By
Abubakar Sulaiman Muhd
Being
Friday, I know the day comes with a lot of businesses. So I will be brief. But there is this anguish in my heart
which I want you to know. I will tell you now.
Key
Words: Dan Boko, Educated, Boko Haram.
Translation:
Dan
Boko, he who is educated.
Educated
means being educated.
Boko
Haram. Modern education is forbidden.
And
Dan Boko Haram means an opposer, hater and a fighter against modern education.
I
will explain.
Being
educated without really being educated and committed to the mission and safely
emerging as educated without being a hater of learning, in other words, Dan
Boko Haram.
Especially
in Kano, because people have some folk in their family who attended schools and
have become bureaucrats, doctors,
teachers, bankers, pharmacists, lawyers etecetra, (I see someone is looking at
me, there are also professionals in my family) you will hear people say so and
so family members are ‘Yan Boko – those who are educated. They will make you
have the impression that those ‘Yan Boko are well-lettered and truly educated.
Until you go to their rooms to borrow some books then you will realize that
they don’t have anything. They are not readers. In fact, they hate reading.
They would look you with horrible eyes and ask “what kind of reading after the
university?” We are in terrible situation.
I
wonder how a person would be educated or simply called Dan Boko without reading
books, restricting themselves only to prescription in the curriculum. There are
even those who will die without reading a single book. And they are still ‘Yan
Boko, everyone in society saw them go to school since childhood and now they
work in offices. We are in a lopsided society with a tiny fraction of readers,
where those who don’t read overwhelmingly outnumber those who read. When I hear
people beating their chest because they have this and that in their family, staff
this, staff that, I feel like committing suicide.
Questions
assailed me when I first read in articles written by some Nigerians calling
some folk as diseducated, half-educated, miseducated, this and that. Imagine a
lawyer asking why should I bother to study Political Science in the university.
All those politicians do not read Political Science before they become
politicians. That was a moment of shock.
A whole lawyer saying this? I know there are diseducated people and educated
illiterate but I have never thought of having miseducated lawyer.
Now
my doubts are washed away by the unassailable fact that our people are greatest
enemy of books and deep reflection. Teachers and students are oppressed by what
Paulo Freire called the ‘banking concept education’ where teachers deposit what
they consider to be objective facts into the minds of their students and expect
no flexible, no fluid thinking, no varied and independent opinion from the students
but accept them as rigid and unassailable and the students make no effort to
free themselves. Imagine a student complaining that his
score in an examination is not correctly written and the whole department is
furious about that. Because I know I have poor memory, I have never thought of
getting Firs-Class certificate in my university education. I have an
existentialist view of knowledge and not mere certificate.
The
criterion is that many can go to school, attend colleges and universities,
become successful in life, hold MA, PhD and even become professors, but only
few can become truly educated and enlightened. When you find that you are a
member of the community of readers, those who are lucky to get to marry books,
and not in the colony of haters and divorcers of books, you simply have to be
grateful. Whenever I remember this fact a peace of mind descends in me.
It
is disheartening how you will hear folk asking “and you will read this whole
book” when they see 400+ pages book in your hand. For them, that’s insurmountable, something
impossible. They have forgotten that somebody has written it and your work will
never be as daunting as the writer’s.
My
friend Aliyu told me the same torment he receives daily from the public, how
people abuse him with insulting questions and silly remarks. Because pictures
of the authors at the back of African Writers Series publications sometimes
come blurred and unclear especially with pirated copies, someone once
sympathized with Aliyu and said “I hope you will not be like this,” pointing at the wretched writer.
Anytime
I come across this incident of someone raising doubt about reading a whole
book, I feel a bit embarrassed. Those people are your colleagues on campus. I
show pity and understanding. I will simply be looking at the head of those
vomiting these words thinking what are they really thinking, do they really
know joy in life, are they really
normal, and also to see if I could see
where the wire of reasoning and perception in their head gets disconnected.
Human without reading? A man isn’t a man!
The
reason you will be grateful when you are lucky to be among the tiny fraction of
readers is because reading is everything and what truly human beings do. It
broadens your mind, your horizon, your perception and liberates the operation
of the constitution of mindset. The secret of life lies in books. The joy of
life lies in books. There are uncharted territories in books. Individual gets lost in their own world. The modern sciences and technology that you think are unconnected with arts are
actually connected with arts. Read the history of invention.
Now
some folk in sciences have began to recognize this paradise they have been
missing and are reconsidering their allegiance. Some renowned Nigerian writers
were originally in sciences and now have imported into this business of books.
One
day I was in a bookshop to buy a novel. I spent a great deal of time searching
across the shelves. I could not get the book. It was unavailable on the stock.
Somebody in the shop had been following what was happening and had listened my
conversation keenly with the bookseller.
“What
would you do with the book?” He asked, not because he did not know what people
are doing with books. The manner at which he was speaking showed a gatekeeping process
and assessment to make sure my quest for the book was genuine and committed.
Before I answered I quickly said “Mallam ko kana da shi?” Do you have it?
We
made arrangement to visit his home. He
gave me his card. When I read it I found
that he’s a professor of Medicine at Bayero University kano, and a consultant
with WHO wing of the United Nation Organizations and a Medical Director at
Aminu kano Teaching Hospital. The surprise in me was unmistakable, knowing how
people in sciences and medicine have removed themselves from reading culture.
We
had a nice intellectual discussion when I visited his home. He asked me which
school I was attending and I told him that I was in college doing IJMB and
wanted to read Law in the university. He felt unease. He suggested that I
should read English Language. In fact if I would do that he would help me
secure admission in that university. He is a Dean Faculty in the School of
Medicine, professor Abdulrazaq Habib. He revealed to me that if he were to return
as a graduate student, he would go for anything that will have to do with books,
especially fictional works. He really loves his job because he is a successful
professor in medicine and health related issues but he also has an unquenchable
yearning for books. I asked him how he came about reading books. He told me it
was a habit he acquired while flying across the geographies of Europe to pass
time while attending conferences from America to London to Paris. The book he
would lend me, he told me, was bought in Paris. It was this man that introduced
me to Franz Fanon and gave me one of his books in addition to the one I went
specifically for.
It
is not only those in sciences that have signed memorandum of misunderstanding
and dissociation with books. The other time I was sitting in a lecture hall and
one of my colleagues whom I have little acquaintance with spoke to me sarcastically.
He saw me reading a copy of Henrick Ibsen’s Doll
House play. The writing was too small and he asked was it French or Arabic
I was reading. I didn’t understand his ridiculous sarcasm at first, and with
genuine heart; I replied that it was English. He said I was doing two jobs, the
task of straining my eyes to read the text and the task of reading the text. I told
him this was not a job. For me, reading is like breathing. I do it effortlessly,
unconsciously, without me knowing. People pay to bring their books to read it
for them and get them the summary when they couldn’t read them because they are
bulky.
I
worked briefly in a media consulting firm before I proceeded to university. My
employer was always wondering if I did not have other needs to do with money. I
divided my salary into two: one half for maintenance, one half for books. That
was when money was money.
I feel guilty anytime a day passes without reading. In the last five years since
my encouragement and initiation into this business of reading by Mallam Aminu
Dele Gwammaja. I could only remember one day that I did not pick a book and
read. That is why when I got admission in the university very late, I easily
caught up with the earlier students because none of the texts we were going to
study that I did not read before. That day which I did not read a book was the
day of our graduation from college. I was enveloped in mixed feelings, feelings
of excitement and resentment. But even that I had read a newspaper in the
morning that day. I have never paraded myself as Dan Boko. It is a long way.
We
can excuse our ancestors for not having opportunity of reading those books. But
you who is now in school, beating your chest and parading yourself as Dan Boko,
there is no rationalization that would justify your inaction to exonerate you.
No if, no but, no let’s consider the situation. Except if you are diplomatic
Boko Haram! In every generalization there is exception.
(@abubakarsulai13)
