Nine Years of Anguish for the Killers of Sheikh Ja’afar

Exactly nine years ago on Friday the 13^th of April, 2007 a renowned Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ja’far Mahmoud Adam was assassinated. The murder took place in Muntada Jumuah mosque located in Dorayi quarters of Kano.

It was in that early morning when the Sheikh was leading the subh prayer that the assassins numbering about five drove to the mosque. They shot at his chest and stomach and killed two people who attempted to stand in their way.

The 47 year old Sheikh was immediately rushed to Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) where he died before he could receive any medical attention. According to the people who took him to the hospital, Sheikh Ja’afar kept repeating the kalimah until his last breath. Thus the Sheikh has many virtues. He died while observing subh prayer on a Friday which very few people achieved in history. Again, he died with the kalimah which all Muslims believe that anybody who has it as his last word in this life will enter paradise.

Born in Daura, Katsina state in 1960, Sheikh Ja’afar completed his memorization of the Quran in 1979. In 1984 he enrolled as a student in the higher Islamic section of Government Arabic Teachers College Gwale in Kano city and upon completion in 1988 he secured an admission at the prestigious International Islamic University Madinah where he studied Quranic Sciences until 1993.

 As a young man, Ja’afar Mahmoud Adam actively participated in Qur’anic recitation competitions and once represented Nigeria in the International Quranic recitation competition in Saudi Arabia where he took the third position after being the best in Nigeria. He was also an active participant in the activities of Izala group before his journey to Medina. However, Sheikh Ja’afar was unknown to many before his return from the Holy city in 1993. His unmatched eloquence coupled with an outstanding mastery of Qur’anic interpretation attracted many students to him from within and outside Kano as soon as he started his lessons in the famous Gadon Kaya mosque which he founded after his return. Within no time, Mallam neutralized the influence of nearly all the Islamic scholars in Kano as none attracted followership like him. With Sheikh Ja’afar in town, people began to challenge Darika scholars, a thing hitherto impossible in the ancient city.

The influence of Sheikh Ja’afar was not limited to Kano. There was hardly a Muslim community in Northern Nigeria where Sheikh Ja’afar was not invited to speak. Sheikh Ja’afar attracted large crowds wherever he went and outshone any scholar or emir whenever they had to meet at a public occasion.

Sheikh Ja’afar was not territorial. While many scholars are not interested in bringing peers close to them, Sheikh Ja’afar introduced other scholars, some of whom were thought to be more learned than him to give lessons along with him in his mosque. Not only did he do that, he always extolled their virtues in public. That sincerity further garnered even more respect for the late Sheikh. 

While the North-west gave birth to and housed Sheikh Ja’afar, North-easterners requested the Sheikh to be spending the Holy month of Ramadan in their midst, and he obliged. Thus, until his death the Sheikh always spent one out of every twelve months in Maidugri where he gave lessons in Tafseer every day.

Like any human, Sheikh Ja’afar had his shortcomings. Many people were disappointed when they came to visit Sheikh Ja’afar and did not get the kind of reception they got from other scholars. The fact, however, is that Mallam Ja’afar was a good time manager and unlike many other public figures had no time for gossip or idle talk.

But who killed Sheikh Ja’afar? The answer is simple; his enemies or better still people who considered him an enemy. And there were many of them. No one will lead an outstanding life like that of Sheikh Ja’afar without making enemies.  This piece is not meant to speculate on the possible killers of the Late Sheikh as that has been done many times with many believing that the sophistication with which the murder was carried out could only be the handiwork of Government.  In fact, on April 12, 2009 two years after the assassination, an online news medium linked a former governor of Kano state to the murder of the erudite Sheikh. The police had on a number of occasions come out to clear some influencial people in Kano from the murder of Sheikh Ja’afar. But they fell short of identifying the actual killers.

Another question is, have the killers of Sheikh Ja’afar achieved their aim? Certainly no, whatever it is. Sheikh Ja’afar became even more popular after his death and his recorded tafseer lessons are still broadcast at least weekly by over 50 broadcasting stations in Nigeria and neighbouring countries. If the killers killed him because they saw him as a potential security threat, they must have realized by now that peace cannot be achieved by murdering innocent people and nemesis will never allow any nation that condones the murder of people like Mallam Ja’afar to have peace.

Published in Blueprint Newspaper of Wednesday 13th April, 2016

The Change We Need In Education II

The tale of the tertiary education sector is not any sweeter. Everyone is now allowed to set up a university if they have money to ‘start’. While in developing countries like Malaysia it is youth who do not have the requisite qualifications to go to public universities that enrol in private universities, reverse is the case in Nigeria.

Even the universities that are established by the Government, especially state governments, are not good enough. Many of our state universities are better described as unemployment factories. The programmes run in those places are mostly programmes that will not enable students to be absorbed by the private sector or stand on their feet upon graduation. Professional faculties like Medicine and Engineering that require a lot of investment to establish are missing in most of our state universities. Yet politicians continue to deceive gullible parents that they have established universities to educate their children.

Polytechnics that were originally established to provide middle level manpower in technical areas now run courses in Marketing and Banking. Even in technical areas, the contents and educators are not far from what obtains in the universities. Many Polytechnics are now headed by University lecturers with no iota of experience in the Polytechnic system but who are appointed as a reward of their contributions to the electoral success of some politicians or being close to them. That is why many unions have sprung up over the years agitating for equal status between products of Polytechnics and those of universities.

It is unfortunate that in an average of every four years our universities are closed down for a few months of ASUU strike. This has demoralized youth and parents, with many parents who can afford it sending their children abroad for degree programmes. The bitter fact, however, is that it is those strikes that have attracted the very little funding enjoyed by universities. For example, the Tertiary Education Trust fund (TETFUND) which has turned out to be the main financier of projects, research and development in our tertiary education sector is a product of ASUU strike. Successive governments have admitted that ASUU is a patriotic union which, unlike other trade unions, is genuinely concerned about the nation’s education sector and not just the condition of service of its members. Yet, the same Governments have always reneged on their agreements with ASUU.

Yes. TETFUND is only supposed to complement the regular funding of tertiary institutions from budget but it is now the mainstay for funding universities, polytechnics and colleges of Education. The budget mainly takes care of personnel cost plus a paltry overhead. As essential as staff development is to universities, neither federal nor state governments have a comprehensive programme for it apart from TETFUND. The scholarship scheme of the Federal ministry of education is used to sponsor children of politicians and senior Government functionaries to study abroad. Same can be said of the more transparent PTDF scholarship scheme.

Our universities now award honorary degrees to rich people of questionable sources of income in order to attract monetary donations from such people. Commercial programmes have become the order of the day in our tertiary institutions with quality sacrificed for revenue in many cases. Colleges of Education that are statutorily established to train teachers are now running commercial diploma programmes. All these are happening because the Government has abdicated from its responsibility of funding education.

In sum, the crisis in the education sector is pervasive and if the change agenda of Buhari administration is to apply to Education, every stratum of our educational system requires a complete overhaul. While the Government should continue to support primary education for all Nigerian children, use of public fund to support post-primary/post-basic education should only be limited to children with minimum aptitude to proceed to such level. This will decongest public secondary schools and enable proper teaching and learning. The current unwieldy nature of public schools, especially states-owned schools, does not warrant learning and it is a great disservice to our nation to continue with it. One way to effectively do this is by reviving vocational training centres where the other children can be trained to acquire skills.

Considering our earlier observations on some of the fundamental problems bedevilling the Polytechnic sector, it is worthwhile to follow the footsteps of countries that have abolished polytechnics. Our polytechnics have outlived their relevance and the best solution is to merge or convert them to universities as the case may be. Details of this must however be carefully worked out considering the fundamental differences in the administrative and academic structures of polytechnics and universities. Colleges of Education remain relevant and valuable if they restrict themselves to their mandate. Monotechnics may continue as long as they remain specialized and are adequately funded.

Early signals point to an impending showdown between ASUU and Buhari administration. The budgetary allocation to Education sector is a meagre eight percent contrary to extant ASUU-FGN agreement to progressively increase it to the UNESCO minimum of 26 percent. There are also other aspects of 2009 agreement that have been neglected by Government.  Are we ready for another ASUU strike?
Published in Blueprint Newspaper of Wednesday 6th April, 2016

The Change We Need in Education I

For those of us who spent only five years in secondary school in my own part of the country, our school days were very nice times to remember. The period was shorter than what we have now, but the gains were more and the days even more beautiful.

There are better stories to tell as well. For example, from my primary one to form five my father never paid a dime as school fees. In addition, neither he nor anybody acting for him had to buy me a textbook. All my books were provided by the school at no cost to my parents. My teachers were employed by the Government and they were all qualified. In my primary school, only those with Grade II Teachers Certificate were recruited by the Local Education Authority to teach me. In my secondary school, the situation was even better. For instance, the people who taught me English and Mathematics in my first year had higher degrees in those fields. Where the Government could not find a highly qualified teacher for a particular subject in Nigeria, they will go to any part of the world to get one.

That is not all. As a boarding student in a rural secondary school, I was given three square meals with nothing missing. The food was enough and well-prepared. In addition to the food itself, we were given things like oranges, banana, groundnut and other refreshers. The school uniform I wore and the soap I used to wash it were given by the school. All these were done to me at no cost to my parents.

We were taught discipline as well. There was a time for everything and everything was done at the time set aside for it. When it was time for lessons, everyone must be in the class and pay attention. We all must eat at the time set aside for eating. When it was time to sleep, everyone must be in bed and lights switched off. Making noise after “lights out” as it was called attracted different punishments depending on the school Principal. In some cases, the father was invited to come and witness the punishment. We were taught neatness. There was a day in every week set aside for sanitary inspection with prizes given to the neatest house and neatest student.

The academic standard was very high. Common entrance examination was prepared by WAEC and after passing it the pupil had to go through oral interview to get admitted into secondary school. Those who failed at either stage accepted it in good faith and their parents would always find for them something to do or send them back to school to take the exams the second time. At the end of fifth year in our secondary schools we sat for SC/GCE examinations organised by WAEC. There was no other option and there was no cheating. Examination malpractice was unknown to us in this part of the country and it was a thing of shame for any young person to be associated with it. We didn’t know JAMB. We never had to register for it.

Alas! Suddenly, and like an earthquake, things began to turn upside down. One of the first and greatest harm done to our educational system was the scrapping of Grade II Teachers colleges. In the old good system of those days, pupils at the end of their primary schools were taken to different schools based on their potentials as assessed and decided by panels of seasoned teachers. It was at this level that future primary school teachers were picked and sent to Teachers colleges. The NCE of nowadays is not as good as the Grade II certificate of those days. In most cases, the young people that follow NCE programme now do so only after failing to get admission into Universities and polytechnics. The meaning of this is that it is people of lowest intelligence that teach our children in primary schools.

Unlike the old good system in which only those who passed a standard entrance examination and a competitive oral test proceeded to post-primary schools, nobody will agree to see his child having primary school leaving certificate or junior school certificate as their highest qualification. Every child must be a university graduate whether or not they are the right stuff for it. That is the philosophy of today’s parents. This has resulted in an avalanche of private schools and an explosion in the number of pupils in public schools. We now have a situation in which public money is used to fund schools that admit unqualified children who end up either as failures or holders of fake results which they obtain through examination malpractice.

Cheating in examination is now taught to post-primary school pupils as if it is part of the curricula. It has reached the level that the best schools are those whose proprietors know how best to connive with officials of examination bodies to award grades to their final year students.

(To be continued)

Published in Blueprint Newspaper of 30th March, 2016