Kayode Komolafe
8 July 2009
analysis
Lagos — About two years ago, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar III, was in Dutse, Jigawa State, to witness the signing into law the social security bill passed by the state House of Assembly. On that occasion he requested to visit a place called Fagam in the Gwaram Local Government Area. Fagam was almost inaccessible because of the difficult terrain compounded by bad roads. But the place is the home of a huge population of Muslims who are reputed to be contributing the highest amount of Zakat (the obligatory payment made under Islamic law for religious ends).
As the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, the Sultan understandably took more than a passing interest in the welfare of the people in the area. Moved by the plight of the people, he asked Governor Sule Lamido to construct a mosque and repair the road to Fagam. Lamido, of course, said he took the Sultan's words for "an order" from his leader in matters of faith. This was just a few months after a Central Bank report had rated Jigawa as the poorest state in the federation. Besides, the Sultan had a moment of introspection on issues of development during this visit. He had some sharp words for the elite in all spheres. The Sultan deprecated the "failure of leadership" that pervades this society in all directions. Based on what he saw in Fagam, the Sultan put the matter like this: "We have failed the people in the rural area. Life in the country side is beyond description".
The way he spoke, you would not be mistaken if you called the Sultan a development activist. To demonstrate the seriousness the Sultan attached to the welfare of the people of Fagam, two years later when he visited the state again, he insisted on inspecting the road to Fagam, which the state government had constructed. Acco-rding to him, while he didn't have cause to doubt the state government's claims he sought to share in the pleasure of being driven on the once non-motorable road.
This anecdote and other activities and pronouncements of the Sultan since he ascended the throne a few years ago have cast him in the light of a traditional ruler who is actively interested in issues of development and as a leader who is resolved to catalyse the process. On several occasions, he has spoken loudly against poverty and for the embrace of indices of development such as education, healthcare, infrastructure etc. especially in the rural areas. His anti-poverty position is unambiguous. In an unmistakeable manner he has also challenged leaders in the political, economic, religious and traditional realms to take their responsibilities to the people they lead seriously and sincerely. All these combine suitably to make him a leader to watch.
It was, therefore, not a surprise when the Sultan was reported recently as leading northern traditional rulers in the campaign for immunisation of children. Doubtless, the Sultan's identification with the campaign has given it a big boost. As a result of the commendable support given to the campaign by the Sultan and other traditional rulers more un-immunised children have been administered with the Oral polio Vaccine (OPV) in many areas of the north, which were once impenetrable by the campaign. By standing up for polio eradication in their respective areas, these traditional rulers could rightly be called great promoters of development. It was a masterstroke for the agencies responsible for the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) to have connected effectively with the traditional rulers who in turn mobilise their people especially in the rural areas for the programme. In this instance, they have simply voted for progress as against underdevelopment
The significance of this indubitably progressive role played by the Sultan and other traditional rulers in the 19 states of northern Nigeria is two-fold. First, polio eradication as a primary healthcare issue is central to development efforts. It has been a national embarrassment that if polio had not remained endemic to some parts of Nigeria, the World Health Organisation could have declared the virus universally eradicated. As they say, he who feels it knows it. Now, the lifelong pain and anguish that the children who are unfortunate to be infected undergo is better imagined.
The poor children have physical disability as their lot for as long as they live. And to further imagine that the problem could be prevented by a simple administration of vaccine at the appropriate time. The progressive role being played by the Sultan and other traditional rulers becomes even more conspicuous when viewed against the background of the hugely diversionary controversy that once impaired the process of polio immunisation in the north. There was a time when a weird theory was prevalent about the vaccination being a part of some conspiracy to depopulate the north. There was the invocation of some cultural and religious reasons where immunisation workers should not be given access to the children who need the vaccine. At the basic level, eradication of polio is still a big issue of development for us in Nigeria. So when traditional rulers join the campaign, their efforts should be considered remarkable. It should be duly acknowledged as positive response to a central question of a development. For Nigeria to meet the millennium Development Goals, issues such as that of polio spread ought to become history. We cannot be said to be developing when infections that children elsewhere only read about still afflict Nigerian children daily. Leaders at all levels should perceive the grave situation as such.
Secondly, the embrace of development programmes by the Sultan has the capability of enlivening the age-long debate about the relevance of the traditional institutions. The rulers who are regarded as the natural leaders in their respective domains have no constitutional roles. In some quarters they are regarded as relics of a bygone epoch. Sometimes the debate is conducted in a manner to suggest that the traditional institutions suffer from an endemic crisis of relevance.
In our reckoning, the activities and pronouncements of the Sultan constitute a practical approach to the debate. By summoning their enormous influence on the local communities to energise the polio eradication campaign, the traditional rulers are proving themselseves to be socially relevant. Traditional rulers are not going to be relevant when they revel in land speculation, when they are busy chasing contracts or when they join their "subjects" in the race for primitive accumulation. They will not be relevant when all they do is to relish the vestiges of oppression by their forebears. In this age, the test of their relevance will be the extent to which they can give a push to the development of their people. That is the path of progress.
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