty of the outgoing ruling party – that citizens went for change after a sixteen year rule of the PDP. Thus, we shall have a new party at the helm of our nation’s affairs, never mind the cynicism over the persons that now people the APC.

During the nine-week transition period, I thought it would be interesting to serve you excerpts of our interview with the incoming president, which took place some five years ago when he was gearing for the 2011 elections which he eventually lost to President Jonathan. The essence of serving you that odyssey of an interview – in seven installments – is to present the reader with more insight into the mind, hopefully, of Buhari: how he sees Nigeria, his perception of how the nation has been governed and what is wrong with the affairs of the nation. As mentioned earlier, the interview was conducted in 2010; therefore, it will be left for you the reader to determine for yourself whether or not the man has been sufficiently consistent even to this moment when he finally, on the fourth shot at the presidency, won the contest. I have followed Buhari’s quest for the number-one position of Nigeria fairly closely, especially from the 2011 contest; therefore, I have an opinion on his level of consistency in general, which I will share here without meaning to necessarily convince any person who has a contrary opinion.

From 2002, when Buhari decided to run for office, up to the election of 2011, he largely anchored his ambitions on the will of the masses, the Talakawas. The political elites were never with him. He lost in all three occasions and he contested the results in court. Of course many believed he had cause to contest the elections which were considered far below par in integrity even though the Judiciary considered them okay in the light of substantial compliance, as contained in the Electoral Act(s). In any case it would appear that aspirations anchored on the Talakwa in Nigeria never see the light of day in spite of glaring evidences to the fact of mal-governance by the elite. A case in point is the late Mallam Aminu Kano, probably the truest nationalist to have emerged from northern Nigeria in his time.

But in all of this, Buhari’s political mantra has been to fight against corruption, which he considered the bane of the Nigerian society and purveyed actively in the fourth republic by the ruling PDP. In our interview with him, he was asked what the chances were for him to ever run on the ticket of the PDP. His answer was an emphatic “None!” In fact he stated that instead of him to join the PDP, they, the PDP, should come and join him in quest against corruption and bad governance. I remember, on that day while rounding the program recording off, I made a slip and referred to him as presidential aspirant under the PDP, instead of the CPC, and he quickly retorted “God forbid!” The slip was edited out.

I guess Buhari realized even by 2011 that he had to manage to close ranks with some of the political elites in the country to be able to upstage the PDP behemoth, thus the overtures to other political parties, particularly the ACN then. The hoped-for alliance never materialized then until in 2013, preparatory to 2015 when most of the opposition parties led by the CPC and ACN merged to form the APC. And prophetically too, many in the PDP decamped and joined him in the APC. The stage was set.

But one would expect that his message would change, perhaps to accommodate the many soiled fingers that have come around him; however, he has been steadfast. Again, I put the question to him, and many others before and after me did, as to his blueprint to tackle whether corruption, insecurity or the battered economy. In observed that his response has always been that he will do nothing special other than to “literally go by the book”; we have the constitution and other laws and we should get them working first before talking of some highfaluting theories that will not trickle to the man on the street at the end of the day. The man has been consistent in his credo; and the way he has gone about things and with the frenzy and sensation of the transition since his victory, he has shown indeed that he wants to go by the book.

In this round off on my interview with him, I had wanted to include a little more of the excerpt but I had no electricity to power the studio for me to retrieve that bit. Of course even with the two huge generator sets meant to power my office complex, no diesel to run them. I guess the new president has his work cut out for him. It’s a ramshackle country. I pray for him. No excuses; the last five years have tired us with them.

 


BLUEPRINT Newspaper; Thur. May 28, 2015; p2