Opinion
Dele Sobowale: Maryam Babangida 1948-2009, fourteen years after
By Dele Sobowale
“It matters not how a [woman] dies, but how [she] lives…”
Dr Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784
Johnson left many interesting statements carved on stones. Among them was the one which startled me at first: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” The second is the one above. Once you are alive, the only certainty is death. What we call living is tucked between the two. When told that my last article for 2023 will be another annual Maryam Babangida memoriam, my close friend’s question was: “Dele don’t you ever get tired of this stuff?”
My reply was: “No.” The next question was: “Why?” To that question I needed to tell a short story about Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962, wife of US President Franklin Roosevelt, 1882-1945. She was First Lady from 1932-1945; and although she died in 1962, more research is still being done on ‘the first of all First American Ladies’ (as one called her) than on all the other First Ladies put together. Eleanor was the first wife of a President who regarded herself as just a ‘carry-on luggage’ for the President.
She regarded herself as a privileged spokeswoman for women and other disadvantage elements in society. As long as there is injustice and violence against women, no First Lady can ignore the issues and only spend her time in self-indulgent opulence. There are always risks pertaining to such self-assertion. Eleanor took the blows from male chauvinists and cowardly, submissive women and became a historical legend.
The closest we have had to Mrs Roosevelt was Mrs Maryam Babangida, whose pet project – BETTER LIFE FOR RURAL WOMEN – inspired the creation of the N50 note. Incidentally, the currency was originally called ‘better life’ until Nigerian males, jealous of the great achievements under the programme, turned it to ‘WAZOBIA’.
Yet, by refusing to honour the First Lady to step out of Aso Rock and reach out to the poorest of the poor – rural women – we might have inadvertently discouraged other First Ladies from attempting to use their very important office to correct several injustices against women in Nigeria. That is only one reason I keep writing about her.
The other reason has been the good example she left in the education sector with the founding of girls schools in the North – at a time when such schools were very few and extremely risky to establish. Even now, education in girls’ schools in most parts of the North is still heavily subsidised. Starting and maintaining one requires courage and absolute commitment; not desire to make money.
THE SON ALSO RISES
“Like father like son” is the common expression. But, the Babangida family has forced us to think again. Like mother like son is more apt to describe what has happened. Mohammed Babangida, first son of the late First Lady, must have ingested the mother’s passion for education with the milk of human kindness. I had to find out personally when I read that Mohammed had started a university in Minna, Niger State. Despite my health challenges and the terrible stories reaching us from Niger State, I went to Minna – but not before taking the additional risk of stopping briefly in Lapai to assess the prospects for food supply next year. That is topic for another day.
I was curious to know why a young man, with various options for investment, would choose founding a university as one on which to spend the colossal amounts involved in the venture. Before my devastation by cancer in 2020; and before Nigeria became a very dangerous place to move around, I was covering at least 24 states in a year. Visiting universities – federal, state and private – was my primary mission.
I wanted to find out what sort of institutions would be turning out our leaders of tomorrow. I was still moving about until February 2020; and what I saw was already mind-boggling. Universities, approved or not, were springing up everywhere – most badly funded and relying on lowering standards to attract desperate applicants willing to pay the charges. More were on the way; and the Buhari administration, as usual, has done a great deal of damage to the sector by having a journalist as Minister of Education for eight years.
Well-funded universities like Mohammed’s EL-Amin university are now struggling for applicants alongside mushroom universities with no more than two building blocks as the entire campus. Granted, all the greatest universities in the world started small; but, most excellent universities also started with an exalted aim or mission. Making money is seldom the goal.
Interviewing Mohammed, I was impressed by his vision of an outstanding university situated in what he recognises as one of the educationally backward places in Nigeria – and perhaps in the world as well. Courage must be an attribute which runs in the family. To me, it requires as much bravery to start and run a university as to be military Head of State. Each calls for a sense of mission – which must be accomplished. And, when he does, as I strongly believe he will, the Babangida family would have been involved in education at all levels in Niger State more than any other family in any other state of the federation.
Her Excellency, Maryam Babangida, would be happy that she had set a good example which the first son is following now at a higher level.
May her soul rest in perpetual peace.
P.S. Expect a full length article on EL-Amin University, Minna soon.
NINE DREARY CHRISTMASES IN A ROW UNDER APC
“We give you a dreary Christmas
We give you a dreary Christmas
We give you a dreary Christmas
And a nasty New Year…”
APC Christmas Carol?
Greek play writer, Agathon, 447-401 BC, was the person who irreverently told us that “Even God cannot change the past.” Nigeria has just experienced its ninth straight dreadful Christmas under two Presidents of the All Progressives Congress, APC, ruling party. They cannot deny it. Their best spin-doctors, spokesmen, Ministers of Information, Special Advisers for Information and Strategy etc, etc can find no words to deceive us that what we just had was indeed a Merry Christmas. Neither can they convince us that we are starting the New Year tomorrow with renewed hope instead of deepening despair. To begin with, most of us will wake up tomorrow cashless. That is a novel experience which has found its way into APC’s legacy in Nigerian history. Perhaps, that is the place to start thinking about 2024.
THE TINUBU CHRISTMAS MESSAGE
“This is also a time [Christmas] to look out for each other…let us all extend the warm embrace of kindness to those around us who need it…” – President Bola Tinubu’s Christmas message to Nigerians.
Politicians, particularly Presidents, express compassion to the suffering people of a nation, which their policies and conduct in office don’t reflect. Tinubu’s noble words to Nigerians is the latest in the series of words the people of this country have been receiving since Jonathan announced “I share your pains” in 2012.
Tinubu was in Lagos for Christmas as banks, ATM machines and POS operators, predictably, ran out of cash for the second time this year. Given the heavy need for cash to “extend the warm embrace of kindness to those around who need it”, it probably never occurred to our President that even habitual givers were actually in search of people from whom to take. Donor-fatigue was palpable everywhere.
On Christmas Day, with nothing else to do, a few of us set out to interview people — based on Tinubu’s admonition to Fellow Nigerians. I volunteered to handle Kakawa Street; which is one of the fountain heads of the Tinubu family. I wanted to find out how much of an “embrace of kindness” those randomly selected have received. The mini survey was revealing. Virtually nobody had received any embrace of kindness because “ko s’owo; meaning “there is no cash”. Since the charity being preached by Tinubu did not even start at home, one should not expect it elsewhere in Nigeria.
Even the 50 per cent fare reduction was only a partial success. The vast majority of Nigerian travelers no longer travel by luxury buses; only traders do that. Limiting the benefits to 22 routes out of over 700 in the country made the intervention some sort of Yuletide joke. At any rate, the travelers still need cash to operate on arrival. Where is it? What is more; most Nigerians will wake up tomorrow, January 1, 2024 – broke and hopeless.
This opinion piece was first published on Vanguard.
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