It's
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility..."
It's indeed once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, except that this time it's not Shakespeare's King Henry V speaking, it's only yours truly, little me, and thereby "our English dead" is by itself a uniquely historical tragedy, except that in this case - at this time and place, "our English dead" should only refer to the language – the English Language ("dead") in terms of what the learned, Big Grammar book-people used to say back there in Sierra Leone, Britain's very first and oldest colony in Africa (150 years) - about the poor sods who made unfortunate grammatical mistakes in either speaking, reading or writing Her Majesty's Mother Tongue. They would reprimand you for "shooting " - and if the "shooting" was excessive or intense (several volleys wicked grammar or horrible miss-pronunciation or other kinds of miss-takes) , they would declare that you have "killed" - you were killing or you had killed, and you had either "massacred" or if the speech was still ongoing, they would say you were "massacring" Her Majesty's English, which as we all know, by nature, is a non-violent Language.
Once more dear friends, and this time too, as usual, in peace and in humility I come, representing my dear Baba Kadiri whose rejoinder to Kperogi was apparently too severe for our Moderator to let through, so here I have done my best in toning it down a little, here and there, so that it should pass the standard sensitivity litmus test with flying colours!
Concerning the occasional little tittle-tattle with Kperogi, at least Kperogi has caused me to do some homework, so I have done a background check on his wonderful Bariba people – to better get acquainted with where he's supposed to be coming from. As my dear mother used to tell me, "despise not humble beginnings". To date, with regard to Nigeria, I am better acquainted with my own Yoruba heritage, the Kalabari, Igbo, Ikwerre, Ekpeye, Ogoni, the Ibani of Bonny, the Ijaw of Nembe, and of course the Fulani ( the first language that I spoke)
As far as I know, our moderator has never rejected a posting on the grounds of too big or too bad grammar and hopefully never on the grounds of too big or too bad ideas, but always, so I suppose, in objection to certain kinds of the ad hominem that could threaten the very foundations of the peace and tranquillity in the USA-Africa Dialogue Series. In my not so humble opinion even bad ideas/ bad philosophy could be permissible, if not intolerable and inadmissible in an intellectual or scholarly debate?
I have tried to remain faithful to Baba Kadiri's original and have only excised what from a very conservative point of view even in the free speech zone could be a little controversial when it comes to protecting any chosen holy cows from the brutality of victimhood and from the more extreme forms of language damage.
From the succinct Baba Kadiri (edited) thus adding another important voice to the melee:
Reading Farooq Kperogi, one is fraudulently enticed to believe that the recent collapse of a 21-story building at Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria, was caused by a curse incensed with religious incantations from the Islamic Qur'an.
However, it has been confirmed that, in 2019, forty-three buildings collapsed in Nigeria, out of which seventeen occurred in Lagos. The cause of the collapsed buildings was attributed to quacks and greedy developers parading as professional builders who altered original permits used substandard materials and engaged in illegal conversions. The collapsed Ikoyi building, as it has now been revealed, was approved, architecturally, for 15 floors but the developer built 21 floors.
Obviously, the depth of the foundation meant to carry 15 floors would not be adequate for 21 floors. In addition to the fragile or weak foundation, if the blocks and ceilings of the building are made of 95% sand and 5% cement, one does not need to be a professor to predict imminent disaster. Whatever might have been the cause(s) of the collapse of the 21-storey building, by the time Farooq posted his essay, it was known that many people including the Managing Director of Fourscore Heights Limited, Femi Osibona, had died while some wounded persons had been rescued.
It would appear cynical that Farooq Kperogi does not care about the loss of lives and wounded persons in agony. Instead, the collapsed building, according to him brought to light for him what he termed *Anti-Muslim Bigotry in Yoruba land.* The Background to Farooq Kperogi's belief in ' casual bigotry and {inferiorisation (sic)} declaration of Yoruba Muslims as inferior by their own Yoruba people in their own land' was a Youtube story told by one Adebowale Sikiru who claimed that the MD of Fourscore Heights Limited, Femi Osibona, refused to employ him as a site engineer because he, Mr Sikiru, is of the Muslim faith.
Farooq Kperogi narrated, "Sikiru left the site sad, humiliated and deflated, but a friend of his who brought his attention to the job he had interviewed (sic) for called him while he was on his way back home. The friend wanted to find out if he was trapped in the building that had collapsed a few hours earlier. That was the time it dawned on Sikiru that his rejection and humiliation on account of his faith saved him from death." '
It is noteworthy that Sikiru's you-tube story was told after his attention was drawn to the collapsed building by a friend who knew he was there for a job interview and was concerned about his safety. Apparently, having heard about the tragic collapse of the building, Sikiru felt it was the right time for him to rejoice over the downfall of the person that refused to give him a job, as he claimed, because of his adherence to the Islamic faith.
Traditionally and culturally and regardless of whatever religion or sect you belong to, it is an abomination in Nigeria to rejoice over the death of a person. This is because of the general awareness that death is the ultimate end of every human being, although no one knows when, where and how death will happen. Names of the dead in the collapsed building have not been published except that of Femi Osibono and that of his visiting friend, a United States-based Nigerian businessman named, Wale Bob-Oseni, who was scheduled to travel on that same date back to the US.
Oseni seems to be a Yoruba Muslim name. Of the fifteen rescued persons from the debris of the collapsed building so far, the following eleven names have been disclosed: Adeniran Majowa, Odutan Timileyin, Ahmed Kinleku, Sunday Monday, Waliu Lateef, Sholagbade Nurudeen, Glory Samson, Ndajor Ahmed, Yinusa Abubakar, Ajiboye Habib and Jeremiah Samson.
From the 11 rescued persons, 6 could be identified as answering Muslim names.Thus, if Femi Osibono had refused to employ Adebowale Sikiru as a site engineer, it could not have been because of his Islamic faith. And even if it were true that Osibono refused to employ Sikiru because of his being a Muslim, the right time to talk about having been discriminated against because of his religious faith should not be immediately after the collapse of the building with the tragic loss of lives and scores of wounded people.
Despite being a professor, how could Farooq Kperogi and his engineer brother, Sikiru have thought it wise to triumphantly propagate their mythical belief that their Islamic God, Allah, intended to save him from death which was why he was refused employment by the Christian pastor?
Surely, Kperogi and Sikiru are not remotely suggesting that they are very happy because they think that the God of Islam has helped them to defeat the God of Christianity by collapsing the 21-story building into rubble and killing and wounding so many people inside it???
While the dead and wounded are still being pulled out of the collapsed Ikoyi 21-story building why does the self-centred centaur, Farooq Kperogi, say it is time-honoured for him to highlight the declaration of Yoruba Muslims as inferior Yoruba by their fellow Yoruba who are not Muslims!?
It should surely not be a macabre dance of joy on the corpses and the wounded people of Ikoyi's collapsed building, over the alleged discrimination of Yoruba Muslims by the fellow Yoruba non-Muslims?!
Kperogi cited an example thus, "For instance, in the heat of the debate over the formation of Amotekun to ward off *Fulani bandits,* Bolaji Aluko, who was a professor here in the United States and who is now a prominent Ekiti government official, used the moment to stealthily alienate Yoruba Muslims in his State."
How had Bolaji Aluko "stealthily alienated Yoruba Muslims in Ekiti State"?
Kperogi referred to a January 25, 2021 article written by Bolaji Aluko, titled: On the Matter of Farmer-Herdsmen Clashes in Ekiti State. What constituted Aluko's stealthy alienation of Yoruba Muslims in Ekiti in the referenced article quoted by Kperogi thus, "Our Muslim Yoruba citizens must decide whether the Umma principle of brotherhood is greater than the collective security of our Yoruba citizenry."?
Bolaji Aluko's article contained more than eight paragraphs of which Farooq Kperogi dubiously quoted the first sentence in paragraph six but intentionally left its second sentence for the purpose of fulfilling his, call it what you will - his aversion, envy or ill-feeling shown towards Bolaji Aluko :
The omitted second sentence reads, "Similarly, the Kabiyesis, top politicians/society bigwigs and government functionaries who are said to own large heads of cattle, and who use these herdsmen to herd and multiply and secure investments must measure their financial livelihoods against our threatened lives."
On reading the two sentences in paragraph six together it shouldn't be difficult, except for a prejudiced professor, to see that Aluko is addressing all residents of Ekiti, regardless of religion, that are engaged in the cattle business. This becomes even more explicit when one reads paragraph 1of Bolaji Aluko's article which is as follows:
"Not all criminals in Ekiti State are Fulani; Not all Fulani are criminals; Not all Fulani are herdsmen; Not all herdsmen are criminals; Not all herdsmen are Fulani. No criminal is desirable in society, Fulani of herdsmen or not. These six maxims are irrefutable."
When Bolaji Aluko talked about how to get rid of WÈRÈ (which means lunatic in the Yoruba language) in Ekiti State, our dear professor Farooq Kperogi stubbornly imagined him to be talking ill about Owerri, the capital of Imo state. The misunderstanding obviously falls within the range of what psychiatrists will describe as a psychosis condition, i.e., when somebody is unable to distinguish between reality and his/her imagination.
In Mecca and Jerusalem, the original home of the Qur'an and Bible, houses are not built by chanting verses of the Qur'an or Bible. Therefore, it is only someone who is afflicted with Acquired Intelligence Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) that would attribute the collapse of that Ikoyi building to the religious faith of the developer of the property.
And whether Yoruba Muslims are routinely discriminated by their fellow non-Muslim Yoruba or not, it is unreasonable to hide under the tragic collapse of Ikoyi building to discuss such discrimination unless, it is proved that religion is the cause of the collapsed structure.
S. Kadiri
Today's Saturday Tribune/Peoples Gazette column uses the story of one Adebowale Sikiru whom Foursquare MD Femi Osibona (who sadly died in the collapsed building he managed) denied a job only because of his Muslim faith to call attention to the time-honored casual bigotry and inferiorization of Yoruba Muslims by their own people in their own land. I'm ready and loaded for bear for the predictable attacks from people who'd rather sweep this uncomfortable truth under the drug and attack the messenger.Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogiNigeria's Digital Diaspora: Citizen Media, Democracy, and Participation
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
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