Written By  Yushau A. Shuaib

RE: A VERSE THAT STONES SATAN

Tribune March 25, 2001

Being an avid reader of your (Festus Adedayo) weekly column in the Sunday Tribune, your last bombshell on the Islamic religion was no surprise, afterall you once protested against your God for allegedly being unfair to you in the death of your brother which prompted you to threaten to stop going to church. Your last year derogatory remarks on Islam was met with simultaneous condemnations. But since you have failed to repent and with your recent comment on Islamic pilgrimage, I am compelled to correct the erroneous impression you may have given to the gullible public.

    If because there were incidents in Mecca, you recommended interdiction of the spiritual exercise, then football matches in Europe which routinely witness many deaths in the name of hooliganism, should be proscribed. If because of the death of less than 400 people in a span of five years, you concluded that the injunction is ripe for the dustbin, then Reverend Bonnke whose visit to Benin in three days resulted in more than 20 deaths, must be forbidden from pastoring. His crusade witnessed injury and death to adherents. In fact, boarding schools should be cancelled based on the recent incident in Jos.

    If your advice to Muslim that pilgrimages should be held here in Nigeria is based on patriotism then, the government must stop outright Nigerian academics travelling abroad for further studies, same with Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem, which are not even recognized in the Holy Bible. Foreign trips by government officials and businessmen must be confined to Nigeria, afterall travelling by airplane which is noted for massive deaths through air crashes, cannot be acceptable, a la Festuslogy!

    You need to realize that your sociological views, Marxist ideology and whimsical brouhaha against religious faiths are detrimental to your professional calling as many who cannot reply you may respond with spiritual missiles and even can invoke Fatwa or Intifadah against your person. I hope you know what I mean. It is better to concentrate your energies on fighting against societal ills, moral decadence and public corruption than taking arms against religious practices and acceptable norms.

RE- OPEN BALLOT IS NO IDEAL

Sunday Herald January 13, 1991

Please allow me a space in your widely read newspaper, to correct the misunderstanding and misconception of the open ballot by one Ogom Najim Abdulazeez in the Sunday Herald’s letter page of December 30, 1990 titled “Open Ballot is not ideal.”

    What a hasty criticism by this writer to go to such length to condemn the recent successful election system, which Nigerians daily applause during and after the election for its hitch-free and peaceful conduct witnessed. Being the first successful election ever conducted in the country, it deserves not only words of praise but also a call on the Federal Government to let the open ballot stay, as it has effectively checked rigging, corruption, thuggery and other habitual vices in Nigerian elections.

    I don’t see any reason why Najim brought out a distorted view into limelight. It was not surprising when the write-up completely delved on wrong path of history without giving the needed options and suggestions.

In his write-up, we only read of “Ancient Greek,” the 1856 Australian ballots and the “Great Britain in 1872.” What do we Africans gain in foreign copy-copy not even recent time policies but of primitive ones in the name of having a successful hitch-free election?

    The just concluded local government election is an example to these foreign countries to emulate and not Nigeria imitating theirs. It is time the Giant of Africa realises it’s really a giant.

I call on the Federal Government to let the open ballot system stay forever.

HABA GOVERNOR MADAKI

The Triumph November 13, 1991

Temper in men occupying esteemed powerful positions makes such leaders misuse their public responsibilities and to wallow in an orgy of frustration by castigating their subjects recklessly or those they see as threats to the whimsical ambitions. The men in power view such actions atimes as blatant exhibition of some kind of ideology.

    One writer rightly said that good professional soldier-officers are brought to assume sensitive political offices ill-prepared which they are mostly temperamentally unsuited for..

    This brought me to a recent news story in the Tribune newspaper entitled “Madaki Raps Buhari,” of October 31, on a front page and reported by Etosa Iroh that Governor John Madaki of Katsina State was said to be rapping former Head of State, General Muhammad Buhari with an unsavoury languages on an allegation that he (Madaki) requested for N20 million from the General who is the chairman of Katsina Development Fund, but that the former head of state refused to release the money on the grounds that the fund was not scheduled for the project Madaki had eyed.

    For this, the governor went to the extent of threatening to sack the chairman if he failed to grant him the fund. The accusation as explained by the governor put people in doubt if the state chief executive could indiscriminately utter such disheartening statements against the personality of the former head of state, General Mohammed Buhari.

    We are all living witnesses that Buhari and his lieutenant, Tunde Idiagbon were never at any time accused of corrupt enrichment from public funds during their regime. As such General Buhari could not have gone so low to start stealing now. How can he be accused of attempting to mismanage the fund of a state which was just a local government when he ruled several states as the commander in chief? This brief explanation is to assure the people of Katsina State that General Buhari means no harm to the public treasury/endowment entrusted in his safeguard.

    It is also clear that the governor was irked and saw no reason for Buhari’s intention to call for the committee meeting over the release of the fund. He expected that as a military governor all his requests must be approved and granted without recourse to laid down rules and procedures.

    If Buhari, a chairman of a very sensitive committee could not summon a meeting to dole out such huge sums of money to the governor, how would he account for it once the people ask him? Indeed, Buhari did the right thing by calling for the committee to deliberate on it before any disbursement. Nothing is more becoming of a great man than courtesy of forbearance said in a politeness which has to do with saying the kindest utterance in the kindest manner.