The Almajiri, Talakawa & Dan-Arewa Ideology

The Almajiri, Talakawa & Dan-Arewa Ideology | Sahara Reporters
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http://saharareporters.com/2008/12/30/almajiri-talakawa-dan-arewa-ideology
The Almajiri, Talakawa & Dan-Arewa Ideology

The generosity of the oppressors is nourished by an unjust order, which must be maintained in order
to justify that generosity -Late Prof. Paulo Freire
The generosity of the oppressors is nourished by an unjust order, which must be maintained in order to
justify that generosity -Late Prof. Paulo Freire
First, I will like to define two concepts in the above title, and their usage, in the generic. They are, the
Almajiri and the Talakawa. The Almajiri, as a person, is any Nigerian who is so poor that even the poor
call him poor; is homeless and lives off the streets-cum-urban slums; jobless and stack illiterate;
unkempt and dirty; hopeless, looks abandoned or is abandoned; is secretly being abused, openly begs
for alms and food; and believes, based on religious dogma, that his fate is sealed and destined to be so
The Talakawa on the other hand, is any Nigerian who works, is exploited and alienated; is relatively
poor and lives in rented accommodation; is enlightened and slightly educated; again, because of his
low income, could not really make ends meet and is daily struggling to beat the odds against him; is
always angry with himself {displaced aggression} and has also, due to religious dogma, left his state to
fate: destined by God. Now, apart from the bulk number of low income workers in the public and private
sectors, I can safely place some peasant farmers, petty traders, artisans, and petty market women in
this category.
Dan-Arewa Ideology, is defined as the economic and political ideas of a few ruling Northern political
elites which has been in tandem with an apotheosized traditional aristocrats and their cheapened
reactionary counterparts in the army. Their proclivity to oppress the masses, tenacity to hold on to
power, defend their interest and impose a patterned way of thinking on the poor people have become
their imprimaturs. Wherever they members meet to this very day, as public and private sector workers,
they greet themselves with the term dan-arewa to the chagrin and consternation of their Southern
counterparts.
With global changes and internal dynamics of power play in Nigerias voodoo politics; deeply guided
cautiously and covertly by the British and International capital, Nigerians have witnessed the
emergence of OPC {Yoruba}, MOSOP {Ogoni}, MASSOB {Igbo} and Niger-Deltans {South-South}. The
ever faceless Northern Kaduna Mafia that had held sway in Nigerias politico - military of the 60s, 70s
and 80s has finally metamorphosed into human beings and is now called the Arewa Consultative
Forum {ACF}.
However, my first two defined elements above are the downtrodden, scum and the wretched of Nigeria.
They are found in both North and South of the country. But, the degree of their presence and level of
deprivation varies from region to region. It could be said that they are more in the North than in the
South. In other wards, both categories, going by my definitions, harbours, and this is socially
dangerous, what the late Brazilian, Prof. Paulo Freire, calls the oppressive consciousness. What is
this oppressive consciousness?
Oppressive consciousness is a form of retarded consciousness and a cleverly conditioned state of
mind and thought system of a person who sufficiently holds that there is no alternative to his state of
destitution. The individual knows he is being exploited, oppressed and demeaned by a system but is
unwilling or disinclined to social action to free or liberate himself. It is difficult to disarticulate that
thought from his ossified brain. For example, if a person lives a life of penury, misery, ignorance and
backwardness and believes that he is destined to remain in that state for eternity either because of a
religious belief and / or through man-made superimposed social programming, that person is suffering
from oppressive consciousness. The individual looks at the rich with awe, respect, and God blessed
while he sees himself as cursed. In English, it is called destiny. The Igbo call such a state of mind
Akala-aka; Yorubas call it kadara or Ayonmo, the Hausas call it Rabonka. It is dangerous to live with
such a state of mind.
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The worst is that the individual does not end the suffering to himself, no, he reproduces the thought in
his marriage, brain washes and makes his children believe they cannot venture, dare or put up even a
feeble fight to liberate themselves. Thus the children, falsely believing they have inherited this lazy
gene from their father, in turn live the life of their father. The circle of poverty then goes full swing. It
becomes far worst when they are only allowed to marry within their group {endogamous marriage} and
not outside of their group {exogamous marriage}, which would have thinly helped to liberate some of
them.
This consciousness is created and sustained in one form or another in all class societies. The
economic class with the upper hand, conditions this thought in the weak through a variety of means.
The worst variety being religion. It then rules, manipulate and totally control the people. The aim, being
principally to de-revolutionise them and destroy their critical mindset. Again, when the poor accept,
without resistance, this definition of them by a ruling class, they suffer from oppressive consciousness.
In Criminology, studies have shown that when a person or a group of persons, fails to resist a negative
stigma, through peaceful or violent means, over a period of time, the stigma sticks.
Having been conditioned by the ruling class, the downtrodden feels he can neither change his destiny
nor seeks to liberate himself from pity. He solicits, all his life, for pity from those, who in the first
instance put him in that state. Where it involves a group, it becomes a kind of dangerous collective
illusion and a variation of false consciousness. In sociology and philosophy, as theorised by Jean-Paul
Sartre, it is seemingly called the theory of bad faith. It is therefore a theory of bad faith for an individual
or a group of individuals to say it has no choice. The most stupid and vexatious variant used in the
Nigerian context is: I am sorry, my hands are tied. Tied by who? By a chimp? It is this type of odious
thinking that seemingly gives rise to Herbert Marcuses One-Dimensional Man {1991}: A kind of
zombie, who reasons one way and is devoid of alternative thought.
With the recent Jos riots and others in the North, like the Zangon Kataf massacre {992} in Kaduna State
and the Maitatsine mayhem of the 1980s, there is a need for the progressive intellectuals in the North to
really sit up and begin to re-educate and conscientized the Talakawas and the Almajiris in their midst.
With the exception of the late Dr. Bala Usman {Historian}, late Dr. Bala Mohammed {political Scientist}
and Prof. Attahiru Jega, I am yet to really come to grasps with what the contemporary progressives in
the North are doing to woo the above two categories, who are system-dispossessed and economically
disadvantaged, to their own side in the struggle to emancipate the Northern region, and perhaps by
extension, Nigeria.
So far, in our chequered history, it is quite clear that all Northern soldiers are pro-establishment and
reactionary. I cannot point to any serving or retired Northern soldier who is progressive and
ideologically disposed. With the exception of Rtd Col. Dangiwa Abubakar Umar who is more of a
compassionate and conservative humanist rather than a genuine radical, the rest are all revenge
specialists and ruthless reactionaries. They are subservient to Northern tradition and an elitist,
exclusivist, political cabal. The plight of the Almajiri and the Talakawa in that region does not prick their
innermost conscience. They do not see it as a social stigma and a cause worth fighting and eradicating
in the North. The Northern soldiers are very good in the theory and practice of revenge. That their
region is one of the most backward in the world does not touch their human spirit.
And that is why comparatively, for 48 years, the plight and material conditions of these people have not
improved. That the Almajiri and the Talakawa still live in dire conditions shows that all former Heads of
State of Northern extraction who have had ample opportunity to redeem that region, had failed woefully.
And that the Almajiri and the Talakawa, have not taken it upon themselves as a social responsibility to
liberate themselves from shackles of poverty, backwardness and obscurantism, should be objectively
seen as a thing of great concern for the progressives and revolutionary thinkers alike.
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Massive indoctrination and public enlightenment should do the trick. You dont do it ones and then go
to sleep, because the oppressors are watching. Agitation and propaganda or Agitprop does not
mean, agitate and relax. The mass agitation of the mind, mobilization, indoctrination and enlightenment
must come in a patterned series of ideological bombardment. The progressives in the North should
know that we are fighting a class war in Nigeria, even though the ruling class has succeeded or thinks
it has succeeded in reducing the fight to tribe, ethnicity, religion and region. Aided and supported along
that thought, is a mass media, whose ownership and control is class distinct.
The Northern progressives should also know, that with globalisation, the fight to liberate the poor has
since entered a new phase. The modus operandi has therefore got to change. Anyone who still
harbours the thinking and thought systems of the 60s, 70s and 80s, is living in past participles. The
world has left such a person behind. We can learn from our history to plan and move on, but we cannot
continue to live as if we are living in the past.
If in the North, most still think they are born to rule and that the Igbo are born to be traders and
business people while the Yoruba are born to be administrators, then you are still suffering from the
thought systems of the past and living in a fools paradise. If you think that your enemies are still the
Igbo, who only own shops and pay taxes into your state coffer which helps to beef up your internally
generated revenue and, who neither crave nor hold political positions in your state, then you are
suffering from the most acute form of oppressive consciousness. You have got to be liberated from
such poisonous thoughts being dangled like carrots, at the least provocation, by your Northern
oppressors.
The way and manner the ruling class in the North ably supported by one of the most archaic traditional
institutions in the world, mobilised the Talakawas and the almajiris, planned and carefully coordinated
the dastardly killing of Dr. Bala Mohammed on July 10, 1981, clearly showed that the Northern
progressives are not liaising and coordinating properly with their pauperised masses. How can a man
who has been fighting for the liberation of the poor in the north be killed by a section of the poor? Of
course Balas house, the day, he was killed, was surrounded by the poor, so why was he not protected
in a mass action by the poor?
In his wifes essay headed: The Assassination Of My Husband, published in the book of a collection
of essays titled: Political Repression and Assassination - A Tribute to the Late Dr. Bala Mohammad
{1983} edited by Asikpo Essien-Ibok, Najiatu Bala Mohammad gave graphic details of the grisly way
her husband was killed. His limbs were chopped off and gasoline poured on him. Again, as she pointed
out, the security agents, employed and paid by us to protect lives and property, were seen watching.
Will Nigeria ever grow up? I think I am beginning to buy Bode Eluyeras thoughts on way forward for
that country. For Gods sake, what sort of country is Nigeria? Are we a reversed people?
The fact that a purported query - which spawned the whole saga - was issued to the Emir of Kano, who
according to Rtd Col. Dangiwa Abubakar Umar, still gets two million naira from each of the 44 local
governments of the state every month {88 cool million naira monthly}, clearly shows that these
oppressed groups in the North are yet to get it. To add insult to injury, the query was not even issued
by Dr. Bala Mohammed neither was it issued by his Ministry. The actual Ministry that issued it was
spared in that attack. Please read the wifes red lips again: The Secretary to the Kano State
Government, Alhaji Sule Yahaya Hamma, who actually signed the query given to the Emir, was not
attacked. Neither was the Local Government Ministry. This is absurd, totally absurd!
Although, the then late Mallam Aminus PRP and Imuodu led faction were at loggerheads, both political
parties basic push and manifestoes were meant to liberate the poor. It is quite unfortunate that the
accentuation of a thin ideological difference between the two was exploited and used to kill a promising
young, brilliant and articulate intellectual. Dr. Bala Mohammed, continues the wife, and this was one of
the points that appealed to me: has been internationally recognized for his excellence in intelligent
output because of his contributions to the world of knowledge and letters. He was in Who is Who in
the American Universities selection of 1978. Besides, he had occupied high academic positions as a
lecturer, Head of Department and as Faculty Dean of Management and Social sciences, at Bayero
University, Kano. He rejected a U.N job with all its privileges because he wanted to see to the liberation
of the poor and abolition of backwardness in his Northern region. The system hed sought to change for
the better, killed him in his prime. Kai Nigeria! Haba!
The traditional institution in Nigeria is an agent of underdevelopment. They should have been uprooted
and their structures converted to Department of Relics and Antiquities and handed over to our
Universities. It is of no relevance in our present quest for development. In fact, the institution through
overt and covert actions, aided and abetted the annulment of June 12. With the exception of the Oba of
Benin, the rest notable Obas, Obis, and Emirs kaput and sold out on June 12 - simply because they
wanted to keep contract channels opened. The efforts of their subjects, both old and young, who took
their time to go and vote did not appeal to their morality and conscience to sought for justice.
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Having said that, Nigerian progressives should see the Northern Almajiris and the Talakawas grouped
into one, as a potential revolutionary force. They could, when properly mobilized and ideological
tutored, be useful during revolutionary situations. I knew the active role they played during the SAP
riots of the late 80s. They should therefore not be allowed to align with the Emirate traditional
institutions as is presently being the case. The struggles of late Mallam Aminu Kano, Abubakar Rimi,
Balarabe Musa, and late Mallam Saadu Zungur etc should be in vain if these oppressed groups are
allowed to align with their exploiters, manipulators and oppressors.
At present, they are entangled in a mesh mash with their oppressors. We must help them shine their
eyes. History has shown that revolutions can spring surprises and as such, the progressives should
not under-rate the potentialities in them. For example, who would have thought that the high price of
ordinary bread, and the inability of the poor to buy it, could spark crisis and lead to a revolution in
France in 1789, as a result of which, that country is better off today.
Nigeria will sufficiently heave a sigh of relief the day these groups will rise to resist their stigmas and
confront their ruling Northern cabal. The Talakawa and their Almajiri can therefore be transformed by
the sudden dictates of history. Theoretically, they may not be revolutionary conscious but they are a
potential revolutionary force. The Nigerian working class may be conscious, that is if really it is, but
during the actual revolution, most others develop that consciousness.
May the soul of Dr. Bala Mohammed continue to rest in peace. His death and that of many others like
Prof. Ayodele Awojobi, whom the BBC described at the time of his death, as one of the three best
brains from Africa in the field of Mechanical Engineering, should not weakened our quest for quality
governance. Thus advanced Prof. Paulo Freire, to experts in theoretic: To affirm that men and women
are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a
reality, is a farce. I rest my case!
Ephraim Emenanjo Adinlofu
ephraimadinlofu@hotmail.co.uk
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