Woke up to a very good Friday morning, thanked Allah for the gift of
this day and then proceeded to start my house chores by sorting out
my dirty clothes for laundry. But before i could proceed to the
laundry proper, my stomach began to make a passionate appeal for
the body’s nourishment. And as you know, the stomach’s appeal
must be hearkened to or else grave consequences will be faced. So, I
started as any man would, to begin thinking of how to satisfy my
stomach’s demand for a breakfast. But since the economy of my
pocket is experiencing a recession, I had to think of a cost effective
way to satisfaction. After much contemplation, I concluded that
going to a ‘mai-shayi’ is my best option.
I arrived at the mai-shayi’s joint by Allah’s Grace, made my orders
and in no time was served. Savouring the sweetness of my meal,I
listened on as other customers discussed issues that border mainly
on politics. I didn’t bother to join the forum,though quite interested
in politics myself,until one of discussants made a very interesting
statement ,that,”the bane of the problem faced by the north is
caused by boko”, boko? I asked,in a tone expressing obvious
disagreement and he answered “yes”. He added that ”boko has the
made the society completely devoid of morals and fear of Allah that
has lead to our unhelpful and irredeemable enslavement to
corruption”.
In bid for more clarification,I asked.”what are the
subjects taught in boko that he thinks lead to this corruption? He
answered,”We cannot pick out this and that subject and say that they
are morally corrupting, in fact, the problems are not with the
subjects taught but with the ideologies that are instilled in the
students alongside this subjects”, ”hmmm” I uttered ,nodding in
comprehension.
“Our children are made to believe to accept the
alien and corrupting ideologies and cultures of the west in place of
our cultural and divinely revealed injunctions”,He added.
As if he was in my mind, another man added as a matter of
clarication, that the word boko was coined by the hausa people to
refer to the Europeans way of teaching. He said ”when the Europeans
came to the north,they met a system of education where what is
taught is written on a slate called ‘allo’in hausa and hence the school
called “makarantan allo”.When the European’s started their own
system of education, they used the ‘book’ to teach and the hausa
man,from the word book, coined the word ‘boko’ and named the
European’s school ‘makarantan boko’ ”,hence refuting the first
man’s argument on the basis of improper definition.
This brings me
to the interesting part of my discourse,which is,the people having
issues with our people’s acculturation and corruption by western
ideologies and teachings have chosen a wrong name for their
movement, as at first glance, one would think they have a problem
with western education.
But a word can have two meanings. So,defining boko to mean
western ideologies, beliefs, traditions and customs,we can
convieniently validate the first man’s argument that “the bane of the
problem faced by the north is caused by boko”. Since by adopting
boko we now allow the free and unlimited interaction of boys and
girls in schools, take interest, adopt a new constitution other than
the Quran and hope to find justice in democracy. The adoption of
boko means preferring the thoughts and solutions of men to the
sacred revelations of the Quran. Doing anything that contradicts the
injunctions of Allah is Haram. Boko in this case helplessly becomes
Haram.
And I can say also, taking the second definition, that the bane of the
problem faced not just by northern Nigeria but the whole world is
the adoption of boko.
But we can’t stop going to makarantan boko,so what is the solution?
One may ask. My humble opinion is that, we should start showing
our children the superiority of following Allah’s injunctions to the
European man’s ideas. We have to change our lackadaisical attitude
towards our children’s Islamic education. We have to lead, as
parent’s by example. We have to take up Islamic morals and values
and move for the removal in our educational systems of things that
contradict to our religion. And i believe all other things will fall in
their rightful places.
NOTE: This piece was first written on 16 May 2011 and published on my Facebook Blog.
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