By Femi Kusa
The question who owns Lagos? never stops to pop up. It almost cost me my job as Editor of The Guardian in the 1980s, almost overwhelmed military governor of Lagos State at that time, commodore Gbolahan Mudashiru , as it troubled civilian governor Babajide Sanwoolu and is still troubling him.
Who owns Lagos? On Wednesday 16 August 2023, some moslem clerics staged a peaceful demonstration to the Lagos State house of assembly to tell legislators that the list of potential commisioners the governor sent to them for vetting had more Christian names than Moslem names. It was like saying Lagos State belonged to MOSLEMS and moslems should, therefore, dominate the cabinet. This is an old song which takes no cognisance of the fact that some of the non moslems on the list may be agnostics or believers, like some of my friends, in traditional religions. They seemed, unaware, also , that Nigeria is constitutionally a secular republic. What their protest boils down to, therefore , is that their religion is to them a means of securing political appointments and largesse which may open up for them inroads into the economy of Lagos State.
When I was Editor of THE GUARDIAN, Moslem clerics and leaders in Lagos led a delegation to me in my office to warn me that if I did not open the paper to accomodate and protect the interests of moslems, they would campaign in mosques and other institutions at their disposal for moslems to boycott the newspaper. I do not remember now if it was before that time or after it that christians boycotted chief M.K.O Abiola’s national Concord because it supported the military government which enrolled Nigeria, a constititional secular State, in the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), an indirect way of saying Nigeria was an Islamic country. The national Concord suffered heavy readership and financial losses. But chief Abiola did not mind. He hoped to be President of Nigeria in future and was courting the pleasure of Nigeria’s Islamic North. So, he continued to pump money into the national concord,, loss or no loss.
The Guardian newspaper, which I was editing, was not run like the National Concord. Mr Alex Ibru, the Publisher, did not wish to become Nigeria’s president. All he wanted was a profitable newspaper. For the editor of the paper, the threat of readership boycott by any class of society should be bad news. The delegation of Islamic clerics who came to forewarn me about a possible looming boycott danger expected me to shiver, buckle and obey them
They expected me to know that no investor , however benevolent , would like to have his or her business unnecessarily endangered or destroyed. The editor may have to go in such circumstances if he did not yield ground.
What was my sin? Commodore Gbolahan Mudashiru, the then governor of Lagos State, appointed a cabinet in which, for the first time in a long while, there were more christians than moslems. Everyone who is well acquainted with the governor appreciated his penchant for excellence and not for mundane matters. In putting his cabinet together, therefore, he may have searched for diligent and capable persons. He was born a Moslem but grew up to appreciate that all religions were fashioned by mankind from pure messages once said to them by the Almighty Creator and, in many cases, adapted to the whims and caprices of men after the bringers of these messages had long departed from their midst. Thus, he was unfettered by religion in the choice of persons he wished to work with. Moslem clerics and leaders thought otherwise. They went to him to Lodge a complaint. Many newspapers reported their protest. THE GUARDIAN newspaper wrote an editorial condemning their demand purely on the constitutional ground that Nigeria was a secular state. In any case, THE GUARDIAN stated categorically at its debut that it owed allegiance to no one person or group but to good conscience and the truth. For its motto, it even paraphrased a philosophical statement of Uthman Danfodio. He was a revolutionary and philosophical Islamic scholar who founded the sokoto caliphate and became it’s first caliph. Under the logo of The Guardian appears the image of a sickle, the ancient Egyptian symbol for conscience. After the sickle appears the following paraphrase CONSCIENCE, NURTURED BY TRUTH of a philosophical statement by Danfodio… “conscience is an open wound, only truth can heal it”
Luckily and happily for me, the delegation met me on my turf. Besides, its members probably were ignorant men and women who had not been reading THE GUARDIAN, were unfamiliar with it and did not read the edition of the newspaper on the day they had chosen to come and do battle with it and it’s editor.
When they had lodged their allegations and threats, I kindly gave to them some of the shockers of their lives. I asked the circulation department for one copy of the edition of that day for each member of the delegation. Right on the front page was a beautiful photograph of the dome of the newly built elegant mosque on Lagos Island. A few days before then, I was on Lagos Island for an event and sighted a glittering top of a building where I had not seen one before. Back in the office, I called OSENI YUSUF a.k.a zoom LENS, one of our best camera men , to photograph for me the mosque and its dome. Luckily and happily, I published it on the front page of the paper on the day of the protest visit of the delegation. I was not a Moslem and no one instructed me to do what I did. I had only grown up to recognise the grains of Truth in all religions and to discard what, is to me, were the chaff men added to it for their selfish reasons. This applies, also , to Christianity, the religion I was born into.
My guests were shocked. They were more crest fallen when I invited them to the third page of the same edition. covering almost a third of the page was the photograph of some moslem women who attended an ALSALATU ceremony! Will a newspaper which fights Moslems and islam, as they thought, do this as well…in the same edition?
I was not done with them yet. I was on my turf. My turf was that I did not discriminate against any group in the choice of our reports. So, no one could accuse me of unfairness. I asked TITI OBA, the librarian, to bring to my office my personal file of newspaper cuttings. Before the Advent of computers and the internet, all newspaper kept files of newspaper cuttings on various subjects. I do not know how they do it today with transformation in technology. The library would keep files on crime, the police, strikes, agriculture, the stock market etc. It also kept personal files. I had a personal file for my articles. Every year, for example, I wrote articles on Arafat day, the day MOSLEMS on pilgrimage to Mecca climbed the mountain.. One year, I may write on the perspective of nature, of how nature brought Mountains about, of the peculiar pictures of mount Arafat. Another year, I may write on the spiritual significance of the event. The delegation was shocked to discover that I, a non Moslem had many articles on an Islamic festival. Even today, one on one, I share my sensing of the prophet (May the Peace of Allah be with him)with some of my Moslem friends. This sensing is that he was an exalted human being who may have been called to serve Allah in a previous time in another part of the earth before his calling to serve in Arabia, and that he may be somewhere else right now,, after Arabia, in the service of Allah . Some of my friends who dogmatically speak only of Arabia are like those christians who would say that upon death, we remain in our graves until resurrection day when everyone will be judged. When I ask them why Moses and Elijah were not in their graves but were sighted with the Lord Jesus at His transfiguration, they are short of words for any meaningful explanation. Wherever the prophet is today, would he be pleased with the way the message he brought to Arabia is being lived by many of his followers, including those who try to use it solely as a plank for achieving power, influence and money? Do we appreciate that messages were also sent from on high to China through Laotse, to India through Buddah, to Iran through Zoraster, and that men also fiddled with these messages after their bringers had departed? Have we taken the pains to check and to discover that these messages do not contradict one another except where men inserted their own opinions for their selfish purposes? Indeed, these messages were adapted to the special needs of a people at the time they were brought. The recepients were to not box themselves into one message , but to avail themselves of the knowledge in all. If we box ourselves into a cage of religion, we are like in a prison, like a secondary school chemistry student who refuses to see chemistry undergraduate levels as advancements in knowledge or the University graduate who despises post graduate education in chemistry. It is interesting to know that, from his home base in Arabia, the prophet advised his followers to seek education and knowledge from all corners of the earth. Will the search for knowledge, therefore, not include the teachings of other religions ? Will the understanding of other religions not eliminate the penchant to subdue, subsume and control adherence of other religions when the prophet taught his followers to peacefully co exist with them? Islam, as I have come to appreciate it when free of human colourations, is a religion of peace and love. So, why all the war, war , war?
Finally, I dissipated whatever venom the delegation had left in it when I invited to my office to join us in the conversations some of the moslems at the helm of affairs in our newsroom. There was Pa Mac Alabi, the night editor. Never mind that he was MC Donald .That was a first name he was forced to pick up when he attended Christ school , Ado Ekiti. There was RaZak Adedigba, chief sub Editor. He succeeded Doyin Nureni Mahmoud , who left to become chief executive officer of the herald newspaper in Ilorin. There was Kunle Sanyaolu, judicial correspondent or Assistant News editor(He later became the news editor). Anyone who is familiar with the workings of a newspaper would appreciate that the news editor , the chief sub Editor and the night editor are major officers of a NEWSROOM. These gentlemen and others I did not invite to the meeting were MOSLEMS. So, how did THE GUARDIAN short change moslems?
So moving was the final statement of the delegations leader who held a pH.D degree: “I was mislead”.
MOSLEMS should not invite religious consciousness into public affairs in Lagos State. We do not wish in Lagos State to have a LASU which will appoint professors on religious basis or in LASUTH where, to be a consultant, you have to be a Moslem. Nor do we wish to see a radio Lagos swarmed more by religion and skewed to one side, despite attempt at balancing! What about the civil service? It will be so sad if we have to begin to look out for which religion dominates the civil service, with a view to redressing imbalances. Or, shall we ask: To which religion belongs the man or woman who gets which government contract? Moslem clerics in Lagos State should not put into our heads thoughts and fears that are not supposed to be there. Christians and other persons in Lagos massively voted for Lateef Jakande and Rafiu Jafojo as Governor and Deputy Governor respectively. Both were moslems! Some of us helped to quieten the Christian misgivings about Bola TINUBU’s presidential Moslem Moslem ticket. Thankfully, the government take over of missionary secondary schools, simply because there were not enough Moslem schools, has been reversed. We do not want a future in which Christian universities will be taken over by the government simply because moslems do not have as many private universities as christians. Finally, do the protesting Moslem clerics and leaders want us to carry out a background check on how many christians and how many moslems are legislators in the Lagos State house of assembly? Lagos should remain a secular state, please!
• This article appears in my Facebook (John Olufemi Kusa).