EDITORIAL

BICENTENARY ANNIVERSARY: CELEBRATING THE FALL OF SOKOTO?

            The historical city of Sokoto was full of activities June 19-20, 2004 as thousands gathered to commemorate the bicentenary anniversary of the Sokoto caliphate. The high profile celebrations began with a lecture series tagged “the Sokoto caliphate and its legacies 1804-2004” a week earlier in Abuja.

            Despite the wide-ranging debate which the events sparked,a considerable attendance was recorded signaling both the Ummah’s simplicity as well as the unbending attachment to her religious past, though an analyst recently attributed the relatively high turnout to the masses desire to sight the differing styles of cars paraded by the attendants. But what the real motivation and aims of the organisers are? First, it is impossible to image highly incompetent, servile and unrepentant secular, self-serving ruling elites, the likes of Obasanjo and his cohorts-today’s celebrants- wishing the return of, let along allowing serious attempts aimed at recreating, the model of Sheikh Uthman Danfodio (r). Therefore, the VIP’s including all the brokers in the present ‘corruptocracy’ as well as the visiting presidents of Ghana, Chad and Niger Republic, could have only convened to congratulate one another that the caliphate remains effectively dead since July 27, 1903 when  their masters death it the final blow at Mbormi.

            During both the “festive of ideas” in Abuja and the extravagant durbar in Sokoto, the performers in the game of manipulating historical realities, were at pains to arrive at one difficult point: that the present polity, sparring the recent secondary aberrations, is drawn from the ideals and examples of the jihadists,or at least its continuation. Since the caliphate helped to shape, and continues to influence the influence the political landscape of what come to be modern Nigeria, attempts were made “to locate the Jihad movement and the revolution in the national, regional and global context and circumstances”. Better ways were also proposed on how to strengthen the sagging edifice of the polity by grafting an attenuated extract of the caliphate. This will at least help contain the massive emotional attachment to, and popular yearnings for recreating the experience of the Fodios. The events are meant to create the impression of a still viable and influential caliphal system with the Sultan convening a thanksgiving ceremony hosting other leaders in the anniversary celebrations. This is a deliberate attempts to make the Ummah forgets Mbormi, Tabkin Kwatto, the ideological basis that informed the movement and the possible role the true legacy of the Fodio’s can have in inspiring  and shaping our contemporary religious commitment and political culture.

            That this farce, stage-managed by Aso rock’s masters, is a hoax can easily be appreciated. Who is unaware that the caliphate was brought to an end as anything of a real practical system and political power of Islam 100 years ago? Still who needs to be reminded that since our defeat in Mbormi every ‘Sarkin Musulimi ’is appointed by a colonial resident officer  and now  by his heir –a state governor in Sokoto, of course to serve the system built on the ruins of our caliphate? If our people cannot appreciate these glaring facts while remaining easily culpable even as they reel under abject poverty, crass ignorance and utter backwardness, it means our Ulama remain far from discharging their duty of guidance and purposeful leadership.

            One important point to note is that the method of the Fodio’s is rooted in the Seerah of the noble Prophet(s) and so much available to every clear minded Muslim. The Bafarawa’s and Obasanjo’s can celebrate the fall of Sokoto in disguise but they should be warned that their effort can backfire especially as they are dealing with a revolution in history  whose roots are as viable and potent now as ever. Those sons and daughters of the caliphate, who remain faithful to its ideals and principles, are to be bold enough to accept the bitter fact of collapse of the caliphate and thus mourn its demise, meanwhile charting ways of reinventing it. The example of the Fodio’s shows a start with intellectual revolution, empowerment of the masses, emancipation of women and Jihad. The choice is our’s