Few months ago, the country witnessed a terrifying incident that made the news all over, where boarding school students were abducted by gunmen. The incident rendered both the society and the parents of the abducted children in a situation that its magnitude cannot be described.
As we all know, the incident at Givernment Secondary School, Kankara in Katsina state was not the first in history, but a repetition of past incidents. Also, kidnapping is not the only vice bedevilling our society, but it is just a fraction of our numerous problems which include the Boko Haram insurgency, increased rape cases, drug abuse among youth, sexual violence and among many other vices.
So far, many Nigerians are wondering how and why we are faced with such persistent problems that seem to have become part of our culture. Even though the problem is still persistent, it seems their solutions are yet unknown! Despite the fact that I am not an expert to proffer pragmatic solution, but I think I am in a position to present my view and understanding of the situation.
In Nigeria, there are numerous regions, and all the regions are blessed with different religions, tribes and ethnicity: and all the ethnic nationalities have their different origin. It follows therefore that their mode of life must differ, and what is the norm in one society may be otherwise in the other. But despite all that, knowledge of whatever kind is always the same in all settings.
In normal circumstances, the best weapon to use in tackling vices within a particular society is nothing other than EDUCATION. Even in this context is not merely referring to western education alone, but a combination of both western and religious education.
Education in its generality is the important asset that every serious society should invest in so as to harvest its multitude of dividends. Education teaches morality. So, an uneducated person has the tendency of living in an abnormal way, adopting all sorts of immoral ways of life, unlike the educated that always behave rightly.
A little boy born in a setting that has neither standard western school nor religious school, has no clue on the value of human lives other than those of his parents and relatives. The only living things he values most are the animals or people around him. He loves them to the extent that he can sacrifice whatever he possesses in their defense. How do you expect such a boy to wake up one day and become useful to a society other than where he herds his cows?
But by educating such a boy with proper religious knowledge, he will be guided to understand that, in life, there are valuable things other than his cows, and the value of such cow(s) is not in anyway above the value of a human life.
From all indications, some religious clerics are on their way to fish the root cause of the problem of banditry, thereby risking their lives to educate the inhabitants of some villages. This is indeed a wonderful direction that needs the intervention of all Islamic religious scholars, irrespective where they belong in terms of school of thought.
There is nothing that could easily change the perception of someone that has an inch of faith in God other than the words of God. And there is no religious scholar that is not calling people with anything other than the Holy Qur’an. So, they all need to join Dr Ahmad Gumi in providing those villagers with sound education that can unshackle them from the chains of ungodly life.
I will also like to call on government at all levels not to intervene in this his great effort except in providing security to accompany him and in providing social amenities such as schools, hospitals and roads to the villages he visits. This is necessary because some unpatriotic imbeciles could seize that opportunity to divert his attention from what he intends to achieve, thereby politicising the initiative. But with the intervention of Islamic based NGOs, his objective could be achieved within a short time.
Although the incident at Kankara was a bad incident, but we can see it as a blessing in disguise, for it opened the room for the intervention of traditional and religious leaders to see to the end of this lingering banditry. We hope that another room could be created where Boko Haram terrorists could easily be fought intellectually rather than using weapons, since they also possess all the weapons used in fighting them, but lack the best weapon to win a big war which is “KNOWLEDGE”.
Most, if not all of them are illiterate. No semiliterate will twist the meaning of Qur’anic verses and Hadith to suit their selfish interest. But giving them something different from what they receive from their SHEIKHS would make the sincere ones among them to think and reflect, and that could bring the end of their ungodly life. Therefore, we need the likes of Dr Gumi in all the Islamic sects, in order to win this war together.
Sagir writes via [email protected]
