THE ISLAMIC POLITICAL SYSTEM AND
THE POLITICAL FUTURE OF NIGERIA - 1

A paper presented to the National Conference
on the Political Future of Nigeria organized
by the Muslim Forum, Ahmadu Bello University
from 1^st to 3^rd August, 1986
at Kongo Conference Centre, Zaria

[ Uncomfortable Truth ]    [Islamic System ]   [Fundamental Goals]    [Guiding Principles ]  “There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejected false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm hold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower. “Allah is the Protecting Guardian of those who believe. He bringeth them out of darkness into light. As for those who disbelieve, their patrons are false deities. They bring them out of light into darkness Such are rightful owners of the Fire. They will abide therein.” (Q. 2:256 To the extent that it admits the fallacy and utter failure of the political systems  people in Nigeria have had the misfortune of having to go through, the ongoing debate on the political future of Nigeria can be said to be commendable. Indeed the damage these alien political systems have had on our social, economic and moral life as a people is inestimable and may take us a whole generation to rectify. But beyond this admission there is nothing to suggest that the government or its committee of seventeen have fully appreciated the issues involved. Infact, the government by its choice of members of the Political Bureau, the latter by its dearth of vision, and the press by its prejudiced coverage have already betrayed the cause of the debate and shattered the hope people have nursed for an end to this tragedy with its attendant agony. This is neither new nor surprising for betraying causes and shattering hopes have been done so often that they have already become part of our political landscape. People in Nigeria, young and old, have been well socialize into this trait that many have perfected techniques of scratching only the surface of important issues and sweeping some uncomfortable truths under the carpet. If for this alone, it has become necessary to scratch a little deeper than convention allows and bring out a few uncomfortable truth from under the carpet in the hope that we can come to grips with our problems for what they are and end this imbroglio. I.          NIGERIA: THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH. The acclamation which government propaganda machinery (mass media) generously shower on Nigeria, the reverence and sanctity with which government functionaries and their obedient civil servants speak of Nigeria, and the adoration and worship which those of us who, for no choice of our own found ourselves within its boundaries are expected to display towards it, tend to make one forget the actual history of Nigeria. All this gimmick may have well been designed precisely to make us forget the undisputable fact of history that Nigeria was never infact the creation of the people that today live in it. Far from it, Nigeria was singularly the creation of British imperialism, a purely colonial enterprise designed to procure material benefits for the British people. The boundaries that mark Nigeria represent neither the consent nor the convenience nor the aspirations of the people trapped within, but the greed and irresponsibility of the British colonial army. Thus the Muslims of Kanem Borno and Sokoto Caliphate, the people of' Oyo and Benin Empires, the Ibos e.t.c. gradually came to discover that they were all captives of the Queen in a place called Nigeria. Can people of divergent and conflicting worldviews, cultures and history forced under one colonial administrative unit, hardly sharing anything beyond the common misfortune of falling prey to British imperialism, form a nation? Is this common misfortune, which indeed they all share, in itself a sufficient cohesive force to integrate and hold together these diverse groups? The British, perhaps had no answer to such questions for clearly their objective was not to raise a nation much less a cohesive one. Theirs was the exploitation of the human and material resources of their ‘new found land’ and for this all they needed was the maintenance of "Law and Order". Paganism (ostensibly called traditional African religion) with its frail appeal and parochial vision offered no threat to this "Law and Order". It receded, surrendering its adherents to the religion of the colonial masters. Christianity, as the spiritual wing of the colonial enterprise was a full partner and proved to be a formidable weapon in engendering submission and docility, thus came to share the proceeds of the colonial venture. Islam, on the other hand, inspired its adherents to resist the colonial army and even when they lost at the battlefield to continue to resist on the ideological plane. Faced with this serious threat from Islam, British imperialism found it necessary to design ways, some too subtle to discern, to combat the spread of Islam and keep it under check. Immoral in its basis, vicious and wicked in its operations, imperialism cannot coexist with or operate under a moral and conscientious atmosphere. Here again Islam, with its firm moral base and its insistence on justice, equity and fairness, posed a serious threat to imperialism. Thus imperialism found yet another excuse to launch a. total war against Islam and all local values and culture, replacing them with agnostic liberalism, with it licentiousness and remorselessness. This naturally paved the way for the blunting, nay obliteration of societal moral consciousness and the shattering of the moral fibre to a point where right and wrong come to lose their meaning, restraint became difficult and unrewarding and expediency rather than principles came to guide human behaviour. This fraud was further cloaked and promoted under the patented name of secularism which imperialism institutionalized and its neo‑colonial institutions jealously guard. Is it any surprise that corruption is one of the most powerful institutions in contemporary Nigeria, defying all kinds of regimes, occasioning changes of governments and even enthroning its own agents? How can a society spurred by corruption, nourished by agnostic liberalism develop? Can a people devoid of a social morality, possessing neither goals nor ideals save themselves from decay and disintegration? With Islam under close surveillance social morality supplanted and expediency promoted, British colonial forces went about setting the stage for the acquisition of' their loot. Our minerals and agricultural products were carried away to feed British industries while our local industries were suffocated, by the expanding market of British finished products. A dependant economy designed to reduce the indigenous population to perpetual servitude soon developed. An army of entrepreneurs, middlemen, and swindlers and employees whose future became inextricably tied to this dependant economy was raised to give it the local base and protection it needs to thrive. Educational institutions were busy turning out people well tutored in this kind of economics, yearning to join their colleagues to offer their services and ensure the expansion and continuity of this dependant economy. To this day nothing has changed in this respect and to this extent one wonders if a people whose economic policies and priorities are determined not by themselves but by agencies of western imperialism can be said to constitute a nation much less to be free to determine their own socio‑economic and political system. This brings us to the issue of independence. In 1960 the colony Nigeria became independent, or so we are told. Ostensibly this was to mean that its people were free to decide for themselves how they want to live, to draw up their social, economic and educational policies, operate a legal order and a political system of their choice e.t.c. But have we really been free to do that? Beyond the 'change of guards' has anything really changed? Whether it is admitted openly or not, the fact remain that nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed and the Muslims at least are yet to be free. The same imposed English Legal System is holding‑sway; the same educational institutions with their hostilities towards anything Islamic; Muslims demand for the Sharia has been adamantly and shamelessly refused; Islam, its adherents and institutions are daily objects of ridicule by the mass media and focus of surveillance by security agencies; an ordinary and routine representation in the Organisation of Islamic Conference (O.I.C.) has evoked such vehemence from those agencies of imperialism whose assignment it has been to keep Islam under check; one can go on but the list is endless. In a nutshell, what we have today is not the great nation that government officials tell us on official occasions but a group of people of diverse worldviews and cultures lacking any serious cohesion; an  irksome and arrogant Christian minority; an alienated and discontented but unyielding Muslim majority; a few secularized elite filling vacancies created by colonialism; all living in a colony whose economy is wholly controlled by western imperialism. The issues involved in the circumstances are therefore not  the choice of a political system, but far more fundamental. How do we recover our independence from western imperialism; the independence to live according to our conviction, values and culture; the independence to operate, the socio‑economic, legal educational and political systems we believe in, understand and respect; the independence to associate with who we wish, how we wish and when we wish? How can we recover our social morality, define our ideals, develop a vision and a direction to save us from the impending decay?  On what terms shall we continue to co‑exist - should we choose to do so? These are some of the issues we must address ourselves to if the ongoing debate is not to end up as one of those subtle means through which imperialism perpetuates itself. Thus leaving us as enslaved as ever, our problems as unresolved and our hopes as shattered as ever.