Steve Nwosu and the cemetery

Category: Comments Published on Saturday, 15 August 2009 01:00 Written by Ahmed Shuaibu-Gara Gombe Hits: 1430

I always maintained that in Gombe State, just like in Nigeria, events are unfolding everyday. Before you finish writing or discussing an issue, another will be starring at you begging for attention. I am compelled by necessity to write a rejoinder or do I say an extended article to the one written by my very good friend, Steve Nwosu, the Daily Editor of the SUN Newspaper in his column FRANK TALK on Wednesday, July 22, 2009.

I do not want to bother myself with the sections of the article that glorified Governor Goje as a performer: “that despite all he did to develop Gombe as a modern city or state, people are still going to the cemetery to clear weeds for the rains to fall, when the rest of world are celebrating 40 years of moon landing”. I had always respected Steve Nwosu’s views on issues of national discourse, I never missed his column but what strikes me most is that in going to the cemetery to appease God it is not an indication of backwardness or social retardation, rather it is a mark of supreme obedience to Qur’anic injunction and submission to the (Hadith) practice of the Prophet Mohammed (S.A.W) peace be upon him, the compass of Islam which contained all known form of civilization in the world. Thus, the weeding of the cemetery by the people of Gombe, led by our amiable Emir of Gombe, Alh. Shehu Usman Abubakar, (OON).

The Islamic position on weeding the cemetery is that among the dead lying in their graves, no one can say who among them is at peace with God. So, as a result of the long period of lying in their graves and because of the way true Muslim graves are made, there is a tendency that over the years some holes might have been naturally created due to earth movement as geographers will say or other soil factors. So when the rain falls and pass through the holes to flood, wet or inconvenience the dead that are at peace with God, God in his wisdom may decide to dry the heavens to protect the dead until the living who will also be dead one day go to the cemetery to not only clear weeds but go from one resting place to another covering all existing holes, then God may decide to open the heavens. Exactly five days after the observance of these Islamic rites the heavens opened up in Gombe and there was rainfall.

Gombe people are progressives, we were only suppressed, oppressed and undermined by our various governments, that is why the potentials of the state’s indigenes had not been fully exploited. There is a name the people of the north refer to the people of Gombe: “Gombawa diban fari ba a kwan da kuba antashi daku” meaning, “Gombe indigenes, early risers, they are not seen at sunset but they appear at dawn”. This is due to our resilience, industriousness and entrepreneurship. But in the last six to seven years our entrepreneurship capacity was completely destroyed, poverty is the order of the day; what thrives was gangsterism in the form of political thuggery promoted by political office holders, something which is now institutionalized in the form of “kalare”.

Steve Nwosu tried to enumerate the achievements of Goje’s Government; yes, Goje tried to provide infrastructure, but at what cost to the state? And who is going to utilize these infrastructures when human capital development which is an index of civilization is reduced to nothing, people are not secured and the entrepreneurial enthusiasm is deliberately killed to make the people unavoidably submissive to the wishes of the powers that be?

In Gombe State in the last six years or thereabouts a lot of innocent lives were lost to bandits and political thugs that alone is enough for the heavens to be dry. When people see the truth and hide it, when people see black and say it is white, when women are divorced everyday, when elders refuse to provide good guidance, when public servants defy oaths of allegiance, of course these are auxiliary issues that can turn the society against the creator of heaven and earth.

One of the functions of local government councils in Nigeria as outlined by their bye-laws is the establishment and maintenance of cemeteries, burial grounds and homes for the destitute or infirm. Can someone pass a word to Dasuki Jalo Waziri, Chairman Gombe Local Government who happens to be Governor Goje’s son in-law and who I understand has already started rehearsing the use of siren as the next Governor of Gombe State, that he should first ensure that our burial grounds and cemeteries are always kept clean since this is an elementary responsibility that he has not kept before thinking of being the next governor of Gombe State?

Gara-Gombe wrote in from H.A. II Herwa Gana Quarters, Gombe