Remembering the boxing legend, ABU paid tribute to Muhammad Ali

Kaduna, Zaria - written 10th June, 2016

At the moment thousands gathered to pay tribute to Muhammad Ali in his home city Louisville, Kentucky; in what seemed like another funeral service – a Jenazah in absentia - academic community of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, gathered to celebrate Ali in an event convened by the school’s Department of English and Literary Studies.

The ex-heavyweight American boxer died June 3, 2016 at Scottsdale, Arizona, aged 74 and was buried in a private service for family and friends today, Friday.

The atmosphere in the hall was a mixture of somber mood and joyfulness.

Solemn and reverential, the audience rose in silence to pay respect for Ali.

“Look at us seated here discussing his legacy,” said Chair of the event Professor Tanimu Abubakar, a senior member at the department.

“Why Ali is relevant to us, even though he lived far away?” he added. “Human beings become attached to phenomenon that is attractive.”

Professor Tanimu described Ali as an embodiment of human spirit and resilience. “He withstood odds and succeeded and became attractive to even those who hated him. He had never been defeated by problems. This is the lesson we can learn.”

Ali’s life and struggles would inspire millions in circumstances he had once lived.

“Muhammad Ali represented the black spirit, the capacity to resist oppression,” said Professor Tanimu. “For us, he is a legacy of decolonization. That is why we remember him. It is our responsibility to ensure that the world revolves around equity and justice.”

Tanimu defined Muhammad Ali’s life “as the best example of what it means to be Muslim, the question of charity and humanity,” he said. “Despite differences, human beings share common humanity. He is ambassador of his religion. All Muslims should copy him.”

“Muhammad Ali is one of us.” Said Dr. Edward Abah, organizer of the event, and expert in African American literature at the English Department.

Muhammad Ali’s death and the passing of Stephen Keshi, an accomplished Nigeria’s Super Eagle coach, Wednesday, was an era of exit of great personalities, said Edward.

Drawing audience from across departments and units, the program was graced with poems recitations in honor of the Greatest. Units in attendance included French, Archeology, History, Biological Sciences and Centre for Excellence on Development Communication.

Abdul-Jalil Adeyemi, a junior at English and Literary Studies gave meaning to Ali’s passing with his Away From Home to Home poem while Samuel Dan Daura reflected the condition of man in relation to life and death. His poem titled Life read with gentle ease and gracefulness. 

Muhammad Ali is not just a right activist and boxer, he is also a poet.

Hssaina Sufyan, a student at the event, read from Ali's collection, a couplet  delivered on the demand of his audience at 1975 Harvard lecture.

“Me, Whee,” she said, “I am one of you. We are one of ourselves.”

It is the shortest poem ever written apart from Tijjani Muhammad Musa’s one-letter poem.

Williams Zakka read out Ali’s life history while Khadija Abdullah recited one of Ali’s poems.

Recounting Ali’s achievements, Dr. G Y Pam, a boxing enthusiast and Ali’s fan from Mechanical Engineering said, “Ali is the most confident boxer I know in boxing history. I remember him as a young man watching him on TV in Jos. I am a fan of Ali.”

Ali’s involvement in peace mission efforts at Middle-East and elsewhere took his name and influence beyond the ring. 

Dr. Lawan Tafida, a faculty member at Political Science, said Ali is not only a right activist. “He is a diplomat.”

Ali could be remembered in several ways.

“I remember him for his Parkinson disease,” said Dr. Suleiman Jaji, watching Ali at Hollywood event. “I was watching on TV, he couldn’t stand to his feet. He was the only person whose star was written on wall, because of his name.”

Ali died of disease stemming from Parkinson's syndrome, a condition attributed to boxing-related brain injuries. He never regretted his career, reasoning that he might have ended up a laborer. And the story would have been different.

Ali has left  notable mark on American history and civil right movement.

“He is great in the ring, greater outside,” said Dr. Edward Abah. “He can be studied in university classes.”

My City, My State, My One-Year Disappointment in Ganduje

Two narratives sprang up in support of Ganduje during election last year. Those throwing weight behind him tried to convince us that his academic background as PhD holder and work experiences would make him a promising leader.

I have never been moved nor impressed by the blitz of this rhetoric. I would not allow myself to be voluntarily fooled by sterling résumé and impressive academic credentials of any politician or public servant. There are ways and ways and you don’t know which they follow to get their papers. That says, only a fool could beat his chest and vouch the competence of high-ranking officials. The achievements of our officials always seem to work against them. They appear more dullards and dunces than we earlier saw them before comparing their papers with their performance record. Very few of them have the track record of turning things around in public service, before transitioning to politics to descend further into the pit. We are wrong to assume that PhD-holding politicians would be anything good. Experiences have repeatedly show us how they end up “ineffectual buffoons” in office.  

People have been arguing that Ganduje would complete the projects initiated by Kwankwaso, his predecessor in office. I have been expressing dismay regarding this position since last year. Would that all he would do four years in office? It is wastefulness and under-productivity to complete what someone started in four years in the same range of his tenure. It is not a success, it is not an achievement to brag about. It is shame and hopelessness and insult against Ganduje himself and our sensibilities.

My hope for Kano before the election was to have someone energetic and progressive, equipped with cutting-edge ideas for social development and economic engineering, with the ability to harness and put to use the abundant human resources of the most populous city in Africa to take over from Kwankwaso and put us on the path to an ultramodern city.

But what one can do since politicians never have the citizens in mind while making decision? When it became apparent that Ganduje would be our next governor through Buhari’s popularity, I lowered my expectations. Let him go and complete the work of his predecessor but using every opportunity available to me to reject the proposition of his academic qualification and public service experience as a basis for deliverance and performance. In our public service tradition, the higher the position the more incompetence. In Nigeria, sadly, we don’t have a structural framework that takes in to account competence and merit for important positions in government.

We need to be forward-looking, with our eyes on ways of creating new projects and initiatives. We should never be satisfied with the existing situation if only we want to move forward. The technology industry is there to teach us some lessons, where improvement is constantly made on an already existing solution.

Often, when you begin talking about the sad and tragic performance of politicians and some individuals rise against you for being ungrateful, you will naturally begin to think whether your expectations are too much and too high. That is the basis of my opposition against our system.

But our people have already seemed to believe that Kwankwaso had taken us nearly to the last stage, and by completing his projects, we have ultimately reached the limit. We reached our destination and we should stop aspiring for high grounds. This is despite the awesomely horrible social, political and economic problems immanent in our society. Such line of reasoning often gets me to ponder on the degree of our hopelessness and understanding of what real development is. Because what we are familiar with, regime after regime, is looting, entrenched mediocrity, poor performance and severe underdevelopment from people who understand leadership as a means of accumulating more wealth, building more houses, bringing more wives and cruising luxury cars acquired through plunder to insult our sensibilities, for attempting to depart from the norm Kwankwaso has reached the status of sainthood. Never mind the money cornered, missed, mishandled and dubiously spent under him. I am tempted to declare with a degree of certainty that he cannot swear not a single kobo missed way in his government. For me to eat up my words, he should come publicly, Qur’an in one hand and declare, “By Allah, not a single kobo was illegitimately spent under me” then we would go after the file where he dipped fingers into local governments tills to finance his presidential bid and leave matter between him and his Creator.

Agreed Kwankwaso delivered based on our standards which is highly aided by the existence of non-performing governors all around us, whose darkness made him shine, made him stand out from their non-performance. But you would be shocked as things start unraveling when you begin to compare the money he loaned and the cost of the projects he executed. Three hundred billions in loan for few projects, uncompleted projects and abandoned projects. So many projects, at government price, and the 10% has gone forever. Jakara drainage is political swindling, everything stopped right after the man left office.

A year into Ganduje’s administration, he did not seem to do much to prove me wrong. He rather emboldened me to assert that he could not even complete the projects started by his predecessor. I can say now people are so considerate they did not expect much of him to burden him with completing someone’s assignment in addition to his own. The impression he’s dishing out is that he is there to collect salary and bonus. No clear demonstration of commitment and dedication. I cover my face in shame when I see other people ridiculing us on social media sharing photos of him sleeping at public events.

In fairness, I will be quick to admit the economic situation facing Ganduje, but the reason he is there is not to sleep. As a governor, he is there to find solution to our problems, to find ways for us when most of us are unable to find. By engaging his brain, he will be earning legitimate salary. But the economic situation is rendered useless since he is raining cash on politicians and buying new cars. He seems to exclusively devote his attention to the demands of silly politicians. That has been his approach since election time, taking people for granted and never attending to their needs.

This convinced me that Ganduje, as I have feared earlier on, is not that person I wished for. In every step he takes, Ganduje makes clear the kind of people his government is meant for. He shows that he is unapologetic in discriminating the rich against the poor. That is reason he never backtracks a decision that is hurting the poor. That explains why he has been able to undeservedly pay for the exams of few elite children while refusing to pay for the kids of the poor in public schools who really merited it.  It is totally irrelevant for the government to intervene financially in settling private matters affecting wealthy individuals.  We would be repeating this up to election time. Nobody did it but the governor himself and we presume it a right decision.

So far, he has made it clear that he is incapable and incapacitated for the job. We watch in anger how things spiral out of control. Refuse collecting and discoloring our streets, some streetlights left to themselves in disrepair and disfunctioning and nobody bothers to do anything as if nobody is paid to precisely be in charge.

He is too weak to be a governor as he shows apparent lack of self-confidence. The best way to defeat your fears is to confront it. Instead of confronting the problem, Ganduje canceled a subject in our secondary schools because of inadequate staff. For years we would lag behind in that subject. He alone caused us the problem and the effect and consequences would stay with us for as long as the situation remains.

His insecurity also shows in his desire to want to lean on another person. You can do it if you believe in yourself like the one you have been disgracefully chasing after. Once you deliver, and we get convinced by your commitment, because we would not accept half-heartedness and trick, you will easily sell at the poll and people will pine you when you left.

The disappointment also comes down to the manner of hiring and appointing people, people grossly incompetent, people with trouble at home, people with indecent character, appointing friends of “our sons” who schooled together in London. It is in in this government we have an actress appointed to as sensitive position as adviser in budget and a PA who went public to insult us but ended up embarrassing himself when he came to show us his letter of “a point man.” It seems like the fundamental idea of the regime is to provide food for the boys.

Whether you are providing food for the boys, in governance, you need to send a strong message to the direction of public image and perception. You need to show some sign of seriousness. You just don’t wake up and hurl every sort of people into your government. Tell me your friends and I will tell you who you are. We can assume you’re running partying and dancing government for seeing such girl around you. Have you exhausted every nooks and crannies you did not find a competent hand, a girl trained in relevant fields for hands-on approach to issues? It would like infatalizing  the business of the government. This is the impression we have.

We are not simply questioning your appointment for no reason at all. We need to know the qualification and capability of the people you have appointed since nobody briefed us yet on that. It is equally important if the person you want to hire is a man of clean slate, not someone whose father ate from Dasukigate.

Like people had peppered us during election time, against our wish, we will give you the benefit of the doubts for only short time. Only short time for we will not fold our arms and watch things go such bad. I will contest for governor in 2019.

Grazing Bill, a Positive Move

 
The bill known as A Bill for an Act for the Establishment of the National Grazing Reserve (Establishment and Development) Commission for the Preservation and Control of National Grazing Reserves and Stock Routes and for Other Matters Connected Therewith, is a thoughtful move towards ending Fulani- farmers clash and diversifying the economy.

Agriculture has been an important sector to Nigeria’s economy. Revenues generated from groundnuts and cotton produce were used to educate generations of Nigerians and helped build a gamut of critical infrastructures solidly standing presently, a feast decades of oil revenues fail to achieve. Benefits derived from agriculture visit every corner of the country shown evidently in school constructions, universities, hospitals, roads, airports, seaports, and railways.

This spells out unambiguously the indispensable role and significance of agriculture in national development. At a time when the world is tilting toward knowledge-based economy as determiner for control and influence in global economic structure, the bill would help secure a place and edge for Nigeria.

A commission would be set up under the bill whose activities would be coordinated by collection of Federal Ministries of Agriculture, Rural Development and Water Resources, Health, Environment, Housing and Urban Development, and National Commission for Nomadic Education.

The functions of the Commission includes designating, acquiring, controlling, managing, maintaining the National Grazing Reserves and Stocks Routes; constructing of dams, roads, bridges, fences and infrastructure considered necessary; identification, retracing, demarcating, monumenting, and surveying of primary, secondary, and tertiary stock routes; conserving and preserving in its natural state the National Grazing Reserves and Stock Routes; ensuring the preservation and protection of any object of geological, archaeological, historical aesthetic or scientific value in the National Grazing Reserves and Stocks Routes; the development of facilities and amenities within the National Grazing Reserves; fostering in the mind of the general public, particularly the pastoral and transhumance population, the necessity for the establishment and development of the National Grazing Reserves and Stocks Routes with the objectives of developing a greater appreciation of the value of livestock and environmental conservation.

This initiative supposed to have been long introduced. The program¸ once successfully established, will give stakeholders clear understanding of the clash problem between cattle rearers and farmers and allow them to effectively design measures and steps.

For so many reasons, grazing reserves should be concentrated in northern states as home to Fulani cattle rearers, to settle them down and end the frequent clash with the farmers. The root cause of the struggle is mainly the scarce resources arising from climate change. The region faces threat of growing desertification from the Sahel region via the northern borders. Modern grazing reserve as eco-friendly is one effective measure to countering the menace of spreading desert.

Conducts of human activities are moving along with time, powered by new thinking and approach. Challenges of dairy production in Africa are not unconnected to poor management practices. Commercial and small scale dairy farming will witness massive and radical overhaul. Riding on leveraged technology, farmers and herdsmen raising animals in traditional methods would be exposed to modern farming techniques to help create wealth, jobs, improved productivity, and integrating otherwise informal businesses into the mainstream economy for increased revenues and above all, providing lasting peace between farmer and cattle rearers.

Hundreds of thousands of unemployed people would be engaged at various stages including the need of experts in animal husbandry, nutritionists and specialist veterinarians who got to be employed to monitor health, disease prevention and control. This process will inspire confidence in public health, fostering hygiene and controlling the risk of suspicious meat getting to the public.

The grazing reserves is going to place Nigeria to an important role in meeting the increased demand and combating global challenge in food security. The developing world will feel most the brunt of food insecurity. By creating this program, Nigeria has set out to actively play her role.

Countries across the world less endowed than Nigeria have had success stories practicing modern grazing farming. A version of such program in Nigeria would make dairy production blossom as we are abundantly blessed with great landmass and human resources. The burgeoning dairy industry would enjoy boost to meet the ever growing demand throughout the country and even beyond.

To achieve this, there must be a robust modern butchery system and abattoir facilities put in place by partnered state governments and Livestock Institutes such as what we have in Kano, for training and mentoring of persons likely to set up ranching operations on their own.

The Federal government should supply high-performing cows such as Holstein, Friesian, Brown Swiss, Guernsey and Jersey for crossbreeding with local animals. Government should also provide infrastructures for effective distribution process and create easy and effective ways for generating credit facility accompanied by effective assessment process. High-performance should be recognized to encourage efficiency and productivity.

As part of reconstruction program of the northeast, the program can double as poverty eradication initiative by giving off cow per family. The idea is that aggregated productivity and benefits would be calculated in lifting the people off at family and community level.

In line with global effort for food security, organizations such OAU, UNICEF, ECOWAS would be willing to partner with government of Nigeria as the program has a touch in education, archeological and historical concerns, health and economic issues, and community development projects to rhyme with the global effort for sustainable developments.

But I won’t be surprised by guff from some folk who would not bother to read the bill but would cling to their misguided view against the Bill, unable to offer any alternative way. Insisting on restricting the movement of cattle rearers without giving them alternative won’t work. It will keep us in the doom we seek to avoid. Also, it is with caution while taking measures not to violate the rights of others, says democracy. I may assume that the right word that best fits in opposing the bill is CHOICE so that you can choose not have grazing reserve built in your land. Offering alternative is the best possible way of bringing the problem down.