Opinion
Opinion: Contextualising the crimes of illicit sexual affair, rape
Zinā is the technical term for any act of illicit sexual affair in the Sharī’ah. Literally, it connotes the act of casting lustful gaze at the opposite gender, engaging in dirty and flirtatious talks, listening, touching and making such moves that are aimed at gratification of the carnal desires.
Muslim reported on the authority of Abū Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said:
إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَتَبَ عَلَى ابْنِ آدَمَ حَظَّهُ مِنَ الزِّنَا، أَدْرَكَ ذَلِكَ لاَ مَحَالَةَ ، فَزِنَا العَيْنِ النَّظَرُ، وَزِنَا اللِّسَانِ المَنْطِقُ ، وَالنَّفْسُ تَمَنَّى وَتَشْتَهِي ، وَالفَرْجُ يُصَدِّقُ ذَلِكَ كُلَّهُ وَيُكَذِّبُهُ
“Verily, Allāh has decreed for every son of Ādam his share of Zinā, which he will inevitably commit. The Zinā of the eyes is looking; the Zinā of the tongue is speaking; the soul may wish and desire, and the private parts confirm that (engage in it) or deny it (refrain).”
This hadīth confirms that every human being is guilty of the crime of Zinā in the literal sense, since everyone falls into it at some point, advertently or inadvertently. However, one may NOT be referred to as Zānī (adulterer/fornicator) or Zāniyah (adulteress/fornicatoress) unless he or she engages in the physical act of intercourse.
The punishment for Zinā in Islām depends on marital status of the individuals involved. For the SINGLE Zānī, it’s a PUBLIC floggin of a hundred strokes of cane, and banishment for the period of 1 year, while the MARRIED Zāni is to be stoned to DEATH. This is the consensus opinion of the scholars of the Ummah since the time of the Rasūl ﷺ till our present time. It is also the view of all the scholars whose opinions on matters of the Dīn matter.
فإذا كان الزاني حراً محصناً رُجم حتى الموت رجلاً كان أو امرأة ، وهو محل إجماع
“If the Zānī is a freeborn who is married, he is to be stoned to death, whether male or female. This is a matter of consensus.”
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Ibn Qudāmah رحمه الله said:
وأجمع عليه أصحاب محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم ، وعن أحمد رواية أنه يجلد ويرجم ، والمذهب الرجم فقط ، كما اتفق الفقهاء على أن الزاني غير المحصن رجلاً كان أو امرأة يجلد مائة جلدة إن كان حراً ، وأما العبد والأمة فحدهما خمسون جلدة سواء كانا بكرين أو ثيبين
“The Companions of the Prophet ﷺ all agreed on this issue. A report from Imām Ahmad states that such a Zānī be flogged a 100 times & then stoned to death. However, the position of the Hanābilah madh-hab is stoning to death only. The jurists are also unanimous that the unmarried Zānī, male or female is to be lashed a 100 times if he’s a freeborn. As for the slave male or female, the punishment is 50 lashes whether he/she is married.”
It is important to note that the hadd punishment mentioned above is APPLICABLE only to the traditional definition of Zinā as
إيلاج/ مَغِيبُ الحَشَفَةِ ,في فَرجٍ مُحَرَّمٍ
“penetration of the vagina (or anus) that is legally prohibited with the tip of the penis (whether or not ejaculation occurs).” That is, the perpetrator would be guilty of Zinā even if it was just the tip of his penis that had penetrated the forbidden hole.
Further explanations reveal that the act must neither be done under duress nor in ambiguous circumstances (شُبْهَة). Any other illicit sexual affair will carry the DISCRETIONARY punishments to be determined by the judge. Such includes touching, kissing, romancing, penetration of the mouth, the breasts, the hips, etc with the penis.
Furthermore, the Sharī’ah’s perspective of Zinā has NOTHING to do with CONSENT. What distinguishes Zinā from licit intercourse is VALID MARRIAGE, not CONSENT. This is also why the concept of MARITAL RAPE has NO BASIS in the Sharī’ah. Marriage validates sexual gratification among spouses. A woman may not refuse her husband sex without valid reasons of menstruation, postpartum bleeding, illness, obligatory fast, or injury. If he goes ahead and penetrates her forcefully, against her will, he’s a sinner but not a RAPIST in the context of the Sharī’ah.
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The crime of Zinā is established in the Sharī’ah through voluntary confession of the culprit(s), statements of FOUR credible witnesses, or (in modern times to some extent) through DNA tests. However, as Shaykh Wahbah Az-Zuhaylī puts it, “The DNA does not provide independent evidence in the sense of the court issuing a sentence solely on its basis, but it does provide supportive and persuasive evidence for a court decision.”
The reason for this skeptical approach to DNA results in establishing crimes is the fact that it may be fabricated, falsified and tampered with, just as its reliability may diminish with the lapse of time between the occurrence of the incident and its collection.
Concerning rape, the technical term for it in the Sharī’ah is الاغْتِصابُ. Literally, it means to take a thing by force. It is the worst form of Zinā because of its physical, mental and psychological effects on the victim. All the Scholars of Islām condemn the crime of rape in the harshest of terms. They are also unanimous in their opinion that a rapist is deemed a Zānī and would be punished according to his marital status (as stated above).
Imām Mālik رحمه الله in his Muwatta’ (2/734) said:
الأمر عندنا في الرجل يغتصب المرأة بكراً كانت أو ثيبا : أنها إن كانت حرة : فعليه صداق مثلها , وإن كانت أمَة : فعليه ما نقص من ثمنها ، والعقوبة في ذلك على المغتصب ، ولا عقوبة على المغتصبة في ذلك كله ” انتهى .
“Our position on the rapist who forcefully has carnal knowledge of a woman whether she’s single or married is that, if she’s a freeborn, he must pay her the dower of a woman of her status and if she’s a slave girl, he must pay the sum of what has diminished of her value. The punishment for the crime is on the rapist. The victim is not to be punished in such cases.”
Ibn ‘Abdilbarr in al-Istidhkār 7/146 further elaborates on the issue when he submitted thus:
وقد أجمع العلماء على أن على المستكرِه المغتصِب الحدَّ إن شهدت البينة عليه بما يوجب الحد ، أو أقر بذلك ، فإن لم يكن : فعليه العقوبة (يعني : إذا لم يثبت عليه حد الزنا لعدم اعترافه ، وعدم وجود أربعة شهود ، فإن الحاكم يعاقبه ويعزره العقوبة التي تردعه وأمثاله) ولا عقوبة عليها إذا صح أنه استكرهها وغلبها على نفسها ، وذلك يعلم بصراخها ، واستغاثتها ، وصياحها
“The scholars have all agreed the rapist shall be given the hadd punishment if credible proofs necessitating such punishment are established against him, or he confesses to committing it. In the absence of such proofs, the judge shall exercise his discretion in punishing him in a way that will deter him and others like him. The victim is not to be punished if it’s proven that he overpowered her and forced himself on her. Such can be known through her cry for help and shouts.”
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Protection of life and honour are fundamental aspects of the Cardinal Objectives of the Sharī’ah. It is for this reason that it has laid down strict procedures for the establishment of claims against one another. Bukhāri & Muslim reported on the authority of ibn Abbās that the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said:
لَوْ يُعْطَى اَلنَّاسُ بِدَعْوَاهُمْ, لَادَّعَى نَاسٌ دِمَاءَ رِجَالٍ, وَأَمْوَالَهُمْ, وَلَكِنِ اَلْيَمِينُ عَلَى اَلْمُدَّعَى عَلَيْهِ
“If people were given whatever they claimed (in disputes), some people would claim the lives and wealth of others; but the oath (of denial) must be taken by the defendant.”
In the narration by Al-Bayhaqī:
اَلْبَيِّنَةُ عَلَى اَلْمُدَّعِي, وَالْيَمِينُ عَلَى مَنْ أَنْكَرَ
“The burden of proof lies on the claimant, and oath must be taken by the one rejecting the claim.”
Based on this hadīth, the crime of rape cannot be brought against anyone without CONCRETE proofs beyond any shadow of doubt. Crimes are to be proven before the judge in a court of competent jurisdiction and not on the social media. Where there are no concrete proofs establishing guilt of the accused, the judge may look into the circumstantial evidence and exercise his discretionary powers.
However, if the victim was able to prove that the rapist gagged her mouth and restrained her, or knocked her out by the aid of pills or gas, or threatened her life with dangerous weapons, such a RAPIST is considered a مُحارِبٌ and, depending on the degree of his culpability, the judge is expected to apply any of the injunctions in Q.5:33 based on his discretion:
إِنَّمَا جَزَاءُ الَّذِينَ يُحَارِبُونَ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ وَيَسْعَوْنَ فِي الأَرْضِ فَسَاداً أَنْ يُقَتَّلُوا أَوْ يُصَلَّبُوا أَوْ تُقَطَّعَ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَأَرْجُلُهُمْ مِنْ خِلافٍ أَوْ يُنْفَوْا مِنَ الأَرْضِ ذَلِكَ لَهُمْ خِزْيٌ فِي الدُّنْيَا وَلَهُمْ فِي الآخِرَةِ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ
“The penalty of those who wage war against Allāh and His Messenger and seek corruption in the land is to be killed, or crucified, or to have their hands and feet cut on alternate sides, or to be banished from the land. That is their disgrace in this world, and in the Hereafter they shall have a great punishment.”
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In a situation (though rare) where the victim of rape is a male, scholars of Islām have differed on the appropriate ruling in this regard.
قال ابن قدامة
فَصْلٌ: وَإِنْ أُكْرِهَ الرَّجُلُ فَزَنَى، فَقَالَ أَصْحَابُنَا: عَلَيْهِ الْحَدُّ. وَبِهِ قَالَ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ الْحَسَنِ، وَأَبُو ثَوْرٍ؛ لِأَنَّ الْوَطْءَ لَا يَكُونُ إلَّا بِالِانْتِشَارِ، وَالْإِكْرَاهُ يُنَافِيهِ. فَإِذَا وُجِدَ الِانْتِشَارُ انْتَفَى الْإِكْرَاهُ، فَيَلْزَمُهُ الْحَدُّ، كَمَا لَوْ أُكْرِهَ عَلَى غَيْرِ الزِّنَى، فَزَنَى.
Ibn Qudāmah رحمه الله notes:
“Chapter: If a man was forced to commit Zinā and he commits it, our companions (Hanābilah) said: he shall face the hadd punishment. This is the view of Muhammad bn Al-Hasan (Ash-Shaybānī) and Abū Thawr. This is because sex cannot occur without erection, and duress makes erection impossible. So if he has erection, it’s not treated as forced sex and as such he would be given the hadd punishment just as if he was forced to do something else and he commits Zinā.”
He continues:
وَقَالَ الشَّافِعِيُّ، وَابْنُ الْمُنْذِرِ: لَا حَدَّ عَلَيْهِ؛ لِعُمُومِ الْخَبَرِ، وَلِأَنَّ الْحُدُودَ تُدْرَأُ بِالشُّبُهَاتِ، وَالْإِكْرَاهُ شُبْهَةٌ، فَيَمْنَعُ الْحَدَّ، كَمَا لَوْ كَانَتْ امْرَأَةً، يُحَقِّقُهُ أَنَّ الْإِكْرَاهَ، إذَا كَانَ بِالتَّخْوِيفِ، أَوْ بِمَنْعِ مَا تَفُوتُ حَيَاتُهُ بِمَنْعِهِ، كَانَ الرَّجُلُ فِيهِ كَالْمَرْأَةِ، فَإِذَا لَمْ يَجِبْ عَلَيْهَا الْحَدُّ، لَمْ يَجِبْ عَلَيْهِ. وَقَوْلُهُمْ: إنَّ التَّخْوِيفَ يُنَافِي الِانْتِشَارَ. لَا يَصِحُّ؛ لِأَنَّ التَّخْوِيفَ بِتَرْكِ الْفِعْلِ، وَالْفِعْلُ لَا يُخَافُ مِنْهُ، فَلَا يَمْنَعُ ذَلِكَ. وَهَذَا أَصَحُّ الْأَقْوَالِ، إنْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى.
“Ash-Shāfi’ī and ibn al-Mundhir said: he shall not face the hadd punishment, based on the general implication of the texts, and also because capital punishments are waived by ambiguities. Duress is a form of ambiguity and as such, hadd punishment shall not be applicable in such circumstances. This is the same ruling if the victim were a woman. If a man’s life was threatened, his case is similar to that of a woman penetrated by force. Both would not be punished. As for the statement of those who say, “threat to life makes erection impossible, this is not correct. This is the most sound of opinions.”
Nowadays, it is possible to force a man to have erection through admission of aphrodisiacs (injections, pills, or drinks). This further refutes the claim of those who say that duress makes erection impossible.
Finally, it is important to abide by the clear rules that Islām has laid down aimed at blocking all the means to evils. Our emphasis should not be on the sexual aspect of rape only, but on all forms of objectification and degradation of women’s status by artists and business owners through advertisement of goods and services.
Dr. Sanusi Lafiagi is a lecturer in Department of Islamic Studies, Al-Hikmah University Ilorin
Opinion
Names for pig and pig meat in English Muslims should know – Farooq Kperogi
Names for pig and pig meat in English Muslims should know – Farooq Kperogi
In the spirit of Ramadan, I am republishing a revised version of an article I wrote in June 2017 in my defunct “Politics of Grammar” column about pig-based meats and foods that Muslims are forbidden from eating but which many of them who visit the West unwittingly eat on occasion because of their poly-appellativeness (my coinage for multiple names.)
The column was inspired by an encounter I had in 2015. A Muslim high court judge from Osun State nearly ate pepperoni pizza (pepperoni is a mixture of beef and pork) at a workshop for Nigerian judges that I facilitated here in the United States. I knew he was an observant Muslim because we’d prayed together, and he’d shared concerns about the ubiquity of pork in Western culinary choices.
During lunch break, I saw him with slices of pepperoni pizza amid several people. I beckoned to him to come immediately, but he was really hungry, so he said I should give him a few minutes to finish his food.
I know enough Yoruba to know that pig is called “alede” and eat is “je.” I combined the words to make a sentence that I didn’t think made much sense. He jumped out of his seat instinctively and asked me in English if what he was about to eat contained pork. I answered in the affirmative.
He went straight to the bathroom and vomited, even though he hadn’t eaten anything. I felt sorry for him. He refused to eat or drink anything thereafter.
Another inspiration for this column derives from the tales of distress and guilt I’ve heard from many Muslim visitors to the West who consumed pig meat or who were awfully close to doing so out of ignorance of the deceptive appellative trappings of many pork-based gastronomic products.
For instance, at least five Muslims have told me that they either ate or almost ate a pig-based meat product called “salami” because they were deceived by the lexical similarities between “salami” and “salam” (Arabic for “peace”) and were misled into thinking they were eating halal meat.
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What could be more halal, they thought, than a meat that shares lexical and phonological similarities with “salam,” the short form of the Muslim, Arabic-derived greeting, As-salamu alaykum, and the root word of Islam itself?
In fact, many African Muslims bear the name Salami as the short form of Abdulsalam or “Abdus Salam (which stands for servant of the Peaceful, “salam” being one of the 99 names of Allah.) (Africans typically add a terminal vowel to every word or name. Thus, “Salam” becomes “Salami.”)
So how did pig meat come to share lexical similarities with the name of Allah and/or the short form of the most common greeting among Muslims, especially given that pork is prohibited in Islam?
A northern Nigerian Muslim who ate salami in London in ignorance told me he was sure that the choice of the name was a deliberate “Zionist plot to make Muslims eat pork.” That’s not true. First, Jews, like Muslims, are forbidden from eating pork. Second, the phonemic similarity between “salami” to “salaam” is actually accidental.
Salami is salted Italian pork sausage (more about this later.) “Salami” is derived from the Latin name for salt, which is “sal.” The Italian suffix “ame” is used to form collective nouns. For example, foglia, which means “leaf,” becomes fogliame when used as a collective noun. So salame actually literally means “salts,” but specifically salted meats. (“Salami” is the plural form of salame). The association of salami with salted pork came later.
Interestingly, this pork-based meat is called “salam” in Romanian, Bulgarian, and Turkish!
Well, there are few animals in the English language that trump “pig” in abundance of alternative names for it.
This includes names that indicate gender (such as “boar” for male pig and “sow” and “gilt” for female pig) and names that indicate age (such as “piglet,” “farrow,” or “shoat/shote” for young pigs).
A pig is also called a “hog,” a “swine,” a “grunter,” a “squealer,” a “sus scrofa,” a “porker,” and a “cobb roller.”
Most people know “pork” as the culinary noun for meat from pig, but there are way more pig-based foods and meats than “pork” that several people, especially Muslims who are prohibited from eating pork, are not familiar with. I list 14 more below as a public service.
1. “Bacon”: This is usually served during breakfast at homes and in hotels—along with eggs and sausage. It’s thin, sliced, salted, fried and brownish pork. It’s one of the most traditional culinary treats in the West. It’s so central to the gastronomy of the West that it appears in idioms such as “bring home the bacon,” which means to be the breadwinner, to be responsible for one’s family’s material wellbeing.
Most people know that bacon is derived from pig, but I have met many Muslim visitors to America, especially from Nigeria, who don’t know this. It’s also less commonly called “flitch.”
2. “Banger”: This is chiefly British English. Banger is pork cut into tiny pieces, seasoned, and stuffed in casings. The usual name for this elsewhere is “sausage” (see 3 below). It appears in collocations such as “banger and beans,” “bangers and mash,” etc.
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3. “Bratwurst (or just brat)”: Just like “banger” is chiefly British, “bratwurst” is mostly German. It’s a popular German pork sausage, although it’s often mixed with beef. In America bratwursts are called “brats.” (Sausage is any type of minced meat, mostly pork, that is seasoned and stuffed in casings).
4. “Chitlings” or “chitlins” or “chitterlings”: It is the intestines of a pig, which American blacks ate as food during slavery because it was one of the few sources of protein available to them.
Several decades after slavery, chitlins (also spelled chitlings and chitterlings) are still an African-American delicacy. If you are a Muslim who wants to experience African-American culinary delights, often called “soul food,” be sure to avoid “chitlings.” It’s just a cute word for the intestines of pigs.
5. “Chops” or “pork chops”: I know “chop” means “eat” in West African Pidgin English. But in Standard English it can mean a small cut of meat. It usually, though, is a small cut of meat from cooked pig. That’s why the usual phrase is pork chops, but it is also frequently rendered as “chops,” and that’s where people unfamiliar with the culinary vocabularies of the West might be misled into thinking they are eating a small cut of beef or mutton, etc.
6. “Frank” or “Frankfurter”: This is a type of smooth, minced, smoked pork often served in a bread roll. It is sometimes made of beef or a mixture of beef and pork. It’s generally called “hot dog,” especially in American English, and it’s so named because some people suspected, without any proof, that in Germany, where it was invented in the city of Frankfurt, dog meat was surreptitiously inserted into the meat since Germans ate dogs up until the 20th century.
Other names for franks or Frankfurters are “dog,” “weenie,” “wiener,” “wienie,” and “wienerwurst.” Although hot dogs or Franks started in Germany, they have become a staple of American street cuisine.
Thankfully, there are now turkey hot dogs, beef hot dogs, and chicken hot dogs, but the most popular ones are the pork-based ones. It’s always good to ask before you buy.
7. “Gammon”: This is pork taken from the thighs of a pig. It’s derived from the Latin word “gamba,” which means leg. It’s also called jambon or, more commonly, ham.
8. “Kielbasa”: This is the Polish word for pork-based sausage, which has achieved widespread acceptance in American English, especially in northeastern United States. It’s also called “Polish sausage” because it’s originally from Poland.
9. “Liverwurst”: Sometimes people in the West grind the liver of pigs and stuff them in casings. Germans call it leberwurst, which has been Anglicized to liverwurst. It’s also called “liver pudding” or “liver sausage.” Wurst, as you’ve probably guessed, is German for sausage.
10. “Rasher”: This is another name for bacon. Note that because of increasing pressure from Muslims and Jews, there’s now bacon or rasher made entirely from beef, turkey, chicken, or goat. If in doubt, ask.
11. “Ribs (or baby back ribs)”: This is meat from the ribs of a pig. But the term can seem like a generic reference to the ribs of any animal. It is also called back ribs or loin ribs.
12. “Pancetta”: It is Italian pork, derived from the belly of the pig. It is dried, salted, and chemically processed.
13. “Prosciutto”: As you’ve probably guessed, it’s also an Italian word. It is ham (see number 7 above) that has been dried and salted.
14. “Sowbelly”: It is salted pork cut from the belly. Other obvious names are “pork bellies” and “pork slab.”
Names for pig and pig meat in English Muslims should know – Farooq Kperogi
Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian newspaper columnist and United States-based Professor of Media Studies.
Opinion
Mass kidnappings : The truth Nigerians do not want to hear – Femi Fani-Kayode
Mass kidnappings : The truth Nigerians do not want to hear – Femi Fani-Kayode
Worst still, many of them, particularly in the younger generation, find it difficult to read more than three lines even though it is to their own shame and detriment.
For those that have the gravitas, insight, foresight, profundity and intellectual virility to read and comprehend the counsel I have offered in this write-up, I urge you to bookmark it and wait and see what unfolds unless and until we quickly identify and recognise the problem and address the issues raised.
There are two reasons for the mass abductions and kidnappings that we are witnessing in our country today.
Firstly to garner cash which is then sent abroad to buy more arms and fund terror and secondly to destabilise our country and to discredit and undermine the credibility of our President and the Federal Government.
I hope and pray that someone is listening because this is precisely what we witnessed when the Chibok girls and other children were abducted over the years and the motives are the same.
Those that think it is only about the acquisition of money are naive and ignorant.
There is far more to it than that and there are numerous shady and sinister characters, international criminal cartels, foreign Governments and intelligence agencies and local accomplices and facilitators that are involved in this great evil.
Targeted
Nigeria has been targeted for destruction, division and disintegration by those that see us as a threat to their regional hegemony, strategic national interests and imperialist aspirations but most of us still don’t get it and perhaps never will.
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They do not want a strong, united, prosperous and regionally dominant Nigeria but would rather turn us into a pathetic and pitiful shadow of our former selves, a cowardly and quivering caricature of what we once were and a weak, divided, incredulous and headless pawn and set us up for self-destructive economic and military annihilation.
They know that a strong Nigeria, like a strong South Africa, would stand up to them in the arena of world politics and international affairs and ensure that our collective interests as Nigerians and Africans would be protected and they do not want this.
As a matter of fact for us to achieve that enviable status is not just their greatest fear but their worse nightmare.
They ask themselves in their corporate boardrooms, presidential palaces, cabinet meetings and legislative chambers, who can stand up to a strong Nigeria?
They wonder where else they would get their free mineral resources and be in a position to manipulate and dictate to servile leaders if not Nigeria?
And if Nigeria were to fail, fall and go the way they want us to who would stand and speak for Africa and the black man in the comity of nations?
If the truth be told without a strong, flourishing and virile Nigeria Africa is nothing and the black man is nowhere and this is precisely why the powers that be, when it comes to world politics and the international community, do not want us to succeed.
As far as they are concerned we are too weak, corrupt, ignorant, primitive, backward, servile, self-hating and dumb to achieve anything meaningful and we are more than happy to spend the next 100 years as a nation and a people that seek nothing but validation, leadership and guidance from them.
Yet how wrong they are. They have no idea who and what we are and deep down they fear us and recognise the fact that an unbound and unfettered Nigeria with strong, bold, articulate, confident and fearless leaders that do not seek their approval or validation and that have no interest in remaining as their slaves would be their worse nightmare. Such leaders would be dangerous to their evil cause and their attempt to sow the seeds of civil war, hardship and economic paralysis in our country.
Fight back
It is time that we confront the matter with an iron hand and fight back to save Nigeria.
It is time for us to get off our knees, to throw away the begging bowl, to stop constantly seeking validation from those that do not wish us well, to stop blindly implementing their disastrous economic models which seek to impoverish and destroy our people, to uproot and reject their well-planted seeds of division and to stop tolerating their subversive activities.
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Ask yourself, who funds the terrorists and bandits and where do they get their weapons from?
They did it in Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Algeria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria and so many other countries over the years and decades and now they are doing it here.
Ask yourself who was behind the attack on a mosque in which worshippers were killed on Friday in Kaduna and what was the purpose of this abominable and condemnable act of terror if not to destabilise us and create panic and chaos in our nation?
Again how is it that just a few days after the mass abduction of women in Gamburu Ngala, Borno state and just one day after the kidnapping of 280 female students in Kuriga, Kaduna state yet another 15 students were abducted in Gidan Bakuso, Sokoto state just yesterday.
All this nonsense must stop and we must desist from refusing to acknowledge that we now have and indeed have always had a major problem which needs to be acknowledged and be solved.
None of these things happen by chance and what we are witnessing is a deep seated and long term conspiracy to literally end our nation as we know it and throw us into a state of fear, poverty, anomie, anarchy, fratricidal butchery and carnage.
Worst of all is the fact that our so called “best friends” and “allies” in the west and the international community are the ones behind it.
We need help and if we can get it from the Russians, the Chinese and even the Iranians in order to restore our peace, self respect, freedom, dignity and prosperity we should do so.
Asking the West for help either in intelligence gathering, advice or covert Military operations when it comes to the fight against the terrorists and insurgents in Nigeria is like asking the big bad wolf to save little Red Riding Hood.
It cannot work because ultimately they are the hidden hand behind our numerous travails and they are the enemy.
May God open our eyes and deliver our nation and may we cultivate the fortitude and courage to come together as a people, eschew our differences, resist the evil and save our nation.
•Fani-Kayode, the Sadaukin of Shinkafi and the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, is a lawyer, a former Minister of Aviation and a former Minister of Culture and Tourism.
Mass kidnappings : The truth Nigerians do not want to hear – Femi Fani-Kayode
Opinion
Rise of right-wing economic populism in Nigeria – Farooq Kperogi
Rise of right-wing economic populism in Nigeria – Farooq Kperogi
Over the last few months, I have unconsciously transitioned from keyboard diarrhea to mental constipation and have pulled back from social media engagements. I even struggle to write my weekly columns.
It’s precisely because toxic, unthinking, IMF-manufactured, right-wing economic populism has become hegemonic and taken firm roots in Nigeria. Blaming Tinubu for his right-wing economic policies while ignoring the fact that his opponents subscribe to the same policies is the kind of hypocrisy my mental, emotional, or ideological constitution is incapable of tolerating.
Right-wing or conservative economic populism manifests differently in different countries, but its core lies in weaponizing the general population’s concerns and frustrations, particularly around economic issues, to advocate poisonous, anti-people, market-centric, neoliberal economic policies while blaming an invisible elite or establishment class that supposedly controls power and resources to the detriment of the majority.
In Nigeria, conservative economic populism consists of the intentionally deceitful and absurd but nonetheless successful (at least for now) demonization of subsidies, especially petrol subsidies.
Nigeria’s elite-created economic woes are fraudulently attributed to the dispensation of subsidies. The masses of unsuspecting chumps in the country are then whipped into a senseless frenzy about an invisible, unidentified class of “subsidy thieves” who putatively suck up our commonwealth through petrol subsidies and who would wither and perish when subsidies are removed.
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That’s classic right-wing economic populism. Well, experience is showing that it’s actually the masses that are withering and perishing after petrol subsidies have been removed. An acquittance who passionately opposed my recommendation to Tinubu to not remove petrol subsidies in my April 29, 2023, column by regurgitating the banal talking points of hard-hearted neoliberal hawks reached out to me a few days ago to admit that he was a gormless fool to believe the propaganda that petrol subsidies didn’t benefit the masses.
It took the collapse of his small transportation business and the descent of his previously thriving relatives into the dark depths of despair and poverty in less than one year after the removal of petrol subsidies for him to come to the realization that citizens of every country need subsidies.
Another central plank of Nigerian right-wing economic populism is the advocacy for the devaluation of the naira. It’s also known by the fancy name of “floating the naira.” The idea that the naira is “over-valued” and should be allowed to find its true worth in the crucible of demand and supply is a standard arsenal in the rhetorical armory of conservative economic populists in Nigeria.
Yet another favorite shtick of the treacherous tribe of neoliberal vampires in Nigeria is to capitalize on the well-known inefficiency of civil service bureaucracies to advocate the privatization of everything and the mass retrenchment of workers.
Yet these are really old, discredited Structural Adjustment Program policies that the IMF and the World Bank imposed on developing countries, which devastated national economies, caused the untimely deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, which the IMF was compelled to slyly apologize for amid mounting evidence of their tragic failure.
The same rotten and venomous policies have been repackaged, aromatized, and re-presented to developing countries as new and effective elixirs. Every developing country that has embraced them is now coping with potentially explosive internal turmoil.
Like Nigeria, Egypt recently accepted to devalue its currency by more than 68 percent and remove subsidies that lighten the burden of existence for ordinary folks in exchange for an $8 billion loan from the IMF.
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Everyone within striking distance of becoming president in Nigeria in 2023 subscribed—and still subscribes—to the consensus that the IMF and the World Bank are inviolable economic oracles that must not be disobeyed, that subsidies must be eliminated and the poor be left to fend for themselves, and that the market is supreme and should be left to determine the value of everything.
In fact, the other day, PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar put out a press statement titled “Argentina’s Javier Milei approach to reforms should serve as a lesson for Tinubu” where he extolled the dangerously right-wing Argentinian president Javier Milei whose rightwing economic populist policies are destroying the fabric of his country.
“I read a recent report in Reuters titled: ‘Argentina’s market double down on Milei as investors ‘start to believe’,” he wrote.
Well, the same Western financial establishment is already praising the outcome of Tinubu’s economic policies. A March 8, 2024, report from Bloomberg, for instance, has said that “Foreign investor demand for Nigerian assets surges as reforms instituted by President Bola Tinubu’s administration starts paying off.”
Similarly, one David Roberts, identified as a former British Council Director in Abuja, bragged the other day that Nigeria’s economy “posted a GDP growth of 3.46% in quarter 4” as a result of Tinubu’s economic reforms.
He wrote: “Why would a country with a severe infrastructural deficit invest more money on a wasteful expenditure such as cheap petrol, instead of building schools, hospitals, dams and a national railway system? It is evident that it had to go.
“We joined the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in saying as much to the Nigerian government. And at long last, it is gone.”
People outside Nigeria reading about Nigeria in the Western financial press would think Nigerians are now living in El- Dorado as a result of Tinubu’s “reforms”—just like Atiku thinks a favorable Reuters story about the anti-people economic policies of Milei, who is called the “Madman of Argentina,” is already yielding excellent outcomes.
If you do the bidding of the Western establishment, they will always make up statistics to show that your economy has grown. I called attention to this in my June 28, 2023, column titled, “Why Tinubu’s Hiring and Firing Frenzy Excites Nigerians.”
I wrote: “What shall it profit a country when it pursues policies that cause the economy to ‘grow’ but cause the people to growl? After the economy has ‘grown’ but the people still groan, where is the growth? The most important growth isn’t the rise in abstract, disembodied, World Bank/IMF-created metrics but in the improvement of the quality of life of everyday folks.”
Milei’s Argentina that Atiku is praising is almost in the same right-wing economic hellscape as Nigeria is. Like Tinubu, Milei began his presidency by removing subsidies for petrol and transportation and devaluing the Argentinian peso by more than 50 percent. In addition, he threw scores of workers into unemployment when he reduced the number of ministries in the country.
He is so market-centric he scrapped a whole host of rules designed to reign in the greed and exploitation of private enterprises. He did this by getting the parliament to approve the principle of “delegated powers” to the executive for one year, which allows him to rule by decree like a military dictator in the name of “economic urgency.”
The result? Like in Nigeria, most Argentinians are having a hard time finding food to eat. A February 1, 2024, CNN story captures it: “‘I don’t know how I will eat.’ For the workers behind Argentina’s national drink, Milei’s reforms are turning sour.”
Argentinian workers periodically go on strike to protest Milei’s punishing right-wing policies. On February 28, all flights were cancelled in the country because air travel workers went on a crippling 24-hour strike.
A March 4, 2024, Bloomberg report said Milei’s policies had caused spending to plunge at shops in Argentina, that firms were seeing double-digit sales declines for third straight month, that the worth of salaries had plummeted amid a paralyzing 250% inflation, and that recession was deepening in the country.
The lead to the story says it all: “Consumers in Argentine are running out of options to shield themselves from runaway price increases as President Javier Milei’s austerity measures send the country deeper into recession.”
That’s Atiku’s exemplar for Nigeria. Peter Obi is, of course, no different. Tinubu, Atiku, Obi, and in fact Yemi Osinbajo are united in their love for rightwing economics, which invariably leads to an increase in poverty, suffocation of workers, rolling back of welfare for common people, etc.
In a perverse way, they are actually worse than Buhari because they are self-conscious conservative economic ideologues. Buhari is merely a know-nothing, bungling, kakistocratic power monger.
The real tragedy is that the vast majority of Nigerians who are ensconced in the narrow ethno-religious political silos built around the personalities of the major 2023 presidential candidates don’t realize that on economic policies, which is what really matters, Tinubu, Atiku, Obi, and Osinbajo are more alike than unlike.
Sadly, Nigerian leftists, who used to be the bulwark against the dangers of conservative economic totalitarianism, have either been coopted or silenced. Only Femi Falana, Majeed Dahiru, I, and a few others consistently stand up to the forces of economic conservatism.
This state of affairs will ensure that Tinubu’s successor will be another neoliberal ideologue who will bludgeon his way to the presidency using religion and ethnicity as cudgels. When he deepens the misery he inherits, he will blame his predecessor for not being a faithful practitioner of the neoliberal gospel. His own successor will replicate his template.
After three terms of this right-wing baloney, Nigeria will be irretrievably gone. The time to pivot from the IMF and the World Bank and to reject everyone who is their poodle is now.
Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian newspaper columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism.
Rise of right-wing economic populism in Nigeria – Farooq Kperogi
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