Insurgency Targeted At Eradicating Muslims – JIBWIS
While scrolling through my timeline, after reading the infamous memo of Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa, the headline above caught my eye and I decided to read it. It was a headline posted by Daniel on April 22, 2014 on their website www.informationng.org. The opening statement was,‘National chairman of Jama’atul Izalatil Bid’ah Wa’iqamatus Sunnah (JIBWIS), Sheik Abdullahi Bala Lau, has raised an alarm that most of the killings in the Northern part of the country was aimed at destroying Muslims in the region. He made this known at a press briefing organised by JIBWIS in Katsina on Monday’. Now, Monday was the 21st of April, 2014. I took my time to give the background information about this because I don’t want to be misconstrued or deliberately taken out of context. If possible, I will urge anyone who wants to read this post to also read the article as quoted above. A Sheik is a Muslim Cleric who is well respected and viewed as a cynosure of knowledge, especially about the Qur’an and the Hadiths. He is one who leads his people in the dictates of his religion, teaching them the principles of it. He is also one who is listened to regarding all issues. In essence, a Sheik is expected to speak words with all care, for his words carry power. Maybe Sheik Lau forgot just how much power he has, or how volatile religious sentimentality is, especially in Northern Nigeria. I do not know much about the Qur’an but I’m guessing there is no place in it where Muslims are allowed to kill Muslims. If that assumption is right, by inferring that Muslims are the targets of the insurgency, he is in essence saying the insurgents have to be non-Muslims, which translates to Christians and pagans. He went further to say (and I quote), ‘According to him, the Boko Haram insurgency was a thing of the past and the present situation was part of the malicious conspiracy to eradicate Muslims across the country’. Now, if I’m a Muslim, I will begin to fortify myself in defense, getting ready to prevent the eradication of my brothers and myself. Permit me to say this, but I feel that was where the Sheik was heading. Now he said Muslims have to fast and pray but I’m pretty sure most Muslims stopped reading at ‘eradicating Muslims’. I remember when churches took the brunt of the attacks, with bombs going off week in and week out in Borno, Yobe, Kaduna etc. And when bombs were not going off, armed men were attacking churches and slaughtering worshiping Christians. The attacks on churches have not stopped. Yet, the Sheik said the attacks were targeted at Muslims. Do Muslims worship in churches? Do Muslims own churches? I didn’t hear any outcry from said Sheik when Christians were killed weekly. Now that the insurgents are showing no more discrimination, killing all and sundry, we are hearing alarms raised. But if we are to follow the Sheik’s words, there is no such thing as Boko Haram, but a malicious group aimed at killing Muslims. If you read further, you will see where he said even the Christian Association Of Nigeria (CAN) has stopped blaming the killings on Muslims, adding that the government is hiding under the umbrella of Boko Haram to kill innocent Muslims. Is it a coincidence that the present government is headed by a Christian? Is it then okay for us to say that the Sheik feels Christians are maliciously attacking Muslims in a bid to eradicating them? When religious leaders manipulate their charge towards violence, where then do we run to? Nigeria is too volatile to have leaders make such utterances. Such statements will in no way foster any form of unity. Add that to Nyako’s memo and you will realize that the Northern leaders seem to be prepping Muslims for a grand showdown. I’ve Muslim friends who will shrug off the Sheik’s utterances because they care about humanity and nationalism first, but there are those who have no better understanding. I worry about the state of the North. I’m a Northern Christian and I feel like this region is going to get really in-conducive with the way things are going. Can we have other Muslim leaders come out and foster unity? Can prominent Northerners come out and speak for oneness as Muhammadu Buhari did on the 22nd of April? It is a thing of sadness to see people who ought to know better, act otherwise. Until we know that God created the human race first, we will keep allowing little things like religious differences separate us.
Learn From Life
So…………something happened yesterday and my writer’s block was lifted. I have been trying to tame all the ideas rushing in my head so, I will just offload them now.Life always gives us opportunity to learn something necessary for the future. I must reiterate this: LIFE ALWAYS GIVES US THE OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN SOMETHING FOR OUR FUTURE!When I was younger, I always had a penchant for writing. The only problem was that I would start a lofty project and fail to finish. When I got to secondary school, and we were to write either a letter or an essay, my problem was how to control the flow to ‘Not more than so, so and so words’. Believe me, it was hard! Acting was something I could do naturally so it was normal to join the Drama and Debate club in school. That taught me how to debate, which added the art of public speaking to my talents. While I was doing this, I had this burning desire to soak up all I could. Learning how to do things better was always at the fore of my thoughts. I wanted to be the best speaker, writer and actress that the world could ever see. I remember picking out the big words from my novels and transcribing them, learning their meanings and trying to inject them into my daily speech. I must confess that I knew absolutely nothing about transcription and phonetics but I would write them anyway. When my teachers, especially Mr. Girgir and Mr. Jerry (I think, not sure of his name anymore) started talking about phonetics, I was happy because I felt I already had a head start. When I finally graduated from secondary school, and was waiting for admission, my friend – Kenniewest- told me of this gospel group called CRYSTALS FAMILY. After much pressure, I joined the group. I went there to act and I was able to be a part of the team because I seemed to know a lot about theatre performances and stage rules, things I had learnt from my club in school. A day came and we were asked to submit articles for a proposed magazine. I submitted an article and I was invited to attend the leadership meeting of the group. We had training on ‘The 360° leader’, a lesson culled from the book by John C. Maxwell with same title. After the training, I was made the leader of ‘Da Scribes’, the writers unit of the group. In that group, I learnt to finish plays, articles and best of all, edit stories. When I got to school, the editing I learnt from ‘Da Scribes’ helped me get on the editorial committee of the Student Representative Council in my final year in school, where I got to meet Muideen Olawale, who taught me so much. Even though I had been planning and organizing class parties and events since JSS1, I had not done a major event until ‘Da Scribes’ came up with ‘FACE OF CRYSTALS’ and that launched me into my event planning career! The same was seen when I joined the less gospel CRYSTALZ, which organised epic parties in school; the university I mean.‘Da Scribes’ taught me so much about writing that when I graduated and was made the head of the theatre unit in church, I wrote, for the first time in my life, a full script for the team. One script became two and by the end of the week, I had written six scripts. You don’t know the joy I felt when my scripts were translated into reality. This happened when the theatre group, KINGDOM EXPRESSIONS, hosted her first theatre night! Now when I got to Adamawa to serve, my HOD in church, Frama Ambrose called me up one day and asked me to go with him to be on a radio show. I was nervous but I agreed. That was how I heard of CAMPUS 360. I got on the show and found out that a pastor in my church was the pioneer of the show. Pastor Stanley Innocent was doing good work and believe me, I was soaking up all his presentation skills and learning all I could from him. One day, he told me to understudy TOOLZ, the superb O.A.P with the Beat FM and I started picking up stuff from her. Tyra was another woman I understudied and I had always liked Oprah’s presentation skills so yeah, I was feeling good. Eventually, the FM supervisor, Madame Chika Ngalome, asked me to come over and to cut a long story short, I got my own show and started giving myself to it. From one show, it became four shows on radio and one on TV. Now all this drama leads to one thing. LIFE ALWAYS GIVES YOU AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN SOMETHING FOR YOUR FUTURE. There are things you learn today that may seem unimportant but will make you standout in the future. It might be something simple or something complicated but no knowledge is ever wasted!! If you refuse to learn the minute things which are not important, you just might lose great opportunities when they finally present themselves!!! I’m going to be a great O.A.P, both on radio and on TV and I owe ALL my thanks to GOD for all the little lessons HE set on my path which has made fitting into who I am now a much more easy task. Learn today from life! What you learn today might be what makes the difference tomorrow!
Lazy Youth
Photo by Retha Ferguson from Pexels I always hear stuff like, ‘There are no jobs in the country.’ In the past, I would have agreed to this. Now, not so much. I think there are jobs in this country…they just might not be the ones you want or are worth. You see, I used to be surrounded by many people who are above 25 who did not think they should apply themselves and work. They would sit all day at home doing nothing. They did not work, study, or keep themselves abreast of news and development stories from across the world. They spent almost all their time watching movies, goofing around or basically, wasting away. I remember one family that I used to know. They had all been through various levels of education, but they stayed at home rather than worked. The first daughter was different though. She would wake up, cook, clean, cook, do laundry and whatever else she needed to do. Then she would plait the hair of women and girls who came to visit her parents. She worked, but it was mostly free labor. It meant all that energy was for almost nothing. She was still dependent on her family for all her needs. Her siblings on the other hand? Pheww! They defined the term, ‘lazy’. They only seemed to watch television, eat, and sleep. When I lived with them in the same compound, I used to wake up early, head off to work and sometimes, return to the house very late. On one of my days off work, they were surprised to see me at home at that time. We got chatting and they chastised me for being a workaholic, saying they hoped I was paid lots of money. I laughed; I definitely wasn’t. They then said, ‘Don’t stress yourself oh’. For some reason, I remember being so mad at the statement. Don’t stress myself?! Really?! I wanted to retort that maybe they should stress themselves, apply themselves to something more productive than sitting around all day. But I stayed silent. As if to force me into talking, they went further to say they would only work hard when they expected to collect allowances of not less than a hundred thousand Naira. At that point, I got up and left. They had almost no value to add to any organization. They didn’t care that they were older and should be planning out their futures. They were content letting their parents fend for them; parents who were themselves old and barely surviving on retirement checks. I was, to say the least, quite disappointed with their entire outlook on life. I remember my first job after I graduated from school. The pay wasn’t even enough to cover transport expenses, so my dad had to take me halfway to work so that I could always have a little money. I didn’t need the job; my needs were pretty simple at that point. But I needed the independence! I didn’t want to ask my dad for things like sanitary pads or new underwear. I didn’t want my parents buying me clothes when I was a full-grown university graduate. And though the job was way beneath my pay grade, I took it and gave my best to it. I particularly want to address religious leaders, as their parents were Pastors and Preachers. Many of you use your ‘office’ as an excuse not to work. You ‘are doing full time ministry’ as you say. In my opinion, your everyday life should be your full-time ministry…whatever the faith you profess. That being said, get up and work! Write a book. Own a business. Work in a company. Do something other than live off the tithes, gifts and offerings of members who have decided to work. It is yours, no one argues that, but your congregation will respect you more if you were as industrious as they are. In fact, because leaders always lead by example, any religious leader who doesn’t work will have more unemployed people in the congregation than employed ones. I know first-hand that any religious leader that works has over 90% of his flock being hardworking. It really is a simple formula. We all need to work! It is not compulsory that it be a white-collar job in that plush office and with that fat bank account. Only a small percentage of the population will get those jobs anyway. Sometimes, taking a lower paying job can present an opportunity for greater improvement. Plus, it beats not having money and being dependent on people; especially if you are an adult. Done ranting! PS: This post is not to negate the economic factors that make living (and working) in Nigeria really tasking; because they are there. It is to address some of the entitlement of many young people who are not willing to put in the work to improve their lives.
Women Are So Much More!!!
Image: Pexels. I have, for months now, been staying in my lane and avoiding some issues that could easily rile me up. I have been learning to bridle my tongue to avoid dishing out words I can’t take back. But today, that will take a back seat! I’m literally going to war! I am a feminist and I am ever ready to jump on all issues relating to women. I could go on and on about women’s rights and what we deserve. So it is fitting that I go on this rant. I was in a bus heading to town when this lady in front of us tried to reverse. She reversed smoothly, albeit slowly, and went on her way. As we watched disappear into the distance, another passenger started ranting about why women shouldn’t drive. I wondered what he was about. He sounded so angry that people began to complain. The conversation in the bus was crazy! The aggrieved passenger was hell bent on proving why women shouldn’t drive. All through, I was saying, ‘Lord JESUS, help me get down ‘jejely’ without insulting anybody’. I did! When I got home, I wanted to put the incident behind me. I almost succeeded until I read a Facebook post where a guy said he hated seeing women act like bosses when, in the end, they would all end in the kitchen. He thought he was funny when he typed the hash-tag, #KitchenBoss. I went at it a bit with him and he kept going on about women picking up western cultures and not respecting men. I told him respect was earned in ALL cultures and a woman shouldn’t have to respect a man just because of his penis! At this point, I was still trying to be good and reign in my tongue. I went on to do my midday show and asked the listeners to describe a woman who was accomplished educationally, in her work and career but who couldn’t cook. Out of the over 150 respondents, more than 120 said a woman who couldn’t cook was a totally useless person and an incomplete woman, backing it up with statements like ‘It is the destiny of a woman to end up in the kitchen’. By this time, I wasn’t pretending anymore! I was pissed the fuck up! I was angry and just about ready to spew venom! I tried to put it out of my mind until my colleague, while discussing an issue, said a married woman was her husband’s ‘property’. I asked, ‘Property?!’ and he reiterated his statement. At that point, I knew I had reached my tether’s end. I just couldn’t stand it anymore! This is 2019 for crying out loud and people still have the ideology that women are the inferior members of the human species. With all the campaign about equality, with all the manifestations that women can be and do so much more, men (and some women) still think we are nothing but beautiful bodies with little brain capacities! Women are cracking codes in genetics, flying to space, becoming engineers, soldiers, doctors, prime ministers, presidents, bloggers, artists, I.C.T experts, pilots and men still think it is okay to call us properties?! We are taking charge and working in just about any field and yet, we still manage to balance family life. In spite of all these, silly arguments about what women should and shouldn’t do still abound?! I’m most disappointed that we are held to impossibly archaic standards in today’s fast changing world! There are still things women can do on a general note that men CANNOT do and yet we still get to be discriminated against?! This is appalling! Well, like I told the ‘Facebooker’, I will say this to all chauvinistic, patriarchal and misogynistic men out there. ‘There are women who will be far more important in this world than you could ever be or hope to attain. You can either join the fast moving wagon of progressives or remain in your circle of ignorance’. Either way, you WILL NOT deter us.’ And to women, don’t let NO ONE tell you that you cannot aspire for more than the kitchen. Your multi-billion-celled brain was not created to just shuffle meal timetables for the month. Women are so much more than that!
