KEY NOTE ADDRESS BY USMAN BUGAJE AT THE NATIONAL
WORKSHOP AND BOOK LAUNCH ON THE LIFE AND LEGACY
OF SHEHU USMAN DAN FODIO ORGANISED BY NDCC & SSWI
AT THE INTERNATIONAL  CONFERENCE CENTRE, ABUJA,
NIGERIA 17TH - 18TH MAY 2004 - Part 1

[Sokoto Caliphate ]   [Critical Success Factors ]     [Our Contemporary Time ]  SOKOTO CALIPHATE: USING THE PAST TO PLAN THE FUTURE I hardly need to remind us that we are gathered here today because a little over two hundred years ago a band of men and women had risen to the challenge of their times by building a formidable intellectual movement which systematically and effectively changed the fortunes of their beleaguered society for good. We are here today because Shehu Danfodio and his team, for the most part of three decades, had summoned courage to challenge the ulama of their days, faced their ruthless rulers, and surmounted one obstacle after the other, with an unshakable conviction in the truth and a faith in the Almighty. We are here because the Jama’a, as they came to be known, made the necessary sacrifices, content with very little, always on the move, forgoing the comfort of their homes, had marshalled the staying power and the unflinching commitment to pursue their objectives diligently and indefatigably. But, perhaps I should add that, we are not here to celebrate, or so I hope. This is not because this unique endeavour and splendid accomplishment is not worth celebrating, rather because of the simple reason that celebration, given our grim circumstances today will not carry us very far. Indeed celebrating past glories too often endangers complacency and I thought we have been complacent for too long now and the terrifying consequences are there for those who care to see. More seriously, celebrating this particular glory could play into the hands of the heirs to a tradition that have long abandoned the more rigorous standards and lofty goals of the founders of the caliphate for the more worldly rewarding expedient complicity. Whether this degeneration is inadvertent or deliberate is not the issue, the issue is that allowing such opportunitism tends to weaken further our moral fibre and does not accord with the honour and esteem that the architects of the caliphate are held. I would rather, therefore, that we are gathered here today to reflect over this astonishing phenomenon called the Sokoto Caliphate, that not only transformed the 19th century Hausaland but also triggered waves of reforms and revolutions that swept Borno and Turko-Egyptian Sudan, in the East; and created Masina and Segu in the West and even crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean Islands where it sowed the seeds of the liberation of the black slaves in the plantations. We should be able to appreciate how the triumvirate of Shehu Usman, Shehu Abdullahi and Sultan Muhammadu Bello, together wrote a total of over three hundred books covering literally every subject under the sun in circumstances where light comes from local lamps of vegetable oil and paper a rare commodity. We should here today be concerned about the way and manner these poor teachers were able to mobilise their scattered society, using their feet and occasionally mules, horses and camels, and amidst the scrutiny of suspicious tyrants, built a formidable movement whose network went beyond the borders of Hausaland and Borno. We should be interested in how these modest scholars with their students were able to mobilise at short notice and face the combined forces of the governments of Hausaland and Borno, won battles after battles and established polities and run them so well that even when the British Imperialist forces took over they had to rely on the administrative machinery put in place by this movement. In this workshop, we should therefore endeavour to fathom this phenomenon, appreciate this feat, discern the lessons and capture the inspirations, if we can. When I was invited to prepare a keynote address for this workshop, I was specifically requested by the organisers to concentrate on what they called, ‘critical success factors’. I am not quite sure what informs this interest or what the organisers wish to make of these factors, but my immediate guess was that these factors could be useful for da’awah workers who wish to tread that path and walk in the shade of the great Shaykh and his students. This assumption raises two immediate concerns in my mind, one very obvious the other perhaps not. The obvious is that, in life as in history, which record of it is, we sometimes learn and benefit more from our failures than our successes. Sokoto Caliphate, being a human effort cannot be perfect and must have its shortcomings, which could be just as instructive. But then contemporary Muslim scholarship appears to have lost its objectivity and thoroughness and the Muslim society itself appears to have lost its rudder and sense of balance and is not comfortable discussing shortcomings. In fact we appear to be so engrossed and pleased with ourselves that we have occupied our time and desecrated our resources in receiving all manner of titles, degrees and merit awards that considering our problems a visitor would not be blamed if he thought that we have been seized by some sub-clinical schizophrenia. Or how else can one explain this madness for recognition, this complex and emptiness that seem to have no limit, this knack for frivolity. A more comprehensive treatment of the subject may, therefore, have to wait for another occasion. The other concern has to do with the application of these critical success factors in our contemporary times. I am not for a moment doubting our abilities to recognise that we are in times that are dramatically different from those of 18th and 19th century Hausaland. My concern arises from our ability or lack of it as it were, to appreciate the future. I am not comfortable with our current understanding of the world around us. We do not seem to appreciate the changes that have been taking place around the world. Our record of management of change even here at home does not encourage me to leave much to chance. I therefore believe it will be necessary to look at these issues before closing this keynote address. I hardly need to add that I will, as you have already noticed, take a few liberties to draw attention to some uncomfortable truths that are often swept under the carpet, in the hope that we should see sense in stopping to play the ostrich and face them and address them. Let me now turn to my primary assignment, the identification of the success factors.