My Story

   My name is Almajiri, I was born in one village far northern Nigeria. I am 15 years old now. I was brought to this city when I was just 7 years old by my father to learn and memorize the holy Qur'an. Since when I was brought here my father only came to visit me three times. And I have never seen my mother since when I left home. The last time my father came visit two years back, I told him I wanted to go back home to see my mother, but he said I could not do that until I memorize the whole Qur'an. I remember when we were leaving my village to come to this city, my father only told me that I was going to the town to stay with his uncle for a while. When my father was going back to the village he gave me some money to be spending and I cried like I was going to die when finally he was to leave. Immediately my teacher came back from seeing my father off, he asked me to bring that money my father gave to me. I have never seen kobo from that money again. 

   When it was time for dinner that day, my teacher gave me a small bowl and asked me to join a small army of other students in the school to go beg for food that we were to eat as dinner that night. We roamed the streets entering  one house after another begging for food, and when I finally found something, some of the students we were together, who were a little older than I was and who were not entering houses to beg as we were doing, confiscated my food and ate it and threw the bowl at me and asked me to go get the one I would eat again. When we finally came back and after the evening class, when it was time to sleep, that is when I realized there was in fact no where for me to sleep. We are close to hundred in the school and everybody just scattered in search of a place to sleep, I managed to get a little place beside one gutter by our teacher's house and slept there, that has become my sleeping place ever since. And it does not matter if it is raining or its during harmattan period as there is no where to go and sleep apart from there.

   That was the routine everyday, until finally I was able to get one house where I begged the house wife to be coming and be helping her with the day to day chores and in turn she would be giving me food so that I wouldn't have to be begging for food everyday. This was far better for me than having had to go scavenging for food three times every single day. Lest I forget, perhaps I should tell you that it took me four good years to finally get new clothing! Yeah shocking, right? My few cloths that I was brought here with had become dirty and tattered. It was this hajiya that finally noticed the situation of my cloths, and how it took her that long, I don't know, and gave me some few sets used by one of her children to be wearing. You can imagine how happy I was I got "new" cloths finally. Unfortunately, they never lasted, partly because I could go the whole month without taking a bath or washing my cloths and partly as there were not much to be rotating. It is hajiya when she noticed this sometimes that would give me some soap and detergent to bath and wash my torn cloths.

   When I started growing up I realized my fellow almajiris used to have money on them for which they buy some things they like or need. I asked one of them where they were getting the money and he told me at the roads junctions. That was how I left hajiya's house and started going to junctions and roundabouts begging for money from the motorists. Some will give us, some will refuse, some will even harass us for touching their cars or leaning on them. I stopped going to school completely, I only go back to school when it was time for me to sleep and immediately it is morning, I will carry my bowl and head to a junction and I will be there till evening. Did I hear you say: 'what about prayers?' No, who has time to pray? If you go for prayer, you don't know what you will be missing for that time you go to pray. I pray all the prayers I missed in a day when I came back from the junction and if I am tired on that day, then I just ignore them. As for what I was brought here to do, that is to memorize the holy Qur'an, as I said earlier on, I already stopped going to school since when I started coming to junctions, and the little I memorized has already vanished as I don't quite read it.

   As for my future, I really don't know about that, not that I care anyway. I heard that they said there are more than 9 millions of us roaming the streets in this country. I believe there is no future for us in this country where they say there are equally over 12 million youth who had gone to school and graduated but can not get job to do. What more of an almajiri? Begging is what I know for now and it is my future as I don't know what else I should do. perhaps when I grow a little bit I will think of becoming a water vendor or become okada rider or better again, start selling fuel by the road side. As you can see plenty of options for me there. It seems like I have a future after all!

   Government? Well, I just hope its not me you are asking that question, as I don't know if we ever have government in this country. I heard its election time, so may be they are trying to get re-elected so that they continue steeling our country money, and for us - almajiri family - we will continue been pauperized, ragged, torn and hopeless!

   This is my story, thank you for your time and God bless you.

Long live my country Nigeria.

   Yours faithfully,

   

   Almajiri.

Crying Over a Spilt Milk

   The presidential elections has come and passed. Nigerians finally made their choice, given PDP pass mark to rule us for another four more years beginning from May 2011. There are grumbles as you would expect at the aftermath of an election, especially in this continent (Africa), and even more especially in Nigeria. Surprisingly, however, most of these grumbling are not coming from the appropriate people who have justification to complain, i.e. political parties that contested and lost the elections, but rather from the youth who had every opportunity to change the government of PDP on last Saturday and who blew that chance off, and whom in my opinion actually have no justification whatsoever to complain afterward.

   INEC chairman professor Attahiru Jega yesterday pronounced the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)'s candidate as the winner of the elections having polled the majority votes cast and getting the required 25% in more than 2/3 states of the Federation, thereby beating its closest rival Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) that came second. Even before this announcement and return of the winner of the election President Goodluck Jonathan, youth in many northern states took to the streets rioting, harassing and even killing innocent people that they perceived to be supporters of PDP, and in some cases attacking people they were not so sure whether or not they were PDP supporters.

   I once stated on this forum that the Nigerian youth were very much ready to take to the streets to protest if the much anticipated free and fair elections were not held in this country. The burning question now is could it be said that there were no free and fair elections on Saturday to warrant the youth taking to the streets to protest? I know this is a very difficult question to answer, especially at the moment when more details on how the elections were conducted in various parts of the country are still emerging. And more especially considering the complexity of the various things that constitute free and fair elections!

   I read some where that the CPC disagree with the victory recorded by the PDP in the South South, South East and also in some states in the South West. Now supposing there were riggings in those states as alleged by the CPC, could that be the reason that the ruling PDP recorded a 'landslide' victory in the elections? I believe the answer is big NO! This is why at the beginning I said the youth in these northern states that are rioting have no justification whatsoever to protest the results of the elections. They are the very ones who by their action or inaction aided the victory of the ruling party. PDP needed 25% in the 2/3 of the total states in the federation to win the elections even if it got the majority votes cast in the elections. They needed to get those votes in the northern states and by their actions they gave them.

   When one looks at the statistics of the voter turnout in the north generally with the exception of some very few states, and compare it with the turnout in the South generally, one will certainly get the picture clearly. For instance, in Kano, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) registered over 5 million voters, but only a little over 2.5 million actually voted. In Adamawa there are over 1.7 million voters registered, but only a little over 800,000 actually voted. In Borno 2.7 million registered, and only a little over 1.1 million actually voted. In Katsina almost 3 million people registered, but only 1.6 million in fact voted. We can go on and on, the story is the same all over northern states, except Bauchi and Kaduna where the turnout was almost 80%. If one compares it with the turnout in the south generally, one will be left with only one conclusion that : the north just short itself in the leg and we really needed not to complain. In fact we have no cause to! In most of the northern states where CPC won the turnout was just 50% as against the total number registered, and worst still in most of those states the people made sure that the ruling party got the 25% of the total votes cast that they require. Whereas, in the South South and South East, the turnout was 90% to 95%, and amazingly, they all voted ruling party thereby given no chance to the opposition to get even 5% of the votes.

   Even if there was rigging as alleged in those zones, one only needs to look at how the people in the north voted or not voted as the case maybe, for one to just shut up before anybody tells you to. People, and especially those youth protesting, slept at home during the elections and did not vote and now that their counterparts in the south, and who apparently needed it more than them, decided our future for the next four years, only for them to start rioting, burning, maiming and even killing innocent people. This is most unfortunate, and the authority should really rise to their responsibilities by dealing with those youth according to the laws of the land. As my friend said: "they are only crying over a spilt milk"!

   All is not lost however, if at all we are serious of chasing PDP away and if the youth will actually learn their lesson, then we have LAST opportunity on the 26th of April to give PDP serious push towards irrelevance. If CPC can win all the 12 states they won in the presidential elections, they will of course be setting what could potentially be PDP's demise in 2015. This will only give CPC the necessary political base they need to give PDP strong opposition in 2015. This is more so as other opposition parties such as Labour Party (LP), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and APGA will surely get some states in the South East, South West and South South respectively thereby reducing PDP's dominance in the polity generally.

'Wetin Lawyers Dem Do Sef?'

   It was Friday, I, together with friends were returning from the mosque where we performed our Juma'at prayer, when one amongst the friends drew my attention to one car that was ahead of us, at the back of the car, just beside the tail light was a sticker on which was written boldly : "wetin lawyers dem do sef?" I was stunned, I didn't know what to do for a few seconds. I have seen many of those stickers, but all of them with the exception of that one, were either pro law as a profession or lawyers generally as professionals. There was a time when I even had one on my car. You often see those like: "love a lawyer, its legal", "shhhh, lawyer is passing", "I be lawyer, trouble na my work", and etc. But never seen one which lawyers were attacked like that one. My friends in the car, who are not lawyers of course, challenged me; 'what do you do actually if not to go to go court and be telling lies?' I was speechless for a moment, partly because I do know that there are some lawyers that do go to court and tell lies, but at the same time, that isn't enough for anybody to make such a generalized assertion. I said to them look, I can't make case for any unscrupulous lawyers out there, but at the same time I know a handful of upright lawyers and it will be bad if I will just keep quiet and let you castigate those innocent lawyers for the offenses of their fellow professionals.

   I asked rhetorically, 'you really want to know wetin lawyers dem do?' And they answered affirmatively. Ok, lawyers save lives! How? They all asked. By defending and freeing an innocent person who is standing trial for an offence they never committed. Also lawyers help the helpless to get their properties back from dubious people who would want to misappropriate them. And also lawyers help send to prisons those who belong there for committing one offence or the other. 'But they defend criminals too!' All of them shouted. I said you just have to prove that they commit those offences they are charged with. You have to bring witnesses and necessary things to prove his guilt. Lawyers are merely there to make sure that you do not bring people to come and lie against those alleged criminals. If at the end of the day, the offence is proved BEYOND REASONABLE doubt against them, then let them face the music. But a lawyer has to be there for them to prevent them being punished for what they actually did not commit.

   Just for the simple reason that some people decide to go against the ethics of the profession should not make people adjudged us equally. After all such deviants do exist in other professions too! So, wetin lawyers dem do? I answer thus: lawyers save lives, defend defenseless and help establish justice in the society so that people will live in harmony with one another and the society prosper!

The Senate and House of Reps. Elections and The CPC's Chances in The Presidential Elections

   Nigerians exercised their civic rights on Saturday, the 9th of this month and elected Senators and Members of the House of Reps that will represent them at the legislative Houses. A lot of mixed feelings trailed the already emerged results of those elections. There were a lot of surprises in some areas concerning the results, likewise in some other areas it was just what people expected or thought should happen that in fact happened. In the South West, as we all expected the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) won almost all the seats in both senate and House of Reps. The only surprises there which a lot of people were not in fact actually surprised that they occurred, is the fact that some few PDP chieftains in both the Senate and House of Reps did not actually get re-elected. The notable amongst these are of course the Speaker House of Reps. Mr. Dimeji Bonkole and Senator Mrs. Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello (daughter of the former Head of State). Most of these PDP casualties came from the home state of the former president Obasanjo, and this is the more reason why a lot of people were not actually surprised that PDP encountered these set-backs in that state taking into consideration the well publicized rift between the incumbent Governor Gbenga Daniel and the former President Obasanjo.Overall, it is not at all unexpected that ACN recorded a landslide victory in the South West considering that the area has always been the hub of the party.

   The results in the South East and South South are equally not surprising as PDP won almost every seat there with the exception of some few that were shared between APGA, LP and ACN. South South being the home zone of the president we can not expect anything contrary to what actually happened there. 

   Perhaps the biggest surprise came from the North West region. People actually expected the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), which is headed by former military Head of State Muhammadu Buhari, who is also its presidential candidate for this year's elections, to record a landslide victory in the zone. It will not be correct to assert that CPC did not perform in this zone but however to use the word "landslide" victory could be quite misleading. The party performed well in Katsina (the home state of Muhammadu Buhari) where it won all the three (3) Senatorial seats, and also in Zamfara and Kaduna as well. However, the party failed woefully to make any impact in Kano state which is the heart of this zone in terms of population. The performance of CPC in Kano and Jigawa combined is quite gloomy to say the least! So many people tried to explain why CPC failed to win even 10 House of Reps seats out of the more than 30 seats available in Kano. People have given their opinions as to why Kano which is the number one stronghold of Muhammadu Buhari was not delivered by the party. The way I see it however, is quite differently with the way most of those people see it. To me the issues are two.

   Firstly, the inter-party wrangling in the CPC Kano ranging from the leadership of the party to the governorship aspirants brouhaha in the state contributed immensely to the not so impressive performance recorded by the party in the concluded elections. It is instructive to note that as between the time the party was to conduct its primaries in Kano late last year to now, the party saw three (3) different sets of leadership. And this controversy is still not put to rest as just last two or three weeks there was a judgment in which a court reinstated one of the three groups which was initially sacked by the National Head-quarters, as the valid leadership of the party. This matter is still pending in the court of Law. This is enough a distraction to the party's preparations to this elections. This problem of leadership resulted in even more grievous problem of not having a widely recognized and accepted governorship candidate among the party ranks. CPC supporters in Kano don't know exactly between Muhammad Sani Abacha and General Lawal Jafaru Isa who is actually the governorship candidate of their party. This confusion is capable of making people getting frustrated and not even voting the party at all! 

   The second factor is the attitude shown by most of the CPC candidates in the Senate and House of Reps elections. Because of what happened in 2003, where out of no where Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau emerged and became Governor of Kano as a result of that popular phrase uttered by Buhari at his rally in Kano just few days to elections. Buhari asked Kano people to vote ANPP "SAK", as a result people entered Buhari's ark and won the elections on a platter of gold. A lot of those CPC contestants felt that this is exactly how it was going to be this time around and they decided not make any efforts to reach to the people at the grass roots. When Buhari came to Kano for his rally he snubbed them all apparently due to the debacle as to the governorship aspirants of the party in the state. So Buhari did not mention SAK and that seriously affected their acceptability to the people. 

   In my constituency, I didn't know the person contesting for Senate under the plat form of CPC until a day to the canceled elections. And for the House of Reps., that I only saw his posters on the elections day at the elections venue. You can imagine this utter arrogance exhibited by these contestants to the people they were seeking to represent. The story is different in the opposition camps where every where you go the streets are awash with opposition posters and leaflets. 

   The bottom line is, Buhari has a serious work to do in Kano if at all he wants to take this elections to the run off in which we are hoping with all the alliances that may be formed, he stands a good chance of beating PDP. Nobody expects either CPC or ACN to win this elections in the first round. The only party capable of doing just that is PDP, and the only hope Buhari has of denying PDP that is by recording a landslide victory in Kano. Even if CPC wins Kano unless it is by a great margin, it would not make any difference. We all know that if PDP did not get the required votes to clinch victory at the first round, then there will be a run off in which PDP and any other party that comes second will slog it out for the presidency in the elections. The danger here for Buhari's CPC is, if ACN wins Lagos (as it is almost certain) being the state with a largest number of registered voters, and Buhari fails to win Kano being the second largest state with registered voters, then ACN will definitely emerge the second and then the run off will be between PDP and ACN. To avoid this scenario, Buhari and CPC should put their house in order and it has now become obligatory upon General Buhari between now and the closing of campaigns before the elections on Saturday to come back to Kano and Jigawa to organize another rally and settle differences that might exist in their party's hierarchy in these states, otherwise, it will be the same old story as PDP will win this elections on a platter of gold! A word is enough for a wise!

Those New Universities

   There were a lot of jubilation from across many parts of the country when late last year the minister of education professor Rukayyatu Rufa'i announced the Federal Government's intention to create 9 new federal universities to be located in some states that hitherto did not have the presence of federal universities. These universities are to take off some time in September this year. The universities are to be situated in Bayelsa (home state of the president), in Jigawa (the home state of the minister of education), Katsina (home state of the former president) among other states. The minister while making the announcement for the appointement of Vice chancellors and Registrars to man those universities, noted that the decision of the Federal Government to establish these universities was informed by the principle of equity in distribution of federal universities to cover all states of the federation. There were a lot of celebrations especially in those areas where the universities are to be sited. People were happy that at last the Government has remembered them.

   Creation of universities when done in good faith and with all sense of rationality is truly a good thing, and an achievement that every leader that has facilitate it should be proud of. However, when you critically examine the manner these new universities were created, one can safely argue that either they were created in bad faith, or they were just created in order to score cheap political points or the Federal Government was ill-advised in creating them. I believe the President decided to create these universities just to score cheap political points especially now that the elections is just around the corner. The fact that these universities are created in bad faith becomes even more glaring when one considers the following facts.

   First, the minister while announcing the appointment of the VCs and Registrars, disclosed that the government allocated the sum of # 1.5 billion to each university for take off. This singular pronouncement underscore the fact that the government is not at all serious about developing education in this country they just created these universities to score cheap political points. I know some people would say, but # 1.5 billion is a huge amount of money. Yes it is indeed! Even I did not appreciate what that amount of money can do or not do in running a federal university until I came to know of some facts that actually exposed this political gimmick by the federal government. Some few days back there was a programme on one of the fm radio stations here in Kano, where the incumbent ASUU chairman Bayero university, Kano branch was discussing the same issue. In that programme he criticized the federal government's decision to create those universities in the first place and also to allocate the sum of # 1.5 billion for each one of them to take off. The chairman gave a staggering insight into what you can do with that amount of money in running a university. There is a "world class" library that was recently built at Bayero university, which according to the chairman cost a whopping #7 billion to construct! I am sure I don't have to say anything further, this  is quite self explanatory. If a single standard library can cost that amount of money, how can this government convince us that it is so serious and desirous of having these universities taken off with the meager amount of just #1.5 billion? These are universities that don't have any facilities that are of a university standard on ground. These are either secondary schools or at best colleges of education converted into these universities. The chairman also revealed further that there are six (6) universities out of the federal universities we have that have been selected by the Education Trust Fund (ETF) to upgrade them to the international standard, and the money that is been allocated to these universities by the ETF for this purpose every year is #3 billion for each one them. The chairman also gave another instance whereby a university in Saudi Arabia was allocated equivalent to #10 trillion to take off. All these instances underline the fact that the Federal government is not so serious at all for establishing these universities and their proper take off.

   Secondly, the minister stated also that the decision of the Federal government to create these universities was informed by the desire to provide access to university education to a larger number of qualified candidates who are annually stranded due to lack of carrying capacity by the existing universities. Some times you can't help but to question the wisdom of those that act as advisers to our leaders at all levels. If a lot of candidates don't get admission into the universities because of these reasons as the honourable minister stated, what is the appropriate thing the government should do in the circumstances? Isn't it much easier for the government to enlarge the capacity of our existing universities? Universities are not suppose to be for just local communities, they are to be for international community. Its not necessary that each and every state must have presence of Federal universities, more so if the government is not desirous or is lacking the will to provide for and maintain those universities. People take their children to foreign countries to study despite the fact that universities exist in their localities. What is more important is for the government to improve in quality the universities in terms of structures, staff and materials, but not to go about creating new universities any how just to score cheap political points.

   It is my considered opinion that unless the government is willing to provide the necessary fund required for these universities to properly take off, it is better that this project be halted by the government   until it is fully equipped and ready to run the universities.