by Is’haq Kawu
Didn’t another Uruguayan remind us the other day, that love is the only permissible addiction? Try it for a change!
On the first anniversary of the abduction of the 219 Chibok Girls, this week, the whole world returned to a troubled conscience. Troubled, that 365 days after, those young girls still haven’t returned home to their parents and communities; they have been deprived of the opportunity to fulfill the dream which education helps to nurse, work at and eventually actualise!
But for the incredible courage of the #BRING BACK OUR GIRLS activists, who kept advocacy alive, despite the provocative indecencies of agents of the Nigerian government, maybe Nigerians all, would have also moved on. But thank God, on the first anniversary of the crime that Boko Haram perpetrated against the young Chibok Girls, we have been dragged back into our humanity to reflect upon what those girls have endured this past year.
There is a deeply personal side to the Chibok Girls’ saga for me. In the year since the girls have been gone, my wife has often cried about their plight. It comes from the fact that we are parents of four girls and a boy, and three of these girls are also in boarding school.
We have often wondered as parents, just how incredibly difficult the conditions of the parents of those girls must be. How have they coped? They are afterall, poor people from very deprived communities, but who nevertheless, had accepted the challenge and made sacrifices necessary for their children to be educated.
It is hope for the future of these young girls that Boko Haram has deliberately targeted for abortion, with their abduction. While the Chibok Girls’ saga has symbolized the evil of Boko Haram, Amnesty International has reminded this week, that over two thousand women, ladies and girls, have actually been abducted by the group in the past one year. Young boys are also frequently abducted and forcibly made to fight and those who know, say that it is these young abductees, that they often push forward in battles, thus ending up as canon fodders!
Turning point for Nigeria: I heard Obiageli Ezekwesili on the BBC describe the abduction of the Chibok Girls as the turning point in recent Nigerian history. And it certainly is! It was frightening that 56 young Nigerian children were earlier massacred in their school dormitories and there was a criminal indifference from government. President Goodluck Jonathan didn’t visit the scene of carnage, his vice who is the leading Northerner in government ignore FGC BuniYadi and the Minister of Education could not be bothered as well. They assumed that after a few days of lamentations, Nigerians would move on, as is our wont. And largely, we did; except for a group of parents around Nigeria who were moved sufficiently to raise their voices against the massacre of children in school hostels, especially in a Federal Government College, which are centres of national excellence. The fact that there was no sustained national movement thereafter, just deepened governmental irresponsibility, when the Chibok Girls were abducted. President Jonathan first refused to believe that the abduction happened; then he tried to politically exploit the tragic event. And amongst other factors, his handling of the Chibok Girls’ saga, contributed to his loss in the presidential election last month.
It is therefore surprising that President Jonathan has clung to his political narrative about the Chibok Girls. On the first anniversary, this week, he gave an interview to the BBC, where he re-iterated that Borno State is governed by the opposition party. He forgot that as commander-in-Chief, he had imposed an emergency regime in Borno and was in command of the troops on ground. It is to the incoming administration that Nigerians have pinned hope. The degree of seriousness to ensure the safe return of the girls home, so we can achieve a closure, will condition the trust that Nigerians will invest in the Buhari administration. One year after, the abduction of the Chibok Girls has left a deep sore on our collective conscience.
Guber elections: Wish list fulfilled
I have spent most of the weekend in hearty celebration, because of the fulfillment of my wish for the success of a selection of governorship candidates, in last week’s elections. My candidates were: Kashim Shettima in Borno, and he won in a landslide! His post-election speech is a masterpiece of humility. Nasir EL-Rufai got the massive endorsement of Kaduna state, because people know that he will provide leadership for genuine development for city and state. Similarly, I spoke with Aminu Bello Masari who broke the jinx in Katsina state, and showing that persistence pays. I believe he will work with purposefulness for Katsina. Aminu Tambuwal also won in Sokoto and will be expected to hit the ground running, working for Sokoto’s transformation. Dr. Ganduje received Kano’s massive endorsement, and they expect him to consolidate the development that Governor Kwankwaso commenced so commendably. Jibrilla Bindo was winner in Adamawa and his success thrilled me very much!
The final person on my list that I unfortunately omitted last week, is Tanko Almakura in Nasarawa state. I feel really glad that he was able to overcome the hurdles to be re-elected. As for Kwara state, AbdulFatai Ahmed, also handsomely profited from the Buhari hurricane and the absolutely incompetent and treachery-ridden challenge of the PDP, to return to power.
Buhari hurricane
The problem in Kwara, is that the state is a hegemonic satrapy of a single individual, a hegemon, who has ruled and continues to determine everything, since 2003. The slogan of CHANGE means NOTHING in Kwara. What we had and which will be consolidated is CONTINUITY of a systematic underdevelopment of our state. That is a pity but it is the reality that Kwarans will live with for the next four years: poverty for the mass of our people and the continuing enrichment of the hegemon, his family and cronies!
But we will keenly watch the governance process, in fidelity to Section 22 of the Nigeria Constitution: “The press, radio, television and other agencies of mass media shall at all times…uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people”
What a week: Eduardo Galeno, Gunter Grass and Percy Sledge
On Monday night, the BBC’s NEWSHOUR programme, reported the passing of the Uruguayan leftwing writer, Eduardo Galeano 74, and the German writer, poet and Nobel Laureate, Gunter Grass, 87. And just as I made up my mind to write a tribute to those outstanding writers, by Tuesday night, the same BBC programme was also reporting Percy Sledge’s death, at 73.
What a week to lose three outstanding representatives of human culture?! In 2010, Gunter Grass was one of the special guests at the World Editors’ Forum in Hamburg, Germany. He was already an old man even then, but was invited to address us, against the backdrop of the very disturbing events in the contemporary world.
Grass’ best known work is DIE BLECHTROMMEL (The Tin Drum), and on being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1999, the Nobel Committee said of the work: it “was as if German literature had been granted a new beginning after decades of linguistic and moral destruction”.
It was in 2006 that he published the first in a triology of autobiographic memoirs. For the first time, he revealed that he had served in the Waffen SS, one of the most vicious of the Nazi gangs. It shocked a world that was willing to accuse him of hypocrisy for concealing that aspect of his past for so long, while being recognized as a strong voice for ethics and morality in the public space.
What must be said
In 2012, he wrote a poem “What Must Be Said”, in which Grass expressed concern about the hypocritical German military support for a nuclear-armed Israel, saying the submarine it was given “could wipe out the Iranian people”. He then demanded that: “the governments of both Iran and Israel allow an international authority free and open inspection of the nuclear capability of both”.
In response, Israel declared him persona non grata! Gunter Grass died of a lung infection on Monday, but was without doubt, one of the greatest writers of the troubled 20th Century. Similarly, Eduardo Galeano died on Monday and is best remembered for one of the greatest leftwing books of the Twentieth Century, OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA, written in 1971.
Galeano had started his career as a journalist in the early 1960s. OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA was banned by rightwing military dictators in Uruguay, Chile and Argentina. The book radicalised generations of leftwing activists all through the late Twentieth Century.
It gained renewed popularity after a copy was given to President Barack Obama, by the late Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, during the 5th Summit of the Americas, held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Galeano described himself as: “ a writer obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia”.
Beautiful love songs
Galeano burnt his imprimatur on the world of his time and remained true to his anti-imperialist convictions till the end of his life.
On Tuesday night, the BBC also announced the passing of the African American singer, Percy Sledge, whose song “When a Man Loves a Woman”, hit the world in 1966. It was certainly one of the most beautiful love songs of all time!
I used to be a deejay on Radio Nigeria in the 1990s, and I remember just how popular Percy Sledge’s song was. It was a ballad that touched the human heart and for an incurable romantic like me, he spoke, or sang, to my feelings in the most inimitable manner.
Percy Sledge came from a working class background and had worked as an agricultural labourer, before becoming a hospital orderly at a hospital, when, according to the legend a patient heard him sing and arranged for him to meet a producer, who signed him on his first contract.
The rest, as they say, is history. Human kind has lost three outstanding cultural workers and each in his own way, enriched our humanity with his artistic output. Please take a moment, if you have the access, to read the works of Gunter Grass and Eduardo Gaelano or just indulge the romantic side to your life, by listening to Percy Sledge’s original rendering of “When a Man Loves a Woman”.
Didn’t another Uruguayan remind us the other day, that love is the only permissible addiction? Try it for a change!
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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija
