The business of ceasefire negotiations

Also published in Daily Trust

Against the backdrop of the steadily failing Nigerian state, an increasing number of unscrupulous Nigerians are growing more desperate and mischievously creative in devising means of making fast and illegal fortune even at the expense of the lives of millions of their fellow citizens.

This trend is taking more frightening dimensions as even the handling of Boko Haram crisis is being, or rather has been, turned into a highly lucrative money-making business, which explains mystery behind its persistence and alarming escalation.

Buhari's loyalists

Also published in Daily Trust

As the 2015 presidential election approaches while political activities gather momentum, Buhari’s presidential candidacy continues to generate controversy particularly ever since the release of Dr. Ahmad Gumi’s open letters to him and President Jonathan respectively in which he advised them to rescind their decisions to contest.

The barrage of the largely critical responses against Dr. Gumi’s letter further highlighted Buhari’s phenomenal hence politically intimidating popularity particularly at the grassroots level where his ardent loyalists rightly or wrongly believe and indeed vehemently argue that he represents the only hope for Nigeria at the moment.

By the way, though this view may sound too myopic, it is admittedly hard to convince the average Buhari’s loyalist to change his mind even with superior counter-arguments, especially in view of the lack of any other presidential candidate with comparable moral credentials and also the acute scarcity of non-corrupt and incorruptible politicians among the country’s politicians.

Politics of Hijra

Also published in Daily Trust

As the new Islamic Hijri year begins, Muslims, as usual, reflect on the event of the prophet’s forced migration from Makkah to Madina 1,435 years ago, especially the unprecedented jubilation with which the extraordinarily hospitable and generous people of Madina welcomed and accommodated him and the other Makkan migrants, which Allah the Almighty Himself acknowledged in various verses of the Qur’an.      

However, not many people bother to intellectually examine, highlight and imbibe lessons from the politics and diplomacy that preceded the migration and led to the provision of the enabling socio-political atmosphere in Madina, which paved the way for the migration and the eventual creation of the Islamic State of Madina.

Going abroad to fix local problems

Also published in Daily Trust

In the absence of the culture of independent and thorough investigation into government processes in Nigeria, cases of monumental corruption and alleged involvement of some government officials and their cohorts in treasonable acts usually come into the open only by accident, or when some real or perceived political opponents are deliberately targeted and discriminatorily victimized.

In any case, such scandals often end in bogus investigations; the purported findings of which are dumped in the archive, or some unnecessarily and indeed deliberately extended trials that eventually deliver ridiculous sentences that neither return back the looted resources to the public treasury nor deter others already engaged in similar corrupt practices or even destabilizing activities.

A Friday in history

Also published in Daily Trust  

Though Friday is and will always remain the most preferred day in the sight of Allah the Almighty (See Sahihu Muslim, Hadith No. 854), a Friday 1,426 years ago, was and will forever remain, particularly significant, because it was the day the messenger of Allah (pbuh) delivered his last major sermon known as the Farewell Sermon.

The event was the first and the only Hajj the messenger of Allah performed in his lifetime and the place was the Arafat ground at the foot of the famous mountain, Jabal-Arafat or Mount Arafat some 20 kilometres east of the holy city of Makkah.

It was the 9th year after Hijira just less than 100 days before his death after spending almost 23 years delivering the message of Allah the Almighty to the humanity, the first thirteen years of which he had spent in his native Makkah before his forced migration to Madina where he spent the remaining ten years.