Connect with us

Columns

Muslim-muslim ticket: When ‘Political Traders’ gathered in the name of APC Northern Christians

Published

on

Muslim-muslim ticket: When 'Political Traders' gathered in the name of APC Northern Christians

Muslim-muslim ticket: When ‘Political Traders’ gathered in the name of APC Northern Christians

By: James Bwala

NICON Luxury Hotel in Abuja is too small a place to host APC Northern Christians, who are gathering in the name of Lord. But indeed, the space is wide enough to host ‘Political Traders’ in the name of APC Northern Christians, who could not manage power and unite the Christendom at the time they are welded with power and the privilege to do the needful. So, why are they crying wolves now and blaming people who study and understand the needs of the hour?

Certainly the issue at hand is not about Tinubu or Shettima but about their own political greed. There is the saying that when you are pointing an accusing finger at the opponent the remaining four fingers point back at you.  

I thought I should be silent on this matter but I felt obligated to correct certain misgivings rising from the dust of the gatherings of a few. I would not mention names perhaps but every so-called speaker at that occasion knows his or her own antecedents and contribution to the unity of the Church if speaking the truth has any meaning to inform the recent gathering of Christian Politicians from the enclave or fold of the APC.

Muslim-muslim ticket: When ‘Political Traders’ gathered in the name of APC Northern Christians

Also Read: 2023: When BIU turns to Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and the SWAGA dance in Lagos

Those who held positions in government from amongst them; and those who are still holding one position and another cannot hide the truth about their contributions to the growth of people from their surroundings. If asked to truly speak before God today of the value they have added to Christianity, can they with all pleasure hold to one spectacular thing they did to draw Christians closer than they want it now? They said no one has approached them within the APC to seek redress over their own political failures. Does that not indicate that they are bargaining for their own personal political interest and not for the Christians in general? Why would they want to carry the crowd along with them and later dumb them when the hand of the clock turns in their favour?

They spoke about appointments in its lopsided stands, but were they not silent when all these lopsided appointments were ongoing especially under the current administration? If truth be told, can they point to ten cleaners for each of them that they have brought to the Federal establishments that are Christians from their own constituencies? Of course, there is one or two who may beat their chest to point out but certainly only one out of the speakers and that is the man from Bauchi.

I am from the north and I know that every Muslim is a brother to anyone called Muslim. Can the Christian say the same despite the everyday Biblical teachings from the pulpit? How many Billionaires are sitting in the Church every Sunday with the poor sitting next to them for years but they could not offer them the opportunity to stand on their feet? Is it Godly that the poor in Church should always admire and dream in the deception that it is well while the well that should happen is sitting next to such without the move from the words being poured in all vexations by the preacher because nothing seems to be happening?

Muslim-muslim ticket: When ‘Political Traders’ gathered in the name of APC Northern Christians

One of the speakers, who attended an envious position, could not help a sister, who was framed at her work place despite coming out clean after the committee that was set finds her not guilty of the crime. Instead, he collected money in foreign currency to deny her position and left her jobless for 17 years owing to his greed. The worst still is that giving her narration, she never mentioned a Muslim name to her predicament but all the craftiness was hatched by her own so-called brothers working together for the glory of the Cross.

It is a pity to try to convince Christians to support such evil and clandestine moves in the name of the Lord. When Christians should gather for a just course, let it be without reservations and seeking for support from Egypt. God is not a gambler and God cannot be mocked for whatever even political calculations. ‘If my people who are called by my name should humble themselves and turnout from their wicked ways and seek my face then will I hear from heaven and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14.

Perhaps this group should stop blaming the Muslims for the muslim-muslim ticket and look inward. I hate the lines of the discussion I am reading in their text that the Muslims started the politics of religion. Why did they always choose to play the second fiddle? By failing in their own rights to unite the Christians and empower them for today’s glory, they will always cry for their tomorrow’s regrets.

Muslim-muslim ticket: When ‘Political Traders’ gathered in the name of APC Northern Christians

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Columns

University Courses: Marketable and Non-Marketable Courses—How True?

Published

on

University Courses: Marketable and Non-Marketable Courses—How True?

By: Balami Lazarus

Let me make it clear hereinafter that I am not against any academic course or the role of guidance and counseling for good career choice, provided that our young men and women will be guided properly. Not long ago, I visited a friend who teaches at one of the universities. It was interesting to be with him, having spent years without seeing each other.

My friend and I took time out and had a long discussion on national issues concerning our country in an attempt to proffer verbal solutions that will only end and stop as mere talks, which most Nigerians are good at doing, including this writer.

In furtherance to our discussion, I was very particular about education and how to improve the sector in terms of standards, academic excellence, and skills. I also raised the issue of corruption in the system. In the process I immediately recalled what some parents and guardians are peddling around saying: “There are marketable and non-marketable courses in our universities.

“For me, I know that for hundreds of years, universities are known to be great centers of teaching, learning,learning and research, contributing to arts, science, and technology for the purpose of national development. My friend was quick to add that “the academic corruption is perpetrated by some lecturers and students, monetarily and sexually.”

Having discussed the corruption bug. I asked the university Don if there are any courses as marketable and non-marketable courses in our universities. This one question gave the Don a good laugh. He looked at me and said, “I have spent years as a teacher in the university academic department. I have never heard of any course(s) known as marketable and non-marketable academic disciplines or any faculty/department that run such courses.

As young secondary school students aspiring to go to the university to study courses of our choices where our interest lies and looking forward to becoming either political scientists, engineers, lawyers, historians, or doctors, and so on. In this regard, we had never heard or been told by our teachers or parents that there are marketable and non-marketable academic courses. Therefore, we should study the marketable courses.

The question I always asked myself was, where are these courses? What we have in our universities are courses leading to different human endeavors. Whatever one decided to call these courses, what is obtainable today is the need to have to add skills to your academic training; employers of labor are today skills-oriented for those who are hoping to be employed.

Balami, a Publisher/Columnist, 08036779290

University Courses: Marketable and Non-Marketable Courses—How True?

Continue Reading

Columns

With Fury of a Tempest, Alau Dam Flood 

Published

on

With Fury of a Tempest, Alau Dam Flood 

By: Balami Lazarus 

Who wants to be a millionaire? a television quiz program anchored by one Frank Idoho, which I hardly missed. I recalled a question once asked: Where is Lake Alau? In the options, there was Borno state among other states. The young man on the hot seat gave a wrong answer. I believe because Lake Alau was then not popular, unlike its cousin, Lake Chad. 

Not much is known about the Lake, Alau, and the dam known and called Lake Alau Dam put together. Let me first start with the lake as a natural geographical feature, a large body of water surrounded by land. However, and to the best of my findings, there is no available written document on the history of this lake in question. But it held that the Lake was there many years traceable to the period of the Kanem- Borno Empire. While the present Alau was a small settlement that emerged during the formative years of Shehu’s dynasty from 1846 to the present day. It later grew into a village with people of Kanuri extraction. 

Alau is today part of the Konduga Local Government Area of Borno state, some few kilometers away from Maiduguri city center. For the purpose of providing portable drinking water and to improve agriculture through irrigation farming and fishing, a dam was constructed by the past administration of the state from 1984 to 1986. The project was tagged as Water for Borno. Thereby, Lake Alau Dam has become part of the people’s lives, for its importance cannot be quantified. 

The recent Alau Dam flood that nearly swept away the city of Maiduguri came with a raging fury of a tempest in September 2024 I will liken to one of the works of William Shakespeare—”The Tempest.”TheTempest”. That of the play was simply and deliberately raised to humble palace traitor Antonio and his co-conspirators, who ousted Duke Prospero, whom they marooned on a deserted island, leaving him to his fate. But ours came with devastating destruction and killing with ravaging effect from head to tail, which has caused unestimated damage. 

The flood was not because of the heavy rainfall experienced last season but from the overflow of the dam and subsequent breakoff of its decks. My last visit to Lake Alau Dam with some friends was years back. What was observed and saw were obsolete facilities that were outdated, old, and weakly decked. There was nothing to show that the dam is being cared for. But while growing up in Zaria as kids, we were so used to seeing Kubani and the University (ABU) dams being opened up to let out large quantities of water to avoid overflow and flooding. Has Alau Dam ever experienced that? Has it been dredged? 

Therefore, the 13-man committee led by Mr. Liman Gana Mustapha, a professional town planner, may wish to consider these questions as an inroad to finding a lasting solution to the flood matter. 

Balami, a Publisher/Columnist. 08036779290

With Fury of a Tempest, Alau Dam Flood 

Continue Reading

Columns

The Rise and Fall of Garkida, a Social Decline

Published

on

The Rise and Fall of Garkida, a Social Decline 

By: Balami Lazarus 

In my recent visit to see my aged mother in Shaffa, a small rural town. In a chat with some of my peers, Garkida came up, and one of us immediately informed the group that the town is socially dredged. I made some findings, and you may wish to agree. I believed students of history my generation were once taught about the rise and fall of great empires, kingdoms, rulers, warriors, and other historical events during our secondary school days. In the cause of those lessons, our imaginations were always taken far to other lands. 

We never thought that someday there would be a fall or decline of our own, which could be a town, village, or settlement, but never like the fall of the known historical empires/kingdoms of Oyo, Jukun, Fante/Ashante, Kanem-Borno, Songhai, etc. To rise is a difficult task in life or in the course of growth, be it individual, town, or city. But to fall is easy. Garkida has rose and fallen, or, to say, declined socially. Once a bubbling rural town in Buraland, being in Gombi Local Government Area of Adamawa State has nose-dived from the social ladder. 

As a historian, I will not subscribe to the use of the term fall; it will defile my histo-journalistic sense of reasoning because Garkida is a proper noun and is there real. So it will rather go well with me and perhaps some readers of this essay to accept Declined as a better use of historical language for the purpose of this work. I am not a native of Garkida and have never lived there, but it was the home of my cousins and nieces long before now. 

As a young man, I had it well with friends when the town was in her social chemistry and apogee. In spite of her decline, the arrears in our kitty, notwithstanding the flow of time, are the mutual friendship, an indelible mark in our social life. I remember clearly as a holiday-maker with my grandmother at Shaffa, Garkida was the in-thing in our youthful days because of the mass social activities that used to take place there. 

There were social interactions with friends and relatives from different places, parties of all kinds—a social front burner. And to most of my peers, it was the center of today’s mobile social handle—Facebook, where you meet and make new friends. That was Garkida for us. As a rural town, it flourished with glamour, elegance, and pride, triggered by the social engineering of Who is Who? The creme de la creme of her sons and daughters who made nane in their vocations or professions that promoted and spread the name of Garkida as social lighthouse. 

It was the abode of top military brass in the ranks of generals. Her businessmen once made the town tick as a cluster of has.  It was the nerve of vogue and socialites in Buraland. There was declined in this capacity. Historically, Garkida came to the limelight and appeared on the colonial map of Nigeria in 1923, when the white Christian missionaries of CBN/EYN first settled there and made it their home on the 17th March of the aforementioned year. The beginning of her social mobility started in the 1970s, through the 1980s, to the dawn of the 1990s, her zenith. 

I doff my hat for the united daughters of Garkida; credit goes to them; their exposures, taste, beauty, love, elegance, sophistication, unity of purpose, and social agrandisement made them wives of husbands of men from far and near who are of different walks of life. The women of Garkida were a central force, once the venus de milo of the town before its social decline. I cannot conclude this article without appreciating the fact that Garkida was the center of learning and vocational training and once the hold of good and efficient healthcare services in Buraland and its neighbors. Today, Garkida is no longer in the vantage position. 

Balami, a Publisher/Columnist, 08036779290.

Continue Reading

Trending

Verified by MonsterInsights