Education, Empire, and the Muslim North: Reconstructing a Broken Mindset – TEDxHadejia 2021

Just imagine an alien invading army of say the Vikings coming over here to subdue us and in the process neutralise many of us including for example; our revered Emir, scores of nobles, hundreds of warriors, then went ahead to annexe us into their strange empire and eventually impose their language, system of education, law and politics unto us. Sounds quite intense, right? Most definitely YES!

But this is the true life story of Hadejia and by extension most of what is today the Muslim northern Nigeria. Exactly 114yrs 342 days (23days short of 115years), precisely on the 26th of April 1906, an invading British army subdued Hadeja and annexed it (with total prejudice to our culture, religion, history and scholarship) on behalf of the crown. The then Emir of Hadeja Mallam Muhammadu Maishahada was martyred that day alongside numerous of his subjects, warriors and nobles; one of them was my great great grandfather Sarkin Rafi Umaru. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests that was how ‘western education’ as we know it today arrived our shores. And most definitely the reason why I speak English to this distinguished audience today instead of Hausa, Arabic or in fact any other language.  I will come back to this later

Exactly 51yrs 2months ago (late 1969), my late father Mallam Muhammad Adamu Unik was posted to the village were himself and his father, who was my grandfather were born (Unikgana somewhere in the middle of the Auyo wetlands) to establish the first western styled formal school (makarantar boko) to serve about ten other villages. He was it’s sole teacher and the  headmaster too.

His grandfather (my great grandfather) must have been puzzled at how his first grandchild is now on a clear mission to sell the ways of those who killed his father (Mallam’s great grandfather) some 64years earlier here in Hadeja during the encounter I narrated earlier.

That actual physical combat might have appeared very short to the British (we were told within hours), and happened about 95years then, but it’s ideological component still rages on silently in the minds of many  across all of what today is the Muslim northern Nigeria through our continuous defiance to first western education, and then in many aspects modernity itself.

But the truth is, as is self in the world around us, we could be both good Muslims and still truly educate our people in the modern ways. After all the first verse of the holy Koran revealed to our holy prophet PBUH was ‘Read’!

It looks like we as a people have missed out on something too fundamental and quite early too. This should have been the responsibility of our pioneer western educated elites who were largely our independence thinkers, policy makers and politicians to appreciate the various dimensions of the conflicts this society had had and still has with most things that are western in origin or perception and try to resolve it by redefining education (including a probable total curriculum overhaul) as not only formal western education but present it in it’s generic sense of any form of acquisition of capabilities for rational, critical and systematic ways of thinking and it’s application to this life and hereafter. That way, Islamic education wouldn’t have still remained largely informal and not funded from the public purse as was established by the colonial British and still upheld 60yrs after they are gone.  In essence, western education should have been merged with our existing legacy of Eastern Islamic scholarship and presented to us as just EDUCATION immediately after independence.

That way, I can still today be (as is the case in Egypt and Sudan) the specialist doctor that I am and still have other formal and universally acceptable certifications in Koran and Hadith sciences or Islamic jurisprudence.

 That way, we may probably never have been mocked as ‘Bokoko a wuta’ here in the alleys of Hadeja while we navigated them in our white to and from primary school as recent as in the 80s. Our daughters could have been our Nurses, doctors and other health specialists and still have international proficiencies in Qur’anic sciences and it’s applications in child upbringing to raise an informed and conscientious Ummah. And some of the child beggars on our streets too could have been our Bill Gates and Steve Jobs while still memorising not only the whole Qur’an but it’s entire exegesis and much more

We might perhaps never have ended up with the ‘Boko Haram’ monster in it’s enduring philosophy and ideology, and lately it’s physical violence and wars!

It was only when my father died exactly 93days ago that I fully grasp how I, through western  education walked into the greatness that was meant for him but which he couldn’t fully access because of the circumstances of his environment and the very limited horizon and options it left him with.

I was to learn during the condolence visits from numerous of his former students, subordinates, schoolmates, colleagues, supervisors and teachers that Mallam was cut out for a certain greatness beyond his fame as a respected, serious, disciplined and passionate educationist.

And I think my luck in life also started from the fact that he too had thought he had missed on something in his education that he wanted to recover at all cost through me. He was accordingly both very pleased and aggressive with my education and performance in school

I was convinced from a very young age that my destiny was in higher education and university was my natural next step after high school. Luckily, I had someone in Mallam who though may not have all the resources needed to achieve that but was always there and willing to give me his entire monthly salary to go to school and starve afterwards.

That was Mallam, and this is the responsible mindset all fathers, or at least most of them should have to pull this society out of the woods.

Because while it is the responsibility of the government to educate us all, there is still a greater responsibility on our parents to make that happen.  This is one of the reasons why the South of Nigeria still fares much better in education despite the fact that there is probably more public investment in education up north. For example, I was paid to go to medical school and SSCE candidates are still heavily subsidized

 I do not like associating my appointment as a Minister directly to my level education alone. That was a far greater luck through predestination. There are millions of equally qualified, and better and smarter hands who weren’t as lucky. But education most definitely influenced my choice by my benefactor, and is certainly directly responsible for how I conducted myself both in and out of power. Not many young people will survive what I went through in the last ten years in the corridors of power and politics without the preparation of a good education in both character and content

But I am a worried and sad man too. I agonize over the intellectual, social, material and mental gaps that exist today between myself and even my immediate extended family members and other less fortunate folks in this part of the country

When my father was forced into school some 65 years ago, three of his younger siblings weren’t as lucky. And today none of their dozens of children or scores of grandchildren is ever enrolled into any formal school and still largely live a subsistence existence in the villages or as unskilled artisans and traders in major cities.

In fact, the story of my eldest brother from the same father is worth mentioning here. He is just about 4years older than me but couldn’t finish even primary education because he had the destiny of staying with his grandparents at the village in his early formative years. It was late when our dad realised that his first child may sadly not be what he had planned for all of us. Mallam hurriedly brought him back to the town and enrolled him in a school where he was the headmaster. But it was already too late. I could still see the frustrations in Mallam’s eyes when all his efforts, including severe corporal punishments were clearly failing. My  brother, like his cousins in the village had acquired a mind set that even the sticks and carrots of Mallam could not influence.

I once asked Mallam this question about how he was unable to effect much change in the educational fortunes of most of his extended family. And he told me that It was almost a war situation while he was been enrolled into school in ways that he believed his extended family is still fighting through their attitude to education.

His grandfather, whose father was killed in the British encounter here in Hadeja 50years earlier was deposed as the village head of Unikgana as a punishment for his reluctance to submit the little Mallam to the authorities for enrolment. It was a double jeopardy for Bulama Tsoho as we grew to fondly hear about him; his father was first killed by the British who now followed him 50years later in his peaceful exile in Unikgana to take away both his first and favourite grandchild and his newly acquired social status of Bulama all at once. He never forgave the British (probably his entire lineage hadn’t too). But who would under the circumstances? Probably none.

While this anecdote recalls the exact stories of about five generations of my lineage and it’s contact with both the British and the western education and the mixed outcomes, it is also the story of the most of the Muslim north; first, the  outright kinetic conflict, some enlightenment and prosperity, then an going subtle ideological conflict. This interplay of first our African heritage, then extensive and passionate contact with the east through Islam and then the recent contact with the west through colonisation and the ideological and philosophical conflicts that created is what Prof Ali Mazrui of blessed memory would call the triple heritage. I was rising these same issues with a former governor of this state Alhaji Sule Lamido and in his characteristic ways of using simple words to describe complex scenarios called it our ‘deconstruction’. Then how do we reconstruct ourselves? Who does the reconstruction? How do we create a distinct single heritage as African Muslims who could a lead the world in science and technology?

This is clearly the responsibility of those of us who are the eventual beneficiaries of the little islands of enlightenment and prosperity that western education had produced from within our people

I started this symbolic reconciliation process in my very little capacity about a year or two ago when I visited the tomb of the late colonial military officer; Captain Philips who led that pre dawn raid on Hadeja on the 26th of April, 1906 that killed my great great grandfather, and also visited the school my father founded 53yrs later in Unikgana, the village my great grandfather run to from Hadejia to escape the fury of the British empire.

I then met about four generations of my family who are still deeply suspicious of and utterly reluctant towards western education. This is despite the fact that they had both admired and benefitted from the material comfort and social  profile of first, my father, and later myself which they know we acquired directly through our education. I then asked, how do we resolve this conflict? How do we change this mindset? Just how?

We must work collectively as a society to fix this conflict before it is too late because it is already late

The biggest barrier to functional education in northern Nigeria is this mindset and unfortunately, the most difficult thing to change is also mindset!

And fact is, the cheapest way to help anyone is to educate them in the real sense of the word

Insisting that western education is purely a worldly affair that bears no bearing to our life hereafter is a mind-set

Refusal to enrol wards in school where the schools are available is a mind-set

Pulling out pupils from school to farm instead during the rainy season is as much about mind-set as it is about poverty

Refusing to educate the girl child is a mind-set

Pulling the girl child out of the school for marriage and ending her education in the process is a mind-set

Passing through the school to merely acquire the paper certificates for purely employment purposes is a mind-set

Deliberately refusing to apply oneself to do his absolute best in school because ‘karatun dan musulmi ba sai ya yi yawa ba’ is a mind-set

Failure to use our education to leverage on the local economic opportunities around us is a mind-set

Failure of communities to organise and together support the education of their wards is a mind-set

Parents who would rather prioritise new acquisitions of cars, houses and women over and above the education of their children is a mind-set

And governments who would rather award road contracts than invest in educating our children is the biggest mind-set of all

In my humble opinion, the best way to reconstruct this mind-set for good is going back to the basics. Our future education policy options most recognise the influence our Islamic clerics (who we have all but abandoned) still have in shaping the mind-sets of our people, and also the legitimacy and stability our traditional stools enjoy, and then apply both in shaping our destiny. A sincere political leadership can mobilise the clergy and the traditional leadership to redefine what education is. It is quite possible. Wisdom is the lost possession of the believer, he should accordingly take it wherever he sees it. Sadaqallahul azeem