Sahara Reporters Latest News Today Sunday 17th May 2020
Sahara Reporters Latest News Today and headlines on some of the happenings and news trend in the Country, today 17/05/20
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JUST IN: Oyo Confirms 31 New Cases Of COVID-19
Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has announced 31 new cases of COVID-19 in the state.
Makinde made this known via his official Twitter account on Saturday night.
The governor said 30 of the cases were members of staff of the same organisation based in Ibadan South-West Local Government Area.
He said, “The COVID-19 confirmation tests for 31 suspected cases came back positive. Thirty of these cases are members of staff of the same organisation based in Ibadan South-West Local Government Area. The organisation has been shut down and will be decontaminated.
“We urge members of the public to remain calm as the situation is under control. Intensified contact tracing has already commenced. We will give an update on any additional measures that may need to be taken.
“The remaining one case is from Egbeda Local Government Area. So, the total number of confirmed cases in Oyo State as at 8pm today is 107.”
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Twenty Eight More COVID-19 Patients Discharged In Bauchi
Some 28 patients have recovered from Coronavirus infection in Bauchi State discharged from isolation facilities.
Giving the update on Saturday, the Situation Room Update of the COVID-19 Emergency Operation Centre of the state’s Ministry of Health said the patients tested negative to COVID-19 twice.
This brings the total number of patients discharged in the state to 69.
The update showed that the total number of confirmed cases had increased to 212 while the active cases in the state dropped down to 140.
The number of death from the virus remains three.
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Nigerian Students Condemn Osun Tertiary Institution For Commencing Online Study, Closure Of Fee Payment Portal
The National Association of Nigerian Students has berated some tertiary institutions in Osun State for commencing online studies for some select students.
The students also condemned some institutions for closing their online portal for payment of school fees, an act that could lead to extension of academic years of some students.
In a statement jointly signed by Comrade Agbogunleri Seun Michael (Gandhi), Chairman, NANS JCC Osun Axis; Comrade Ogunsakin Oluwafemi Sunday, Secretary General, NANS JCC Osun Axis; Comrade Raji Keji (Paracetamol), Public Relations Officer, NANS JCC Osun Axis; the students described the acts by the tertiary institutions as “inhumane and inconsiderate”.
The association stated that despite the global pandemic ravaging humanity at this moment, the management of Osun State University closed the institution’s portal for payment of fees not minding that many students could not afford to pay now.
“The institution, in reckless display of insensitivity to the plight of students, parents and guardians and in furtherance of its callous and despotic policies, also kick-started e-learning for the negligible few ones who are lucky to have paid and affirming they will go ahead with online e-examination.
“Also in our findings, we are made to understand that Osun State University is not alone in this display of callousness, OSCOTECH, Esa Oke has also begun e-learning for some of her students not minding those who can’t afford to purchase data or having the e-learning facilities (computer and smartphone).
“The cut-throat charges at UNIOSUN has already made the institution unaffordable for average parents in the state, the latest e-learning antic is therefore a complete attack on the people and a bolder step towards the transformation of the university to a stark anti-poor, pro rich institution.
“We shall fight against this and other obnoxious policies of the university,” the association said.
The students’ body also urged the Osun State Government to persuade the institutions to reverse their decisions and be considerate in their academic policies.
It said, “They are admonished to be considerate and reverse their decisions, first, by putting on hold any form of online study or e-learning for Nigeria students as we have made to understand that not all students are having full access to the facilities (computers and smartphone) and not all those having the facilities can afford datafication of the gadgets presently as a result of the present economic reality.
“All tertiary institutions should open and activate their school fees portal till when the schools reopen as most parents are trying to provide for survival with their families presently and can’t afford payments of school fees.”
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Twenty Four Health Workers Test Positive For COVID-19 In Bauchi
Twenty-four health workers have tested positive for Coronavirus in Bauchi State.
Dr Rilwanu Mohammed, Executive Chairman, Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, made this known on Saturday.
Mohammed however, said no death had been recorded among the affected medical workers.
He revealed that 17 of them were from Azare, the headquarters of Katagum Local Government Area of the state, while seven were from Bauchi Local Government Area.
He added that all necessary Personal Protective Equipment had been provided for the frontline healthcare workers in the state.
He said, “Here in Bauchi, we are really very concerned about this infection that is affecting our healthcare workers so that they will not be discouraged or demoralised.”
He however, advised the health workers to be very careful and ensure that they properly used their PPE at all times.
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The Conversations On Agboola Gambari By Festus Adedayo
Festus Adedayo
LIf credentials and academic certificates/laurels approximated excellence, by now, applauses to President Muhammadu Buhari for his choice of Ibrahim Agboola Gambari as successor to the late Abba Kyari as his Chief of Staff should be reaching their crescendo. Rather, the high-caliber diplomat and academic, who studied in respected universities of the world, has literally been suffocating under torrents of heavy lacerations he receives from invectives heaped on him since the appointment. Kudos must be given to Buhari however for, for the first time since he got the reins of governance five years ago, deploying the stratagems of a military officer. He sent analysts on a wild goose chase speculating as to where the successor to Kyari would come from. By the time Gambari sneaked into public consciousness, the news befuddled all, sending governmental star-gazers into a predictable frenzy.
Very few people in public space possess Gambari’s credentials. Kwara State’s Ilorin being where his umbilical-cord was buried, he holds a first degree from the London School of Economics, with specialization in International Relations and thereafter obtained a Masters and Doctoral degrees in Political Science/International Relations from Columbia University, New York. He began his international diplomacy, government and academic careers thereafter. He was Chairman of the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid (1990) and got appointed as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations, while his working orbit spanned the United Nations where he held forte as first Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser to the Secretary-General in Africa, Resident Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Head of the United Nations Mission to Angola and head of the UN Department of Political Affairs between 2005 and 2007. He had earlier served as Minister for External Affairs between1984 and1985.
Festus Adedayo
The above credentials should ordinarily gladden the hearts of Nigerians at a time like this when Buhari had consistently got the back of the tongues of the people for populating his government with barely capable personalities. Excited about the appointment, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, who must have supposed that with Gambari, Nigeria was tottering out of its oft flounders, congratulated Nigeria and Gambari for this appointment. Laing had written on her Twitter page: “Delighted to hear that @MBuhari has appointed the hugely experienced diplomat Professor(italics mine), Ibrahim Gambari as his new CoS.”
If reactions by the ordinary man on the street to this appointment was anything to go by, a man who was apprised of the pedigree of Gambari, the unmistakable impression you would escape with was that Buhari had just appointed into office one of the most notorious Nigerian villains. Why is this so? Before going into the intricacies of this submission, it seems to me that it is either the villainy of the government Gambari had just been appointed into had reached such a notorious cusp that he could not but appropriate of it or that Gambari possessed notoriety ab-initio and which his appointment had forced Nigerians to bring out of the scabbard.
The appointment had barely been minted out of the Aso Villa when the irrepressible Omoyele Sowore tore it into pieces. For South West Nigeria which the primus inter pares subject that could lure it into delirium was to remind it of the June 12 miss of “El-Dorado” in MKO Abiola, Sowore opened a festering sore that had refused to heal 27 years after. The hugely experienced diplomat Professor, so said Sowore, was one of the plotters of that criminal coup against democracy and the people. Hear him: Gambari, “who some people claim is an intelligent man, used his ‘intelligence’ to defend the draconian policies of the Abacha regime while he was Nigeria’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations. He was one of Abacha’s equivalents of the “Goebel,” representing the infamous dictator with vigor and a propensity that could only be found in fascist Italy of old. He was once quoted as saying, ‘Nigerians don’t need democracy because democracy is not food. It is not their priority now.’ As more pressure mounted on the Abacha regime from all corners of the world, Professor Gambari became more notorious and ruthless in defending and deflecting attacks against the Abacha dictatorship.”
Like one whose wound had just been stomped upon, Sowore got, especially Southern Nigeria, into a frenzy. Those who didn’t know who the commissars of that calamitous political moment in Nigeria were, were reminded of Gambari’s ignoble role. Then came Ambassador Dapo Fafowora. Excerpting from his book, Lest I forget: Memoirs of Nigerian Career Diplomat, Fafowora added to the credential of an enabler of despotism which Sowore tagged Gambari with. He literally labeled him a Judas who specialized in treachery and hewing down trees he climbed to the top. He concluded by saying that, “the result of (these) capricious and vengeful retirements that took place under the watch of Gambari is that the fine Foreign Service we had, of which we were all proud, was wantonly destroyed. Gambari played a leading role in this ugly episode. I don’t expect anything better from him as CoS.”
So many others have related unpleasant experiences under Gambari’s watch. Before now, he was said to have been a prominent member of the Buhari cabal who determined the temperature of governance in the last five years. Aware of the dissembling voices of a mob targeting to cut down an offending tree, I really do not want to make a foray into Gambari’s governmental pedigree which has been painted as a let-down. It is however bemusing that the same Gambari who is perceived as undesirable, was same man after the heart of the international community. To imagine that an international community which denounces tyranny of the Abacha hue, is same community that has consistently given Gambari spots to flower from one season to another, taking him on diplomatic shuttles around the world on international appointments, looks like an equivocation.
While speaking with the press in his maiden interview at the Villa, Gambari was quoted to have said that his loyalty was to Buhari and not to the public. Which is the creed of that office. If Buhari succeeds in bonding with the people, Gambari may end up being a doyen of the people. Depending on how he is able to gauge the mood of his principal and swim along its currents, Gambari may be a success in office. However, no one needs to use a spiritual telescope to submit that he would be a huge failure in office. This is because, the pedigree of an infernal but abiding allegiance to a caucus creed and the Fulani ethnic question that are said to be the prevailing bother of his governmental sojourn will surely haunt him. As he was said to have done while Abacha held sway, Gambari will again articulate the cronyism of the Buhari government, in the bid to “be loyal to my principal.” He will see no wrong in its timid or nil attempt to fight the scourge of poverty that grips the throat of the country and will undoubtedly give official imprimatur to government’s laid-back disposition to changing the status-quo.
By 2023, God-willing, Agboola Gambari will go home a successful chief of the staff of Buhari, preparatory to going on another junket of assignments for the international community. He would however have elasticized his credentials as the hugely experienced diplomat Professor who gives soft landing to governments seen as haters of the people.
Rebellion of the almajiri
One good thing about the raging pestilence called COVID-19 is the way it has been breaking down the boundaries of orthodoxy. Long-held beliefs, assumptions and seemingly impregnable opinions are falling like badly-stacked cards. While religious orthodoxies, which some charlatans masquerading as pastors and Imams fed fat on for centuries are giving way, the world will never be the same again after the coronavirus’ wings are eventually clipped.
One of the fatalities of COVID-19 is undoubtedly the almajiri institution, a system that is as old as Northern Nigeria. For decades, southerners who couldn’t fathom why a person would give birth to a child and throw him into the dangerous world, wandering aimlessly and without parental care, criticized this system as evil and satanic. This got the ire of the North which took the criticism as an extension of the so-called southern disaffection for anything that has North prefixed to it.
The almajiri system festered in its evil, gradually morphing into a ready tool for insurgents. From the rank of mature graduates of the almajiri system, who were weaned on the philosophy of the hostility of the world against them, insurgents got willing converts. Even at that, the deplorable class system of the North which encourages stratification, with the upper class feeding on the ignorance of the lower stratum and their ceaseless salute of rankadede for them, was not discouraged by the Northern elite. They needed the talakawa, prominent cadre of which is the almajiri, to continue to flourish.
Now, the lives of the Northern elite are threatened. They have seen that the almajiri are easy conduits of the transmission of the coronavirus to the comforts of their own homes and palaces. In the herd movements of the almajiri lie an easy multiplication of the virus. Faced with this threat, the elite, in their survival instinct, now descended on the system, seeking to wipe it off. As Chinua Achebe wrote in his Things fall apart, agadi nwanyin, the old woman gets uneasy when dried bones are mentioned in a proverb. The presence of the almajirisignifies death for the elite and their bid to continue to live forever. Pronto, they got leading elements of their class – the governors – to decree death on the system. States which had hitherto used the almajiri – mostly under-aged – to populate the ballot box and to inflate census figure, in order to survive, outlawed the system and there is today a frantic scamper to rout it.
What they don’t know is that soon, there will be a renewed rebellion of the almajiri. Having seen how disposable they are to politicians and the Northern establishment that had pampered them with left-over foods while the children of the patrons of the systems schooled in Harvard, almajiri are likely to rebel against the system. Unfortunately, when the almajiri does his, as Yoruba musician, Ayinla Omowura, once sang, even those who did not negotiate to buy this lethal commodity would forcefully pay the price. That will be the lot of those who warned the Northern elite of the infernal nature of this system and Nigeria as a whole which will ultimately be the recipient of the revolt of the almajiri.
Dele Momodu, Kehinde Ayoola: Day of joy and sadness
Nothing depicts Jamaican reggae music superstar, Jimmy Cliff’s evergreen track, House of Exile more than two events that happened in the past week. Cliff had begun the track by stating that there is a day of feasting, day of gladness and day of sadness. One could eat in the day of feasting but will naturally be downcast on the day of sadness, said Cliff who said that these were features of a house of exile.
This song depicts the binary nature of creation: two lips, two eyes, two legs, two kidneys and many others. So also is joy and sadness. That binary nature of life was what gripped friends, acquaintances and families of two Nigerians – the large-hearted and large-statured journalism icon, Dele Momodu and the late Kehinde Ayoola, ex-Speaker, Oyo State House of Assembly, who was, prior to his untimely demise, the Commissioner for Environment in the state.
Let me begin from the latter. On Thursday last week, fear of the perishable nature of man and the fitting description of existence by the holy writ as vapour which burns for a short while and disappears without trace, gripped friends, family and acquaintances of Ayoola. It was at the news of his death. The 55-year old Ayoola was my friend and was generally liked by all and sundry. If elegies for the dead could raise them, Ayoola would be home now devouring a plate of amala. His memories were garlanded by those who saw him as a good example of how a public official should be.
Ayoola and I started our friendship even while we belonged to different persuasions. He was of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and I, publicist of an All Progressives Congress (APC) governor. We both received and honoured an invitation to appear on an Ibadan television to defend our turfs. We literally spat in each other’s eyes, banging the table and aping the mythical Sango’s fire of fury. After the “war,” we exchanged smiles and cell phone numbers. Not long after this, a friend on Facebook alleged that I wanted to kill him and Ayoola was one who came to my rescue. “If it is defending where he belongs with words, Adedayo is a killer but if it comes to taking the life of a person, it is a no, no!” I paraphrase Ayoola’s intervention. Thereafter, we became friends, aligned on same persuasion in the build-up to the last gubernatorial election in the state. So you can imagine how downcast I was when his passage was made public.
On the flip side of that monumental sadness stood Momodu, known as Bob Dee, a journalism exemplar whose strides I began to mop up back in the days at the university. Providence was to make some of his besotting friends like Oba Adedokun Abolarin and Prof Wale Adebanwi my friends too. As he celebrated his 60th last week, Bob Dee must be celebrating a media remarkability that has become synonymous with him. You may disagree with his views but you cannot put down his immense contributions to the Nigerian journalism creed in a very significant way. These are contributions etched on the rock which make him a name that can never be forgotten in the annals of our history. Momodu was one of those who took a mix of hard and soft issues journalism to the zenith in the 1990s via Weekend Concord and Classique and who held forte in the two dispositions.
You can thus understand my binary feelings at the two occurrences. Ayoola was a great man, in the definition of greats. Highly cerebral, humble and one sired in the true tenets of African virtues and values, he will be sorely missed, not as an engaging cliché that dots dirges but in deed. While I bid my friend, Ayoola goodnight till the resurrection morning, I salute Bob Dee on his 60thbirthday.
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Festus Adedayo
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COVID-19: Lagos Discharges 67 Persons As Another Pregnant Patient Delivers Baby In Isolation Centre
Sixty-seven more persons, who had been battling with Coronavirus in Lagos State have been discharged.
This is just as the state government announced the delivery of a baby boy by a pregnant patient in its isolation centre.
The baby was delivered through caesarean section at the Gbagada Isolation Centre on Saturday.
Announcing the delivery of the child, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu said the feat was another validation of government’s position that it would stamp out Coronavirus from the state.
He said, “I bring you great news from our isolation facilities. Today, a pregnant COVID-19 patient was delivered of a baby boy through caeserian section at the Gbagada Isolation Centre. Both mother and baby are doing well.
“Today’s achievement is a pointer that our strategies in Lagos State are working and yielding the desired results. It is also a sign of victory and motivation for us as we push ahead in the battle against the Coronavirus pandemic.
“Also, 67 fully recovered COVID-19 patients; 22 females and 45 males including three foreign nationals — two Indians and a Chinese, were discharged to join the society.
“The patients; 24 from the Mainland Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba, 22 from Onikan, 11 from Agidingbi, two from Lekki and eight from Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) Isolation Centres, were discharged having tested negative to COVID-19 in two consecutive readings.”
The governor said with the latest development, the number of patients successfully managed and discharged from isolation facilities in Lagos stands at 608.
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Fear God, Coronavirus Is Not A Joke, Says Emir Of Daura After Recovery From Virus
Emir of Daura, Alhaji Umar Farouk Umar
The Emir of Daura, Umar Faruq Umar, on Saturday affirmed that COVID-19 was real.
Umar, who was speaking on his recovery from the disease, on Saturday, enjoined Nigerians to fear God and support current efforts by federal and state governments to tackle the pandemic.
SaharaReporters had exclusively reported how the emir was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit of the Federal Medical Centre in Kastina State on May 5.
Emir of Daura, Alhaji Umar Farouk Umar
“All praises be to Almighty Allah for taking us through this time, the most dangerous period in the entire world.
“I want to draw the attention of the people world over that the current pandemic is not a joke, hence people should fear God and return to God.
“If the world is not settled, people should not expect anything good even if you are physically healthy,” the emir said.
A palace source had told SaharaReporters that Umar contracted the virus from Kastina State index case, Dr Aminu Yakubu, a Daura-based private medical practitioner, who later died of the virus.
It was gathered that the late Yakubu was the personal physician of Emir Umar and had met with him and his first wife, Hajiya Binta Umar, shortly before he died.
The wife also died two weeks after.
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Bandits Take Over Kastina Communities, Displace Over 200 Persons
A satellite view of Batsari Local Government Area of Kastina State
Over 200 residents of various communities in Batsari Local Government Area of Kastina State have been forced to abandon their homes as a result of incessant attacks by bandits.
The attacks have claimed many lives and also led to the abduction of many women and children, who have since been declared missing after various invasions.
Some residents claimed that the bandits had taken over their communities and converted it to their operational base.
A satellite view of Batsari Local Government Area of Kastina State
Google Map/SaharaReporters Media
“It is trouble that forced us to leave our homes.
“Terrorists have deprived of us peaceful life. We are attacked day and night; constantly. That is our life now.
“We just got into vehicles without transport fare, young and old women, we are almost 200. Many of us are sick. We beg the government to protect us,” a resident, who spoke in Hausa dialect said in a video seen by SaharaReporters.
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E2%80%99s-culture-waste-osmund-agbo Gov. Wike And Nigeria’s Culture Of Waste By Osmund Agbo
Osmund Agbo
As a PDP Governor in Rotimi Amechi’s River state, I had since concluded that Nyesom Wike’s heart was carved out of raw steel.
When he squared off with the no holds barred APC thugs during his 2018 re-election campaign, many predicted his fate would not be different from that of former Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State. In the end, he proved himself to be the biblical David whose one sling-shot was all it took to demolish the mighty Goliath. He came out a battle-hardened and typhoon-blasted warrior. Since then, this Rumuepirikom born lawyer had fought more battles than the most decorated general in the Nigeria Army.The average Nigerian politician inspires the image of a dare-devil warrior in a primitive cannibal tribe. He hacks the enemy to death, harvests the organs which he morsels down fast with blood dripping down from both sides of his mouth. He then moves on quickly to throws the carcass to the dogs to put paid any possibility of a come-back, all in a hedonistic final act of savagery.
Osmund Agbo
Part of the reason for Wike’s victories had to do with the tremendous goodwill he enjoyed from both far and near. He became the poster child of the resistance movement against an overbearing APC government that promised brute force and was hell bent on having Dr. Dakuku Peterside installed at all cost. How can you blame a man whose enemy defies every single rule of decent engagement?
But that was back then. Our once likeable Governor has now caught the power bug, pushing his luck as far as it could go and starting to behave like the very people he spent his life fighting. He is beginning to wield unbriddled power, exhibiting a cowardly act of mindless thuggery and in fact becoming totally unhinged. The other time he detained the pilot and co-pilot working for Caverton, a servicing company that provide logistic support services to NNPC, Shell and others. He stated that they landed in River State without clearance even though the flight was already approved by the Minister of Aviation.Yesterday, he took the barbarism a notch higher. He personally oversaw the demolition of two hotels, over an alleged breach of lockdown rules intended to contain the spread of Covid-19. The managers of both businesses were also reportedly arrrested. Now, as callous as those actions are, I wound concede that one is not privy to the facts on the culpability of those involved. But that’s besides my issue with the whole situation. It’s about a people, our people and the culture of waste and abuse.As my friend once argued, it was the man that committed the crime, why should our society loose something of such a great economic value in the process. Who stands to gain from such a monumental waste of resources?
If the Governor’s argument is that the public stands to suffer from the intrasigence of these men, then it makes sense that the remedial action should benefit the public. Instead, a state where a great number of young men are condemned to a life of militancy because of harsh economic realities would now have to grapple with the bill incurred in bringing down fully built structures.But this is not just about Gov. Wike and his theatrics in River states. Numerous instances of such executive overreach abound. There were similar reports involving his counterparts in both Kaduna and Edo states where solid edifices were knocked down in the name of retribution. Such a pervasive culture of waste in a country where more than half the population can’t afford three square meals a day is unconscionable.At the height of Covid-19 lock down, it was so commonplace to see policemen and soldiers raid supermarkets and destroy everything within sight including bottles of drink and fresh groceries. Why should such be the case? How about issue the defaulter a ticket and ask to pay a hefty fine that will enrich the public purse?Our perverted sense of justice in Nigeria need not be as horrible as the way we administer it. Our mumu don do!Osmund Agbo MD writes from Houston, Texas USA
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Mubarak Bala: Why They Hate Him By Leo Igwe
Leo Igwe
For allegedly making posts and comments on his Facebook page which some Muslims interpreted as insults on the prophet of Islam, police in Nigeria arrested Mubarak Bala. They have detained and held him incommunicado for almost three weeks. The Islamic establishment has refused to speak out against this illegality and infringement on his fundamental human rights. In fact, some Muslims have threatened to kill Mr. Bala if he was not adequately punished by the ‘state’.
It is important to ask, why do they hate Mubarak Bala? Why is there so much dislike for a little known individual who made innocuous posts on his Facebook page? By ‘they’ here I mean those who wrote the petition against Mr. Bala including all muslims who are directly or indirectly calling for him to be dealt with? Why has Mr. Bala become such as bête noire, someone that is so despised in the local Muslim community? Here are the reasons. But before explaining them, I would like to provide some background to my relationship with Mr. Bala.
I never knew Mubarak Bala before 2014. I never heard about the name. We connected through some strange circumstance. In 2014, I was studying for my doctorate in Germany. One day I got a message that an ex Muslim had been taken to a mental hospital. I was both worried and confused. All the ex-muslims that I knew then were in the closet. I was asked to join efforts to release him from the hospital. Bala’s family took him to this health facility after he went open and public with his disbelief and criticism of Islamic religion. The family thought he was out of his mind. For days, I struggled to understand what was going on. Religion, especially Islam is a charged issue in Northern Nigeria. I wondered how I could effectively intervene in this case while living thousands of miles away.
Leo Igwe
I was under immense local and international pressure to rally support because time was of essence. Bala was being treated for mental illness that he did not have. Those who contacted me were in Lagos which was very far from Kano where Mubarak Bala was. They also relied on information from third parties. I managed to call the psychiatric hospital in Kano. And they confirmed that Mubarak was a patient and had been admitted to the facility. But they refused to provide details of his case. After some back and forth calls and emails, I managed to piece together what could be going on and joined the campaign. I issued a statement calling for Mr. Bala’s release. We hired a lawyer to help with his case. Incidentally, as we were trying to figure out how to get him out from the hospital, the staff embarked on industrial action and Mr. Bala left the hospital. He became a free man. Since then, Mr. Bala has been very outspoken in his criticism of Islamic extremism. He has been the face of atheism and freethought in Northern Nigeria. His experience has inspired many atheists and ex-Muslims in northern Nigeria to go open and public with their views and positions. Bala has become synonymous with apostasy and blasphemy in the Islamic Northern Nigeria.
So they hate Mr. Bala because he renounced Islam. They believe that Islam is a perfect religion that people can embrace but not abandon. Bala was born into a Muslim family and they had expected him to remain a Muslim for the rest of his life. However, Bala disappointed them. He did not live up to their expectations. He left Islam. Bala did not even convert to Christianity, which would have been bad enough but not as bad. He became an atheist, a ‘bloody infidel’.
Mr. Bala betrayed them. And they are angry and furious with him. Now they are trying to punish him for the betrayal. Apostasy is a crime under sharia law and in Islam. As an apostate, Mubarak Bala is, for them, a criminal who deserves to be punished as required by Islamic law. Bala should be forced to recant and return to the Islamic fold or be removed from the Islamic community via imprisonment or execution. This has not happened. Mr. Bala has not received any punishment, or better an adequate penalty (I was told that his family had disowned him). To them, Mr. Bala has not been given a penalty that is severe enough to make him regret leaving Islam.
Instead, Bala has made it seem acceptable to leave Islam. He has been living his normal life and freely going about his everyday business. And this has not gone down well with them. Mr. Bala has made it look as if one can abandon Islam and still live happily and freely, not hiding or living in fear for one’s life in Islamic Northern Nigeria. In fact, Mr. Bala has gone to the extent of openly declaring to contest for a political office in Kano.
Now if they had some residual love for Mubarak Bala given his family and ethnic ties to the region, that affection has disappeared. Mr. Bala has caused them to hate him more by openly criticizing Islam. As an apostate, they expected Bala to keep quiet and not to say anything about Islam and the prophet. By renouncing Islam, Bala had lost the authority to speak freely about the religion. For them, only Muslims can talk about Islam. It is only believers or those who have something apologetic, complementary, and supportive to say about Islam and the prophet that can talk or openly comment on this perfect religion and its perfect messenger.
For them, critical views about Islam and the prophet are not allowed even if these viewpoints are true and based on facts. Critical views about Islam and the prophet are blasphemes. And blasphemy is a crime, another crime that is punishable by death under sharia law. Blasphemy law is a weapon to silence and eliminate critics of Islam and perpetuate the teachings of this religion whether they are true or false. It is a mechanism to stop people from making unauthorized comments about Islam. Blasphemy law is what the Islamic establishment use to police and censor what people say and express about Islam and the prophet.
So they hate Mr. Bala because he criticizes Islam and freely speaks about the prophet of Islam. He is a progressive mind and a champion of islamic reformation and social change. Mr. Bala draws attention to aspects of Islam and the prophet’s life which are often hidden and forbidden. He points out those teachings of Islam and the prophet which he finds mistaken and incompatible with human rights, science, and critical thinking. He calls attention to those Islamic practices that he finds morally repugnant and objectionable. They hate Mr. Bala because he is not afraid to speak his mind. Simply put, they hate Bala because he is an apostate and a ‘blasphemer’.
In addition, they hate Mubarak Bala because he has emboldened many atheists in muslim dominated communities in Northern Nigeria. Many atheists in Northern Nigeria are leaving their closet and becoming assertive of their views and identities. Bala has inspired many young people in Northern Nigeria to begin to freely express their disbelief in Islam. They dislike him because he has become a formidable moral and intellectual force behind the growing wave of atheism in Islamic Northern Nigeria.
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Leo Igwe
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