“The one thing necessary in life, as in art is to tell the truth.”
– Leo Tolstoy
Lasisi Olagunju deserves public commendation for his opinion piece of May 20, 2024 which clearly illustrates the role of religion, especially Islamic religion in the poverty of the North in particular and Nigeria in general. To be sure he has said nothing new but only reaffirmed what some of us have said before. But being a Muslim and coming from a Muslim the statement carries powerful resonance.
Hear him:
” It would appear that northern Nigeria biggest business today is mass wedding and mass production of children. After child-making it has religion, very economically lucrative political religion. With this combo it wrecks itself and stunts the country and sows contagious poverty across the land” [ My emphasis]
I am greatly delighted that at last a Muslim has seen what some of us have seen for years and which I wrote about 4 years ago with an ominous title – Islam and the Poverty of the North
Dr. Olagunju is my first witness. Let us hear another witness, also a Muslim before we go into the article I wrote years ago.
Garba Adamu Gwadabawa has written comparing two states: Sokoto, the seat of Fulani Islamic Caliphate and Anambra, the most Christian state in Nigeria. Here are the results:
Sokoto State:
Population: 14 million
Number of Industries: 5
Number of Mosques: 435,389.
Number of Churches 985
Number of Parentless wandering under-aged kids: 2.1 million
Number of Divorcee Women including under (14): 857,443
Number of jobless youth: 3.8m.
(Sokoto Statistics Board.)
3.7 million Children roaming the streets. 900,000 divorced women with no work.
The state gets allocation from Center and pays wages for over 300,000 people.
The rest are buying and selling at markets and other places less than 50,000 are employed by the industries.
In the “South East” there are over 8 major towns in Anambra state that can beat the 5 industries status of Sokoto
Ihiala one of the smallest of the towns in Anambra with over “64 industries” employs over 20,000 people! No child roams the streets.
They go to school or they are apprenticed out to learn a trade. The situation in sokoto is replicated virtually in all the Northern States.” (End of quote)
That is the second witness.
I am a Northerner and Christian but I have seen and written about this years ago. The poverty of the North is not due to accident of history, geography, climate or Allah’s wish. No, it is caused by an age-old culture and central to that culture is a religion or a version of a religion that has been embraced by my people. This is what is causing poverty.
I now post what I wrote in 2020 on this. Enjoy it:
ISLAM AND THE POVERTY OF THE NORTH
by
Moses Oludele Idowu
“The worst place to live is the Northern Nigeria.”
– Sultan Abubakar
“87% of poor Nigerians live in the North.”
– World Bank
” The poverty level of the North is 80% while in the South the percentage is 20% simply because of marrying many wives and producing many children who at the end, are left on the streets to beg for what to eat.”
– Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, former, Emir of Kano
Introduction
This essay should have been written about 4 weeks ago but I have been postponing it due to other engagements. In the meantime some other facts have come to the public domain within the intervening periods.
This essay is written to appeal to logic and the reader’s sense of reasoning, not to abuse or insult any religion. But we have reached a point when we must find answers. And we cannot find answers until we know and examine and identify the root cause of the trouble of what ails us as a people.
I have prefaced this essay with quotations from two prominent Northern leaders and a global body like World Bank so that you may know enormity of the problem; that there is indeed trouble, real trouble on our hands.
I am also a Northerner by birth, schooled and educated in the North; so what I write here is not libel it is what I know to be the truth. And if anyone can controvert or impeach me I welcome him for a debate with me over these points.
So many northern leaders have been talking about the problems, the insecurities, banditry, kidnappings, killings, poverty etc. These however are the symptoms not the disease; effects not the cause. What is the reason why the North is poor? Why are northerners in spite of being in political power longer than any other region poorer than others? Why are the street beggars all across Nigeria mostly from the North? Why are her Northern children the most out of school ( of the 14 million children out of school, 12.5 million are from the North)
Why, why, why???
It is my purpose to show in this essay:
- The tragedy of the North today.
- Why this tragedy has occurred.
- The culture that has brought this about and made the North what it is.
- The religion and the religious ideology that produced this culture.
- The way forward. The Tragedy of the North Today
About 3 or 4 weeks ago there was a news item which has great significance but which even our press men, columnists and commentators missed. It shows why the North is poor, has been poor and will remain poor for sometime to come.
“UAE Relaxes Islamic Law – Drinking alcohol & cohabitation becomes legal while “honour killings” are criminalized” – goes the title which was carried in all local and foreign papers. The United Arab Emirates was reviewing the laws to make accommodation for modern times and to allow outsiders who are not Muslims to be forced under the Islamic code.
On the same day or within 24 hours something else was happening in another part of the world, precisely in Kano State in northern Nigeria.
Again the rider goes:
“Ganduje orders destruction of beer worth N200m in Kano”.
According to the paper the Kano State Hisbah Board on Sunday destroyed about 1,975 bottles of beer estimated at N200 million.
Within the same period and at the same time, one community in the Middle East who has been involved with Islam even longer is reviewing its laws to free their people from the medieval yoke which their forefathers could not bear and which have made many Muslim nations poor. In the same period another community is tightening the yoke and the nooze on the neck of their own people which at the end would only lead to poverty, woe and destruction.
In essence you can’t divorce the poverty and squalor of the North from its religion, its acidic culture that is static and unbending. This is my primary thesis.
We now have a problem, big one on our hand.
Today the poverty of the North is real and unabating. And it would only get worse. Before it was only poverty but the north could feed itself and even the nation. As they use to say, once hunger is out of poverty, poverty is small. Hunger was not in the mixture. Now, and from next year hunger may enter the picture and famine on its heels at the rate at which farmers are being slaughtered and driven away from the farms and our government – the collectives of brigands, thieves, criminal syndicates and dudes that we dignify by that name – cannot do anything except to send condolences.
In the last one week 43 farmers were slain in their farms in Borno and this figure is even being disputed as an underestimation. The previous weeks in Sokoto 76 innocent country men and citizens were slain in their own country, according to the sultan himself.
This is the story of the north today – from one carnage to another, from one tragedy to another. The north has become the state of blood. In one day in Bama, this same Boko Haram killed thousands and till this day and with the enormous amount of fortune spent on our army it spears the terrorists still had the upper hand.
Killing by Boko Haram is only one factor in the equation.
There is also banditry. According to the sultan the bandits now roam freely in the villages in the north, go to market and buy things and even collect change; all the same with their AK-47 on them and without being challenged by anyone.
At least we now know that two state governments entered into alliance with some bandits and paid ransom to allow peace in their domain. Only for the Agreement to be breached by the bandits, perhaps because they have seen how weak, effete and porous our security systems is. All these by the same army of alamanjiris, the same uneducated boys who have been cheated in life by the Northern elites and who have now taken up arms against the state and the elites.
Fulani herdsmen terrorism is also there which like a plague is spreading down South by the day. With its double edged sword. Many young farmers who have also been driven from the farms by terrorism have also discovered that cattle rustling is even more lucrative than farming; so they too have turned full time into rustling. This is the consequence of our government’s kid glove treatment of the Fulani herdsmen.
All these have made the north today exactly what the sultan said – ” the worst place to live in Nigeria” possibly in the world.
The north is the reason today why Nigeria is backward, why Nigeria is the third most terrorized state in the world and why Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world. If Nigeria fails as a nation today, it is probably because of the North and its underachieving leaders.
The tragedy is real, the challenge must be faced – totally, squarely and immediately.
Culture : Why The North Lags Behind the World
You cannot understand how the north finds itself in this mess in which it is today without probing into culture, the culture that the majority of northern people know, and from which they are raised and tutored and which they passed to their children.
By culture I am referring to what sociologists call “the integrated system of learned behaviour that characterize a given society.” It is also the different forms of behaviors, customs and practices that one generation considers pertinent to pass on to future generations.
From this definition you would see clearly that culture is related to religion and religion cannot be totally separated from cultural behavior.
It is my belief, and this is a belief that is anchored on a study of History, that both poverty and prosperity are products of culture. Most of the problems of the north today are byproducts of poverty – banditry, insecurity, etc. Now what causes poverty?
In this section I want to show how the north by certain cultural choices, ingrained behavior and practices have created a climate of poverty that won’t go away soon. There are several factors but I want to limit myself to just 6 :
- Polygamy or plural marriages
- Anti-education, anti development, anti- foreign and intolerance
- ‘Culture of fatalism and of putting little premium on human life
4.Impunity and lack of accountability
- Inequality and double standards
- Ignorance.
Why is the north poor today? The north is poor because it is still largely trapped in the past. In the past polygamy was the norm because it was in fact the most economical means to survive. In the day when most people live in the farm and on the farm then having more hands to work on the farm is reasonable, even justiceable.
That was then. No more. The world has since changed from agrarian economy to money economy and large families today are not assets but liabilities.
Unfortunately, only in the North has this truth remained unknown. My people still breed like rabbits.
You must have read of a grandma who died in northern Nigeria leaving 105 grandchildren.
The other day the House Leader in the House of Representatives, Alh. Ado Garba Doguwa made a show of his 4 wives and 27 children right in the Chamber of the House. That, to him, is an achievement. Most of the elites are into plural marriages which may not be bad for them since they have the financial means to shoulder it. But what of the poor?
The Punch newspaper of 17/11/2019 carried the pathetic story of a man with 5 wives and 23 kids who sold his 3 – year old son for N3m. He had already sold the daughter due to hardship too.
Now the question: what does a man who has no job doing with 5 wives and 23 kids in a day when even employed persons are reducing their families?
This is the culture, a culture that breeds poverty and as I will soon show this culture is rooted in religion. This is why Boko Haram has a continuous pool of boys and girls from which to recruit from – children that have been brought to the world without any plan for training or developing.
A study by an NGO showing the level of teenage involvement in polygamy especially female children found the following in each region: Children trapped in polygamy ( age: 15 -49 years): North West ( 24.5%) North East ( 19.2%), North Central ( 14.6%), South West ( 5.4%), South South (1.8), South East ( 1.6%)
That explains it all. Children who should have found a place in school, find it on the bed of polygamous marriage to also breed after her own image. Thus the cycle of poverty continues.
You must have read the story of a southern client who engaged a Northerner as driver. The client/ boss has one wife and 3 children while the driver who lives on a fraction of his boss salary has four wives and several children. Confronted on how he would take care of such number of children with his meager salary he quipped: “Allah will take care of them”.
Did you see what I am saying? You can’t separate the Northern culture, its culture that generates poverty, lack suffering from his religion. They are intertwined.
Two is the culture of intolerance which resents everything that is foreign and “other”. It is this culture that resents the Western education, for which Islam played a major role in its formation. Unfortunately the understanding of even the history of Islam, its major contribution to knowledge in its progressive era is now missing among most of those who profess the religion. Thus in this connection Western education is seen as taboo, a scheme of the kafir and unbelievers to steal their children. Thus missionaries were forbidden right from the beginning and since most education was under the purview of the mission thus the Islamic North closed the door of glory against itself. Till it was too late. Now the harvest is here with us.
This culture reveals itself in intolerance against everything that is ‘other’ and foreign. Thus even Christians who are Nigerians are still treated like foreigners or worse in some northern states. I have been told of the difficulty that even Christians encounter to secure approval to build churches for their members.
With this kind of attitude how would development come? Development requires freedom, liberty, diversity including freedom of religion, liberty of convictions and and diversity of opinions. Unfortunately the elites of the North are yet to understand this. Igbos have been regularly attacked and their shops looted during uprisings without anyone answering for it. It is that same culture that has spawned the Sharia Legal system that subjects everyone in a state to a religious law in a nation that is multi religious and secular. It is a subversion of the Constitution. It is this intolerance and the hostility that has created a window for Boko Haram and other deviants to now sprout and blossom.
The third culture that hinders the North is fatalism and not having enough premium on human life. The attempt to explain away tragedy caused by human shortcomings and negligence by religion can only breed backwardness. When in everything we see Allah and not human responsibility and importance; when in every tragedy we see the hand of God rather than man and his flaws then no progress is possible. Man has a responsibility. The one who has 5 wives made a choice which he could also not have made. His boss who has one wife has a choice too. It is not about Allah but about human choices, responsibility, rationality and accountability. It is a temptation to the Almighty to bring children to the world that you have no means of catering for and then shift the responsibility to Allah. This is why today the theologians of Islam must wake up; they have a lot of work to do. Islam must have its own Reformation too. Else it is poverty, squalor, destruction and woes.
A public building was burnt down. The Muslim governor of the state visited and thereafter proclaimed that it is Allah’s wish and as such people should not panic. “That is how Allah wished it”. How about that? Yet he later set up a Panel to investigate the cause of the fire on this prominent public building. The contradiction did not occur to him that if it is the wish of Allah we need not probe into it. Or should we?
This is the mindset that has brought poverty to Nigeria. We are not a thinking people.
Then the Culture of impunity, immunity and lack of accountability. This is endemic in the North.
A northern senator was caught on tape in action with two prostitutes. He did not deny that it was not him; he only asks what was wrong with it. The enforcers of Shariah Legal code do not usually see such; it is only the poor, the socially disinherited who break law in Islam. Not the rich.
I am told in the far North the FRSC dare not arrest truck drivers or even bus drivers as they do in south here or suffer terrible repercussions. [ Have you also noticed that police checkpoints are mostly in the South and not in the North? ]
Several riots, pogroms and religious uprisings have occurred in the North where several Christians have been killed by Muslim youths over the years. Has any of them been brought to book?
Several churches have been torched over the years by jihadists and has anyone brought them to book? So this culture of impunity is reinforced in the consciousness of most youths. It is this that has spawned the lawlessness that now manifests itself in Boko Haram, banditry and other ills now afflicting the north. I am told that in the entire north eastern region today there are few churches remaining if any to be torched. So after having destroyed churches they move over to destroying mosques; after killing Christians unchallenged over the years they now move to murdering their own fellow Muslims. That is how it always happen. Remember the Nazis: first they started with Jews, then Communists, then detractors and finally to German dissidents who opposed them. What goes round comes round.
The Culture of inequality and hierarchism so endemic in the north that sees some people as serfs and some as lords and aristocrats is another source of poverty and of the North’s woes.
Look at it.
All the northern elites sent their own children to school to receive Western education. They sent their own children even abroad to the same West, “ungodly West” to receive the best of education for their children yet still refused to make available functional education for the children of the poor. It is those uneducated almanjiris who are now tormenting the North in revenge. They too have seen that they had been cheated in life by their own elites and leaders and now the day of recompense has come.
This is the Ignorance that worries many of us in Nigeria. Educating your servants does not make you less. Today virtually everyone in Nigeria has a phone and we are the better for it. It has not made the rich any less; on the other hand it has made their lives easy. I can call my mechanic today anywhere and he would come. So life gets better when good things spread round.
The elites of the North do not yet understand this. The education of every child on the street of the north makes even your life and the lives of your children safe. As it is no one is safe.
- HOW THIS CULTURE HAS COME
We have seen the culture that brought the North to its present wobbling and fumbling state. Everyone is a product and ambassador of its culture.
The next thing in this section is to ask how this culture has come about.
There is a process about formation of culture and cultural development and behavior which is beyond the scope of this essay. Everything is about culture.
As Professor Griffith’s wrote: “Cultures express values which shape institutions and motivate people – some of which … promote wealth and justice and liberty, and others of which do not.”
A culture does not develop by itself and from nowhere. Every culture is inspired or motivated or enlivened by religion. Again hear Professor Herbert Schlossberg:
” Culture is central to the whole process of development and central to culture is the religious vision that informs the culture.”
Did you hear that?
So you can’t talk of culture without the religion on which it is anchored.
For example you cannot understand the Western culture of individual responsibility, rule of law, order, respect for human lives etc without understanding the Judeo- Christian religion and values which spawned it.
You cannot understand the Japanese devotion to theme spirit, togetherness, etc without looking at Shintoism and its ethics. You can’t appreciate the Chinese resilience, endurance, patience without Confucianism and, later , Marxist worldview and religion.
So what has spawned the North’s culture of impunity, lawlessness, ignorance and fatalism? Islam plays a major role in the formation of that culture as all can see today.
Now let no one misunderstand me on this. I am not saying that Islam is a tool of retrogression or backwardness. No. UAE is not backward and it is an Islamic state. Indonesia is one of the twenty most industrialised state and is a Muslim state. It has the largest population of Muslims in the world yet Sharia is not practiced.
So you see the trouble is not Islam in itself but in the version of Islam and the style adopted in Northern Nigeria – the radical, intolerant and uncompromising version that seeks concessions from others but is not prepared to give any. This is what has brought the poverty to the North and with it, a thousand and one ills.
This is what generates inequalities in the North even inequalities under the law.
Abdullahi Ganduje was caught on tape receiving dollar bribe from contractors yet the Hisbah Board, the enforcers of Sharia legal code did not see this. Even Mr Integrity inside the Rock said it might have been doctored or a manipulation of computer. These are the ones threatening to kill musicians for blaspheming, breaking beer bottles. It is a thing of surprise that only the poor breaks the law in Islam and no rich man ever fail the Sharia Law.
Hisbah police, we are told, are going from house to house, not to drag children to schools but to look for beer bottles to break.
How about that?
Yet Kano State collects its share from VAT which include proceeds from alcohol from Lagos State – the largest singular contributor to the tax. And the Sharia States, Shariyaland – apologies to Chinweizu – don’t see any contradiction or violating the will of Allah sharing proceeds from VAT which includes alcohol and beer sales.
This is the culture that has kept us back.
But we love our culture and our religion so the problems of the north will continue.
The north will rather abandon everything except its culture and religion; and that is why these problems will be with us for sometimes to come. I do not see any other way.
I welcome Muslim scholars or anyone for a rebuttal of what I have said here and my analysis.
Thank you patient reader, for your patience.
Moses Oludele Idowu
08023028950
December 5, 2020All Rights Reserved
