Ramadan is days away but there is still time to get ready. Or is there??

How do you get ready for the holy month of Ramadan?? What do you do to get ready?? Many think you are ready when you stock your house with food and lots of beverages: rice, pasta, vegetable oil, palm oil, sugar, milk, tea, coffee, garin Kunu, spices, and the like. Of course there is nothing wrong in having all these and more in the house but readiness for Ramadan should reside in the mind. In other words it should be spiritual and not in physical goods. Getting your mind ready and putting yourself in the mood is more important than acquiring food items. You get in the mood by reading about the dos and don’ts. By listening to Ulama talks on Ramadan. By following the crowds in prayers. By joining the congregation.

Ramadan is indeed better together.

Ukraine in Zaria? What gives??

Since yesterday Zaria residents woke up with sporadic sounds of small arms fire. Perhaps sub machine guns and light machine guns being fired intermittently. Not AK47 and certainly not T-64 tankers. These machine guns must be part of an on going military exercise at Chindit barracks. The Nigerian Military School is housed in the barracks. This army barrack is now in the midst of residential buildings.
The sporadic gunfire reminds one of what is happening in the Ukrainian war with Russia. It instills fear in the minds of common civilians like me and others. Makes one feel vulnerable to an advancing battle front. And perhaps time to run away.

On a serious note though is it not time the shooting range and the barrack got relocated to a far location?? A new barrack can easily be built far away from Zaria and it’s environs. The money that is yearly allocated to defence can easily take care of this.

Between Chinwezu, Gadon Kaya and Daurawa

It is often not wise to ruffle feathers with sundry women and feminist groups. Believe it or not that’s exactly what the three above did.

Chinwezu, a Lagos based journalist then, started it a decade or so ago when he advised Nigerian men to adopt the Okonkwo strategy in their marital affairs. He wrote a whole book advocating Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart model of marrying multiple wives and keeping them in separate abodes often far from one another. Achebe’s description in the book suggests that Igbos had always been polygamous prior to their conversion to Catholicism less than 200 years ago. However Chinwezu’s book drew the ire of women and feminists as they attacked him left right and center. Lagos which was then the centre of feminism made women to jeer at the author and had published a volley of comments in newspapers arguing that women were not chattels to be acquired by men. Chinwezu responded to few comments and generally remained calm. He stuck to his advice.

Gadon Kaya on the other hand is a young Islamic cleric who may have found his true calling in stand-up comedy. He preaches, quotes and translate verses from the holy Quran. But no sooner he finished than he goes solo in hilarious stories that send his audience into a guffaw. He uses his imagination to invent stories and sketch inpromptu scenarios that send people reeling with laughter. Pretty much like Kala Rawi. The audience loved it. His video clips on this tail-end preachings are becoming collectors items. As a result his rating among latter day Islamic preachers is rising very fast and with proper marketing strategy could sell out tickets in concert-like, quasi religious, shows in Kano and elsewhere. However the Mullah may have ruffled a hornet’s nest recently when he gave a graphic description of what transpires in hospitals and clinics at night. He claimed that nurses and doctors engage in unsavory nocturnal behaviours in the wee hours of each day at various hospitals. The video went viral and of course those he accused wasted no time in giving him a tongue lashing of their own. Rumours have it that he had quickly apologized but the damage has been done as sundry doctors put away their stetescopes to write vitriolic rejoinders and post their own short videos condemning the cleric. Many of them felt offended.

Daurawa, another islamic cleric is now in the same boat after giving a murky description of the female genitalia. He alluded pungent smells, oozing urine and blood as the main stay of their vulva suggesting that men would run away if they were to see and smell females loins. Women did not find this amusing at all especially when anti marital comments started surfacing from young men. Series of videos from women condemning Daurawa in militant tones continue to surface. More are coming. He has not apologized.

All these could come to pass but perhaps a lesson ought to be learnt. Chinwezu of course stuck to his guns and his advice to nigerian men. Or shall I say to Igbos and Christians. Polygamy has been in existence for more than 800 years among muslims in the north. In fact Chinwezu would be hailed if his book were to be launched again in Kano or Sokoto or Katsina.

Gadon Kaya has apologised and may have regretted it. Mullas often take the liberty of making spurious claims while in the preaching mode. At Danja mosque one cleric claimed to my hearing that lecturers discuss and compare among themselves the number of students they failed. I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t not respond. But he went on to allude same to long truck drivers on the number of motorist they squeezed off the road and killed. How preposterous.

Daurawa, the preacher and not the people, would eventually see reason to refrain from such unwarranted and uncalled for comments. At any rate the billions of dollars made on porn sites worldwide put paid to his comments.
An interesting sideline here regarding the vulva is what two Havard professors of evolutionary biology claimed: the vulva is evolving rapidly into a self sustaining and independent organ capable of reproduction without the intervention of males. This is suggesting a complete paradigm shift. Women producing babies on their own means the end of men as a useful specie in reproduction. Without this important function the make species would go extinct. Women will definitely see to that. Indeed several books have been written giving cogent reasons why the end of men is near. It would be interesting to broach this to Daurawa even though we can predict his response.

On mainstream western media ( CNN, BBC, France24 etc) they depict Ukrainians as victims of Russian aggression and the USA and NATO as innocent and surprised bystanders who are merely keen on upholding international law.

They have conveniently forgotten that they taught the world the heinous crime of invading peoples and countries right from their imperial expansionism.

ASUU Strike book of the month!

Lesley Hazleton is an agnostic Jew and ex journalist. She is also an accomplished author with many books from her pen. She wrote two books on Islamic history: The Sunni Shia Split and The Early Muslims. I read both books and was less than satisfied with their accuracy and skewed objectivity. But her knack for researching history is outstanding. This makes this book on Mary a must read for those interested in early Christian history. She also authored another book titled Jezebel.

In writing this book on Mary the author must have been dumbfounded at the way the virgin girl was totally made irrelevant in Christian theology. After all she started it all when she gave birth to Jesus two thousand years ago in the village of Nazareth in Galilee province. Jesus was born there and roamed the nearby villages preaching. He must have ventured to Jerusalem once in a while seeing it was a whole days journey on a donkey..

Jesus is well known in Islam with the name prophet Isa. He is mentioned in the Quran several times. And his mother, Mary, too has a whole chapter named after her in the holy book. This itself is a wonder seeing more than 500 years elapsed between Jesus and prophet Muhammad.

In Islam Jesus died not on the cross. It was someone crucified not Jesus. Someone who looked like him was crucified.

In Christianity however Jesus was indeed crucified on the cross in front of women and young girls. He cried, bowled, begged and called on his father to save him. The father would have none of that. Jesus was nailed to the cross. After some time he succumbed and died. Those women around must have begged the Roman soldiers to bring the body down for burial. And the soldiers actually did thereby flouting the general directive of the Roman army: all crucified bodies must be left aloft for vultures.