Zamfara Governor To Emir Of Kano: You Are A Hypocrite
The governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari has accused the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II of hypocrisy, even as he asked him to practice what he preaches.
The governor, who was reacting to the Emir’s criticism of the way he is handling the outbreak of meningitis that had killed more than 200 people in his state said: “for those who consider the emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II to be anything but a first class intellectual, a consummate banker and a bona fide member of Nigeria’s royalty, the last couple of weeks were a dizzying spectacle of mixed messages on integrity, royalty and wisdom.”
In a statement by Ibrahim Dosara, his special adviser on public enlightenment and communications, governor Yari noted that within two weeks, the Emir had lambasted the nation’s economic framework, the northern elite, sub-national leadership and the traditional institution of marriage.
“With due respect to our highly revered traditional institutions and royal father, as a blue-blooded family member himself, Hon Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar holds the emir in very high esteem. He believes that the emir as a brother and co-occupant of elite positions in Nigeria, could advise governors and those in positions of authority in several chains of communication that are richly available to him. But he preferred the public platform, for reasons best known to him.
“Governor Yari firmly believes that a country that goes to its pastors and Imams who recommend prayer and fasting as the solution to every social misfortune, from matrimonial disagreements, to social and economic complications needs to be wary of the wrath of God in the event of an epidemic of unquantifiable proportion such as Type C meningitis. And as a country that succumbs to the supremacy of Allah, we must continue to link Him with all things, fair or foul.
“Those who want to equate science with God, like HRH Muhammadu Sanusi II, can denounce Yari’s statement from the rooftops but that will not change Governor Yari’s beliefs in the omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence of Allah.
“By a certain bizarre coincidence too, like a prophesy foretold, Sheikh Mahmood Jaafar had before he was assassinated, named Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as one of those whose hypocrisy would bring an epidemic of monumental proportions to this country. The tapes are very much in circulation long after Sheikh Jaafar’s death.
“He had argued in that sermon that “Sanusi Lamido is one of the enemies of Islam who would assume all traits of a good Muslim but deep inside them is a hatred of Islam, and the people far beyond human imagination.” Could this be a prophecy foretold?
“However, the emir should be aware that Allah who gives power to whoever He wills at His own time, also takes it away at the most inauspicious time. As elected officials, we are obliged to serve people just as we serve God. Within this precinct Governor Yari has done his best. As representatives of the best of our traditions, our Emirs, chiefs, kings and queens are also obliged to lead by example, show empathy, adjudicate with compassion, display wisdom and embrace the fear of God, in all they do. In this HRH Muhammadu Sanusi II is struggling.
“Recently, our erudite emir has been mired in several controversies, which rather than enhance his profile and the integrity of royalty, have put him very much on the spot. And the emir has put up a spirited defense of all the allegations against him. But he was not transparent enough, as he always accused officials, especially governors, to tell the public what he found in the Kano Emirate palace coffers when he ascended the exalted throne. This is the least of his people’s expectations of him. It was the first that our finest royalty would offer.
“Sacrifice is another attribute known to our royal fathers. But when an emir pledges to commit his hard earned resources for the face-lifting of the palace where he alone would reside and eventually transfers the burden to his impoverished subjects, there is a breach, or a problem.
“Late Sultan Ibrahim Dasuki, of blessed memory, used his money to rebuild the Sultan’s Palace in Sokoto to his taste, but until his demise, he never tendered the bill to his subjects for reimbursement.
“Over time, we know our traditional fathers for their compassion. When their friends from far and near offer to assist them, they would rather the assistance was given to alleviate the sufferings of their people in cash or kind. But for a traditional ruler who identifies the problems of his people and utters these words: “We are in denial. The north-west and the north-east, demographically, constitute the bulk of Nigeria’s population, but look at human development indices, look at the number of children out of school, look at adult literacy, look at maternal mortality, look at infant mortality, look at girl-child completion rate, look at income per capita… The north-east and the north-west Nigeria are among the poorest parts of the world,” and yet when his friends offered help, he asks for a Rolls Royce.
“There is more than a fundamental problem. There is a big disconnect. Like Governor Yari has always said, his respect for our creator will never waver. He will also rue joining issues with royalty, in Nigeria or anywhere in the world. He maintains that his reverence of the institution that HRH Muhammadu Sanusi II represents is also unshaken. Hon Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar is only asking HRH to either practice what he preaches or forever keep his peace, because in a situation where epidemics are taking our children, maternal mortality, uneducated youth, social vices and incompetent leaders are the national scourge, to borrow the words of the emir, and all he wants to do is ride a Rolls Royce in the face of palpable poverty, he shouldn’t engage in throwing accusations at others.
“Kano kingdom is an important kingdom amongst the kingdoms in Africa. It is also an important and strategic institution in the history of Nigeria. The occupants of the seat before HRH Muhammadu Sanusi II played a significant and dignified role in making Nigeria what it is today. They respected themselves. HRH should emulate his predecessors and not play to the gallery in a manner that ridicules his own heritage.”
Emir Sanusi had adjudged the government of Zamfara state under governor Yari as part of what he called “a complete failure of social policy,” adding: “we are fighting culture and we are fighting civilization,” he said. “For us to address social policy, we have to reclaim our religion.”
“Don’t give these kind of explanations. That is not an Islamically correct statement to make.
“If you don’t have vaccines, you don’t have vaccines; Go and get vaccines,” the emir said. [myad]
The Roots Of Indian Racism, By Tabish Khair
Politicians who are unwilling to concede that Indians can be racist usually also refuse to accept that there is caste prejudice in India
There are Indian politicians who believe that there is no racism in India. Nothing that happens — most recently, the attacks on Nigerian students in what is basically a suburb of Delhi — can convince them otherwise. Of course, many of us who have African, black British, or African-American friends and acquaintances cannot understand this blindness on the part of such politicians.
Speaking personally, I know that I absolutely dread it when my black European friends or acquaintances announce that they plan to travel in India, particularly north and central India. I cringe at the thought of the experiences they might return with and what impression of my country, which also has so many things and people to admire, will remain with them. Because I know from having travelled with black Europeans and spoken to Africans in India, and from overhearing some of my fellow Indians, that we Indians can have more prejudices about Africans than most white Europeans today.
But there is another group of friends and acquaintances from Europe whose excursions to India, particularly north and central India, I dread almost as much. These are white, especially light-haired or blonde, women. Once again, I have travelled with them in India, and have experienced how some Indians behave and what they say (snide or public comments), which luckily my female companions, not knowing Hindi, stayed blissfully ignorant of.
Remnants of the past
Some of this has to do with colonial discourses which have seeped into India: for instance, the 19th century racist European association of Africa with cannibalism. After all, the mobs that attacked Nigerian students in Noida recently were ‘convinced’ that the Africans had ‘cannibalised’ an Indian student, who reportedly died of drug overdose.
Similarly, the groping and verbal sexism that many blonde women tourists encounter is partly the result of bad Hollywood films and similar trash, through which ordinary urban Indians encounter the ‘West’. Knowing porn and not Plato, triteness and not Twain, their reactions to Western women are essentially sexist and racist. This is exacerbated by the tendency in many conservative circles, so surprising given our proclaimed spirituality, to consider the material covering a woman’s body to be an indication of her soul and morality!
However, it does not do to put all the blame on our colonial inheritance or its neocolonial cultural ramifications. The main reason why such prejudices predominate in Indian caste circles has to do with internal reasons. As a nation, we are yet to face up to the racism and sexism that runs through many caste narratives. Before the British brought us stories of ‘African’ cannibalism, we had our own stories of cannibalism — associated, from classical texts down to some current Chitra comics, with dark-skinned, non-‘Aryan’-looking creatures. Similarly, the way we have often treated aboriginal women in India — partly because their dress codes and social mores differ from mainstream Hindustani (Hindu, as well as Muslim) ones — is simply shocking.
With some lower middle and middle castes riding the government’s ‘backward castes’ bandwagon for economic and other reasons, we tend to forget that the worst of internal prejudice in India has been traditionally aimed at ‘dark’ Dalits and dark-skinned aborigines (‘tribals’, not as much at castes like the largely ‘fair-skinned’ Yadavs or Ansaris). This has not changed substantially even today.
Different shades of racism
However, racism, unlike what some politicians believe, is not always a matter of colour; it is any kind of discrimination based on the false association of superficial physical differences — skin colour, shape of lips, hair, etc — with moral and intellectual qualities. However, it is also true that skin colour became its dominant index from the 18th century onwards, mostly because many Europeans wished to ‘justify’ the brutal enslavement of Africans.
Despite this link between skin colour and racism, one can argue that other kinds of racism have also existed. A major Irish novelist recently referred to the Irish as “the niggers of Britain”. What he meant was that in the 17th century, tens of thousands of Irish prisoners were sold to English settlers in the new world as slaves. As late as the early 20th century, with skin colour taking over, some English scholars were arguing that the Irish were related to “negroes” and not to the English — despite both the English and the Irish seeming indubitably ‘white’ to us.
There is an argument that the English worked out their initial theories of racism on the Irish before, in tandem with other Europeans, applying them on dark-skinned people, like many Africans. If so, one can argue that we Indians have worked out — and continue to work out — our racism and racism-tinged sexism on our aborigines and Dalits. It is not surprising that politicians who are unwilling to concede that Indians can be racist usually also refuse to accept that there is caste prejudice in India. [myad]