Page 48

Page 48

Why women should never govern in Naija

By Tunde Asaju

By the time sai Baba leaves the political scene, two things are likely; Lugard’s contraption may have broken into smithereens. Call it the military complex, the military fought to keep Naija one but then undermined the development of democracy and if you listen to Walter Rodney pariodies – also underdeveloped Naija. The Wizard of Ota handed over Bakasi to Paul Biya in exchange for swamplands, arid hamlets and villages in the North East. Presently, the autonomous People of Biafraud are closing traffic and occupying bridges while their governors, chairmen and councillors are busy sharing the federal allocation. Ganiyu Adams wants a shot at the first citizenship of Oduduwa Republic and unpatriotic Imam Shekau wants to carve out parts of whatever is left of the jigsaw for al-Baghdadi. Those who say uneasy lies the head that wears the crown should look at Sai Baba’s cap.

But history has a way of smiling on Buhari. The team he named Golden Eaglets decades ago have won the U-17 trophy while another Naija has scrambled his way into international stardom. FIFA should brace up, because emergent nations may force it to smelt the gold and divide it based on what nationality scored the winning goal and how much a scoring pass is weighed.

On the political front, Sai Baba ought to be smiling to INEC headquarters as Jummai Alhassan was handed the mantle after the electoral tribunal concluded that the man, purported to have won the gubernatorial poll in Taraba was not legally a candidate. The layman concludes Alhassan automatic winner. Lawyers, those breed of people who plant and water a virtual tree of hope on the arid desert of despair would be taking things further just because they can.

But that is the smallest of the troubles of Sai Baba and John Odigie Oyegun. Their greatest problem is the political blasphemy they have committed in screening and endorsing a woman for the post of governor in Taraba a state that Jesus and Mohammed are jostling to own. On the Islamic side are bifurcated lay imams who see sacrilege on things the Grand Mufti pronounces as halal. The hottest part of hell is a better abode to Naija Umma than a state governed by a woman and we shall come to the reasons shortly.

Exhuming those parts of the Hadith that would disqualified any dead Indonesian Muslim from paradise for the four years of Megawarti Sukarnoputri’s presidency, these people want a fatwa pronouncing Mrs Alhassan unelectable. By inference, these people are warning Pakistani Muslims, whose loved ones may have died between 1988 and 1990 or 1992 and 1996 to perish the thought of reuniting with them in Jannah. Ditto for those who transited in Turkey between 1993 and 1995 under Tansu Ciler. Google consider these countries as predominantly Muslim, but what does Google know about Islam where the sons (sorry, no daughters) of Uthman dan Fodio are dissecting Islamic religious texts?

The wise know better than to argue with a Naija on religious issues. On that, the Naija always knows best – after all the Pope never gets to ride anything better than a Popesmobile. Naija bishops are first on line for the latest jets to help Jesus reach people in remote regions where there are neither roads nor airports? Even God would not argue with the Naija zealot on issues of equality of His creation. The Naija zealot knows that he is God’s anointed adviser on the purity of doctrines.

The only unfortunate thing about the Naija zealot is that he is still condemned to things he would have wished God had done differently. He has the misfortune of being born and raised by, wait for it, a woman. When he is of the age that men are want to maturate and raise a family, they do not look for fellow men, a liaison they consider haram, they choose the most beautiful of damsels, pay the dowry and take them home as exclusively as wife. Unfortunately for these women, they produce the unthinkable – male and female. As for the men, they cherish the males but the females, well… they love, guard and protect from all harm especially social pollution. As long as that female realises her place in the kitchen and such mundane things as taking care of the children, she is okay after all, didn’t the prophets say that the easiest way to paradise is the feet of their mothers?

If God had asked these advisers of his before creation, they would have counselled him to make women nothing as dainty as they are, but like ATM machines where men could simply deposit their sperm, and dictate in what denomination, sorry, what texture of their ilk should be dispensed. Imagine a world of bones and no flesh! For now, congratulations Jummai Alhassan, let’s hope that you become an Umm Waraqa just to shame the men who sleep with women at night and hate their guts by day. How about having a cabinet of more women than men just to see who goes on exile.

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