In this exclusive interview with Sharpedgenews.com‘s Alaba Abdulrazak, the Founder and Spiritual Head of Shafaudeen in Islam Worldwide, Professor Sabit Olagoke Ariyo x-rayed the root cause of Nigeria’s problem from the time of our
independence in 1960 and also till this present time. The eloquent public speaker and a renowned Islamic scholar who urged all Nigerians to go back to God equally warned President Goodluck Jonathan not to handle the Boko Haram crisis with levity.
EXCERPTS:
Views on Nigeria at 51.
Nigeria at 51 is in a sorry state. And it is a pity that the dream of our founding fathers has been shattered. The dream of our founding fathers was that the legacies of good administration and management left by the colonial masters would in turn be followed in the management of Nigeria as an enterprise.
If it was possible for the colonial masters to use their wisdom to unite us in the dream of amalgamation of 1914 despite our diverse views, cultural perceptions and tribes, why are we where we are today? They were able to achieve this as Nigeria because when you look at all these things, you will appreciate God, and that even the whites were doing the will of God. Quran Chapter 49:13 says that: We have created you as male and female; formed you into in-laws and families. All these differences are meant for the purpose of identification that all what human beings must do is to focus on God. That means that with the number of churches, mosques and some other field based organizations in the society our pre-occupation is supposed to be centered on unity; putting aside our differences and say bye –bye to satanic laws.
Unfortunately, those who succeeded our founding fathers did not see power as something that was very dear to our founding fathers because they fought for it before they were given. And such power was supposed to be highly valued. They now see it as something they can keep or manage under the auspices of our different backgrounds. That was what led to the civil war. The problems started immediately after 1960. It started through our businessmen (contractors) influencing leadership negatively and forcing them into the culture of corruption then at a minimum level of 10%. That was why (Kaduna) Nzeogwu, when he seized the reins of power through a coup, he said: “We need to get rid of the 10% tigers”. If 10% was anathema then, what about now?
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo while responding to a question on contract inflation in Nigeria said he does not think the crop of leaders we have in the country today can handle it. He did not absolve himself of wrongdoing in the whole saga. In 1995 or 1997, a military officer from the United States said Nigerian leaders are bundles of thieves who are well soaked in corruption; they began to call (the US government official) names. Today, corruption is having a cancerous root in the country to the extent that people believe it is inalienable to Nigeria. That is, without going through corrupt practices you cannot make it. You can see that corruption coupled with anti-scriptural policies have become the order of the day. That is why even before 100 days in office, they are clamoring for tenure elongation. You can now see the crop of leaders we now have compare to the Zik of this world, Balewa of this world and Awolowo of this world. By the time you compare them, you will discover that they are nothing to write home about and are full of immaturity syndrome.
Corruption under President Goodluck Jonathan
With these crop of leaders, corruption is not going to reduce at all. The crop of leaders we have now are products of yesterday people that bastardized Nigeria. If you look at it very well, you will discover that they are recycling themselves. And if that is not possible, they resort to using their children. So in Nigeria, there is no merit. In the last election, there was no merit because in some market places and even in some palaces it was one finger- print galore. You could see the nakedness of Nigeria in that aspect. It is only in Nigeria that you see leaders making promises and not fulfilling them. It is only on air that you hear we want to do this and that. Nigeria has become a cursed nation. A cursed nation in the sense that number one: senseless killings going on in the country and the continued neglect of the poor masses by the government are factors that has made Nigeria a cursed nation. Everyday, ritual killing continues even look at time of the election. Look at the numbers of people that were killed because one person wants to be a president; because one person wants to be a governor. Are you now telling me that the blood of these innocent people killed unjustly would not rain curses on the land? Are you telling me that God will not avenge the injustice? We have to go back to fundamentals – that is in the scriptures.
Insecurity in the Land
Let me tell you the truth. We have neglected God as a nation. We are only praising God with words of our mouths and underneath it is another thing. The only solution to the problem of insecurity in the land is for us to go back to the fundamentals of scriptures. We need to go back to God because we have over the years neglected him in our ways. We even tend to deceive ourselves thinking that we are deceiving him. Except we go to God, we will continue to have problem of insecurity in the land.
On Boko Haram
We have to be very careful about this Boko Haram issue. Initially, it was a small crisis that was not managed properly by the government. It was later hijacked by the politicians because of the ignorance of these people. They claimed to be against western education in the first place but now it has totally changed from that. They claimed that those acquiring western education were the only ones enjoying the country’s resources but some of us told them that it is education generally that has been bastardized. And that the issue of going against western education will not solve their problems but rather they should embrace western education because no education will teach you to be corrupt. For example, Egypt embraces Islamic education yet its leader, Hosni Mubarak was accused of corruption and is currently undergoing trial. The problem is human and not education. The fact is that when you politicize an issue it may be what would destroy you at the end of the day. Look at the Niger-Delta militants who claimed to be fighting for their rights. They succeeded in having their way. It was not Obasanjo or Jonathan that made the way for them, but a Hausa man in person of late President Musa Yar’Adua who introduced the amnesty program.
Boko Haram may equally be looking for this kind of opportunity. But the truth is that if they succeed in this menace; the OPC will become much more monstrous than never. And they would say they are fighting for Oduduwa right. The Igbo already has a time bomb at hand because of this Biafra Republic. The MASSOB are still very passionate in achieving this Republic of Biafra. Once you cannot easily tame these people and you allow the hydra-headed monster to grow, the Igbos are already looking for opportunity. With all these problems if not properly handled, the prediction that 2015 may be the end of Nigeria may actually come true. The government must urgently address the Boko Haram crisis before it snowballs into epidemic.
Leadership Weakness on the Part of Jonathan
(President Jonathan shows) leadership weakness in the sense that Jonathan himself knew that the seat would be so hot and that there would be some people that would challenge his leadership acumen (by) fomenting trouble. Like any other leader, you must expect that. A leader who knows his onions should have been prepared for such thing. But Jonathan is weak. He is weak as a person because of lack of experience. He is not matured enough for the post. What is his political history? It is because he belongs to the group that has so much money, which any party will recognize and give position. He is a party aided person to the position of power. He does not have artilleries of experience to handle Nigeria.
On Godfatherism
(Jonathan) himself knows that. Unfortunately for Nigeria, he is having two godfathers in person of Obasanjo and Edwin Clark. At a time when he was moving too closed to Edwin Clark, Obasanjo was cooking up something against him and same applies to Clark. Infact, his godfatherism extended to U.S. And it shows how your election was funded because the strategy of the election, the campaign, the management of the electoral exercise were commissioned into four bodies. That is the NBA, that is number one, then the FOMWAN, to have the women; then Justice and Peace of the Catholic and Transition Monitoring Group of Erubanmi. And to tell you the truth, the Transition Monitoring Group had an antecedent of activism.
The U.S government recognizes Moshood Erubanmi and even the last time Hillary Clinton came to Nigeria when concluding her speech said I want to thank Moshood Erubanmi. So you can see these are the people they used. And anyone of them, if you ask them how the election went, they would tell you that it was the fairest and most excellent because they knew what they gained from it. Not that they did not know the reality on ground. They knew they were beneficiaries of the largess that came with the election.