Tackling corruption through Hisbah

Also published in Daily Trust

It is high time Nigerian intellectuals began to think outside the box to develop alternative yet viable and implementable ideas to tackle the endemic corruption bedevilling the country. This is quite imperative considering the fact that the current system, which is ostensibly designed to ensure transparency, is grossly abused by most of the very people entrusted with the mandate to run it. It is indeed a desperate situation that requires unconventional measures to handle.

Also even if the introduction of such urgently needed alternative measures requires some legal bases at state level or even constitutional amendments at the federal level, anti-corruption campaigners and other activists should embark on a systematic campaign to raise public awareness about the necessity of such measures, and mobilize popular support massive enough to successfully push for the introduction of the necessary statutory provisions and implementation mechanisms for such measures at national, state and local government levels.

Malam Jatau’s lamentation

Also published in DailyTrust

I am an ardent follower of topical issues in both print and electronic media, even though I am admittedly constrained by my inability to understand English language, which many people virtually equate to illiteracy. Besides, I can read and write in my native language, Hausa, read Arabic text, though I barely understand the meaning, and of course I know the basics of my religion, Islam. Unfortunately, however, all these hardly, if at all, improve my “illiterate” status or, at best, “semi illiterate” status in the eyes of such people.

By the way, before you wonder how I manage to write in English anyway, let me add that I might have been miraculously and spontaneously inspired at this particular moment, perhaps the same inspiration I had got last year in the wake of the fuel subsidy removal crisis when I wrote a letter to President Jonathan entitled “Malam Jatau’s Letter to Mr. President” {Daily Trust, Friday, 13 January 2012}

International Al- Quds Day

Also published in Daily Trust

Though it was the British occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1920 that paved the way for the establishment of the Zionist State of Israel in1948 following decades of intrigue and terror attacks against the Palestinians, the Zionists’ subsequent annexation of the remaining part of Al-Quds city, where Islam’s third holiest site (Al-Aqsa mosque) is located, was particularly devastating.

Al-Quds occupation followed the Arab-Israel war in 1967 when Israel defeated the combined forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, seized the Golan Heights from Syria, captured West Bank and the remaining part of Al-Quds city from Jordan, occupied Gaza strip and took Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.

The "Civilian JTF" Phenomenon

Also published in Daily Trust

I must admit that even during the worst period of Boko Haram terror attacks in northern Nigeria, when virtually everybody was in constant fear for his life to the extent where legislators reportedly dodged deliberating on the issue, judges cleverly shied away from handling cases involving suspected Boko Haram insurgents and people never dared to discuss them in their hangouts, I never knew that the insurgents had actually captured some Nigerian territories; large territories for that matter.