Governor Dikko Radda of Katsina State has a PhD in Agriculture and Rural Sociology. Nasir Idris, Kebbi State governor, holds a PhD in Education. The governor of Sokoto State, Ahmad Aliyu, also holds a doctorate in Business Administration. Dauda Lawal, Zamfara State governor, has a 1992 Masters Degree in Political Science/International Relations. Governor Gawuna Yusuf of Kano holds a Bachelors Degree in, wait for it, Biochemistry.
So, how did a North with governors this educated end up with a strange, obnoxious, nasty and distasteful directive that shuts schools for Ramadan?
How did the North get here and how will the region ever get out of this cesspit of affliction? Please are the children and grandchildren of these helmsmen attending the schools that are going to be shut down for Ramadan? Are the children and grandchildren of the Senators, Representatives, all political office holders and indeed the elites of the north all affected by this sit-at-home-during –Ramadan schools closure in the North? Are the schools in Saudi Arabia also closed for Ramadan or it is just Northern Nigerian Muslims that are holier than those whose womb birthed the holy Prophet?
Why are we not seeing or hearing protests against this sad holiday? The Muslim community is quiet. The affected parents are going about their businesses as if this is okay. The Muslim clerics’ silence is the most shocking.
The schools that were shut, are there Christian students there? Will the teachers be paid for the month they are fasting and not working? That last question brings me to the biggest question of all: this closure of Northern schools for Ramadan, was it the initiative of the governors? What exactly were they thinking? Did they hold meetings with all stakeholders in this matter and how did they justify the move? How do Northern leaders sleep at night, really?
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I have always been suspicious that the many social diseases that are afflicting the North are the fault of their leaders. This confirms it. Northern leaders and elites like a sick north. It works for them. They like a North West with almost nine million out-of-school children and a North-East with more than five million. Or what else is the reason why every statistic with negative figures in education domiciled in the North and then some governors still go ahead to give this kind of directive? Exactly in whose interest is this no-school-during Ramadan holiday, the teachers’, the students’, the parents’ or whose?
These governors, these Northern leaders, where do they see the North in Nigeria, in world equations in 10 years? Do they think producing Nigerian Presidents regularly is what gives the North power? Me, I think if Nigeria has an Hausa or Fulfude-speaking president for 20 unbroken years where the North still does what it presently does, the region will still not catch up with the rest of Nigeria. Anyway, it looks like those who are beaten are not crying while people like me are swallowing ‘panadol’ for a Northern headache.
. egbemode3@gmail.com.
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