The Decay of Scholarship and the Fate of Nigeria – Abdulrahman Yunusa
Here in the North we woke up and realized the existence of populous mighty pen and magnificent works of our revered scholars per excellence who happened to be social and political critiques, who also have enormous passion in good governance advocacy and who were regarded as erudite impartial academicians.
INFOMEDIA – By the passage of time history had gave us a priceless lesson in regards to the relationship between academicians, critiques and politicians. Where as it went further and digged out the jeopardies politics has done to our poor homes and through that way we aptly comprehend the dirty relationship among the duo.
Although, based on the nature of our contempoary political atmosphere, it’s perhaps not a sinful act for a scholar or scholars to partake in to the affairs of their beloved state when it’s with the utmost intention of bringing about social change or with motive of contribution toward the revival of the state and the people living withing the state. But when the rationale behind their participation is out of these two context then their inclusion will be regarded as worthless.
Here in the North we woke up and realized the existence of populous mighty pen and magnificent works of our revered scholars per excellence who happened to be social and political critiques, who also have enormous passion in good governance advocacy and who were regarded as erudite impartial academicians.
The likes of Malam Adamu Adamu the current education minister who was before his ministerial appointment wrote numberless papers challenging the then academic standard of his time. He sometimes further reached to a point where he was making a cogent recommendations on how education sector could be revived. But to day here we are, sadly his pen and voice are drastically scarce.
Furthermore, we are living witness to the rise of the giant Bauchi based scholar in person Malam Dr. Aliyu Tilde. I personally came to know the existence of Dr. through his academic publications, journals, articles, poems and the rest and he happened to be a staunch critique of past administration. Although, to my knowledge he was not as hot as Mal Adamu Adamu but he too find it sweet to chastise anyone that goes wrong within the ambit of politics but today with the negative influence of politics his pen run dry and his voice is silently muted.
Same scenario happened to our very famous Sheikh Pantami, prior to his ministerial appointment he was regarded by many people of both of the sects as mentor who harshly portray the naughty side of contempoary politics and politicians. He also mistakenly showered unwelcoming remarks upon those political crooks on the basis of bad performance as overseas of people affairs. All of these matters took place through both audio and audio visual files which some of them are still recorded in our gadgets. Unfortunately his appointment blurred his performance and reduce lots of supporters to the giant digital sheikh.
The above three ( 3 ) examples are owk to give a perfect picture to the abysmal condition we are here in the North. The political appointment has now became a trap to be used by power mongers in quagmiring anyone that seems to be their source of headache or someone who is relevant and respectful in the eyes and heart of the masses.
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Well, based on what I read from Jalaluddin Rumi in his Book ” Fihi ma fihi ” its repugnant and abominable act for a Scholar to dine and wine with elites in same dish for he believe right from there, the respect and charisma they see in the face the scholar will disappear and with that opportunity they will silence him.
Also it’s not the stance of Rumi alone but majority of our Sufist and some few Salafist shared same stance with sufist on that particular aspect.
Notwithstanding among the famous Ancient scholars Socrates and Plato have cautioned the people of their time about the ties between scholars and elites because they sense the bad stale of such gutter relationship which will undermine the phase of development in a society. So they vehemently fought that relation during their time and they admonished the future generation on that similar lane.
This is virtually enough to tell you that politics had done more harm to our society than good, those we accustomed to hear truth from are now silence for political sake, their daily hot criticism which which motivate the politicians and other public office holders are no longer in flowing. Likewise, the knowledge they give free of charge to number of youth about politics and other social phenomenon are now found nowhere.
History is a sharp weapon which we can judiciously use to pin point the error of our people and trace them a portion in it where it contain the real remedy to our tragedy. However, people might think of their relevance is worthless at this time but it’s not, to make a mistake its a mistake and you can be forgiven for that, but to repeat the same mistake in second time is not a mistake. Therefore both of them have second chance to clear their err.
Therein within the history lane we extract a thousand of knowledge both beautiful and ugly ones but all are of great important to our life for it gives us thousands of lessons to learn and understand some lacunies left by our past ancestors.
Meanwhile, through that avenue we come to realize our goofs and procure the knowledge to which we will used to adjust our presents and prepare for the future.
If we play the card of ” I don’t care attitude ” to our obstacles as a baby society then in near future we will come to the juncture where the society will be term as ” History “. until we hold our scholars accountable upon the deterioration of our present society then our past will never be colorful and our kids and grand kids will never forgive us for the mess they would come to find themselves in.
Sadly, these day Scholarship of both Islamic and Western education is experiencing a toughest time in the hand of power holders, where as the elites are striving hard day and night to silence the voice of their critiques within that academic real.
These sad incidents of the rise and fall of our beloved North has portrays the ugly picture of the Nigeria in some years to come and its high time for us to collectively delve in to the lake of thought to explore the remedy which we will used to resuscitate the our home from falling in to the dungeon of misery but if we fail to act diligently, the worst will happen and posterity will never judge us good.
Abdulrahman Yunusa writes from Bauchi
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of INFOMEDIA
