Adamu Muhammad Dodo
The citizenry keeps lamenting over bad governance, corruption, insecurity, insurgency, falling standard of this, building collapse of that, the moral insensibility and the insensitivity to unmentioned others, without giving consideration to and/or finding holistic solution away from the apparent impossible conceived revolution, taking as a theology, disappointedly evangelised by radicals, mostly away from the scene to have led the crusade.
A life lost to a family serves similar sorrow to lives wasted in a community, a poet would point out, painting an individual to the general pains and the other way round and around.
Suffices to say, it amounts to collateral damage loosing a soul – even if to rest in peace – in the hands of bandits or insurgents; defining insecurity.
The questions remain to be asked are, who are the bandits? Who are the insurgents? Are they carved out of the wood?
The questions may seem rhetorical or expostulations, a spirited poet would articulate that not only the kidnappers and killers on the highway who are parts of the community, the corrupt public servants, the unemployable employed and the quacks in every profession, in addition to the complicity to the conspiracy in funding and shielding criminality; killing conscience also constitute banditry and insurgency.
The conspiracy of silence in the living dead based on one-of-us-ness; tribal, faith and regional sentiments is taken as the foundational problem that challeges the peace and unity in diversity of a country.
Products of examination malpractices: quack doctors kill patients in a hospital, quack engineers cause the lost of lives with the building collapse, road and mechanical accidents, quack unethical journalists mar than make the nation as much as the clueless leaders, when integrity, capacity capability and competency are not brought to bear.
This formed the central theme of a Friday Qutba at FMC Yola Mosque, Adamawa state, Nigeria.
Joining other clerics, Imam Haruna Yawale pointed out that in every human activity, whether physically or spiritually, foundation is fundamental.
It is the foundation, for instance, that will determine whether or not the building will be stable and durable.
Foundational problems are conceived to be the most daunting ever imagined. When foundation is polluted, one’s destiny is polluted. Faulty foundation gives birth to a faulty life. Humankind cannot go beyond the level of their foundation. The healthier the foundation, the healthier the life and the better result one gets from his angle, as articulated by men of spiritual or religious thought.
As a citizen, Nigerians must cultivate the spirit of patriotism, detribalised nationalism and the holistic faith in Allah SWT, eschewing religion, region and tribal sentiments to be able to get out of the maze.
Still on foundation, similar Qutba would admonish that rather than building worship centre, faith in worship should first be built in the worshipper who will eventually build worship place to strengthen his worship rather than acquiring warship for woe unto community; the Turji-a-za-tion of the northwest.
This corresponds to a Hadith Qudsi as was reported, where Allah SWT was quoted as saying “know Me before you worship Me, because if you don’t know Me, how can you worship Me?” making the first pillar, the foundation of Faith.
The Qutba frowned at how external forces conspired with the lacking in conscience, the unpatriotic within, to design a destruction of the country, by attacking like a virus to a system, the family as a unit, the education and leaders of integrity, knowledge and faith.
The family has become divided in her unity with parents bereft of love and compassion, thingified by officialdom, as German-speaking Bohemian novelist, Franz Kafka would proselytise, abandoning parenting to ignorant, uncultured nannies and toy games among other distractions as foundation.
On education, paper qualification is more valued that the real knowledge and acquired skills; the adopted syllabuses and curriculums are that intended to waste time, empty of pragmatism; to produce mechanical engineer at professorial level lacking the knowledge and skills of roadside mechanic, electrical engineer who could hardly identify or fix electrical problem and unemployable employed who could not write acceptance letter or memo; considered as product of examination malpractices.
The leaders of knowledge and faith hitherto relied upon for guidance are undermined and substituted with the music, movies and sports stars as heroes and mentors; as those to earn security favours and protection than men of integrity, leaders of thought, respected elders and intellectuals.
The results of these of which would produce unpatriotic corrupt officials that are capable of mortgaging security at duty posts; allowing dangerous weapons and criminals to be smuggled in and those handling the finances to drain the nation lean.
This, the Qutba cautioned, called for a rethink, a societal reorientation, system study and review; a return to moral sensibility tied to faith, patriotism and nationalism, excusing rather than accusing leadership for a problem caused owing to community negligence.