PANTAMI AND THE HYPOCRISY OF NORTHERN POLITICSAli Abubakar Sadiq

One of the trending issues on the table recently in the North is the political aspiration of the Cleric-turn-politician, in his quest to become the next Governor of Gombe state come 2027.

I am not going to support Jafar Jafar's dismissive article of Pantami's unrealistic effort to juggle the moral compass of his clerical uprightness against the immoral stance of Nigeria politics which thrives mostly on corruption and deciet. Nor am I going to agree with Professor Abba Aji's rejoinder to Jafar Jafar, seemingly endorsing Pantami's ability to eat his cake and have it, as he maintains the dual role of Cleric-Politician.

What I am going to do is simply remind us of the antecedents and precedents of Pantami's role in the last two decades, from both the religious and political spaces he traverses. 

In a viral video in recent years, we have seen the skinny, vocal and passionate Pantami castigating, condemning and distancing himself from politics and politicians. We have also seen the viral video where he cried profusely in solidarity with the masses, condemning the brazen corruption of the political class. That was truly a demonstration of high sense of piety and the posture of a God fearing cleric. But then NIDTA came, Ministerial position came, the certificates from Cambridge and Oxford came, Professorship (though controversial) capped it all, as power is consolidated. The lanky, skinny cleric has transformed from a ragtag Akramukallah into a chubby, handsome cleric that girls on social media went crazy over, some even begging for marriage.

What changed? Malam could still cry on the pulpit, reinforcing that his empathy is still intact, as he still delivers jummu'a sermons and Ramadan Tafsir to remind us his piety has gone nowhere. Perception, I believe, is what most obviously has changed with the Malam. He graduated from a fiery proselytizer and a ferocious enemy of politics and politicians by becoming one of them. Is it for selfish gains alone or as a pragmatic shift in order to practice what he preaches?

Let's pause here and revisit the collective physche of the Northern politicians. Our political elites, always sees religion as a political gimmick to sway votes. It began with the bearded Prince-Governor of Zamfara and clamor of Sharia under Obasanjo, which spread to twelve other northern states. And nowhere in our collective history, has religion been manipulated like during the Buhari years. It became so entrenched in our political space to the extent that it afford us the ability to foist the greatest political coup of our time. Yes, despite opposition from the middle belt, the south east and the south south, the Muslim-Muslim ticket became a reality in 2023, with no small thanks to Pantami's constituency, the clerical class. They paid homage to Buhari, endorsed his incompetency for 8 years and became the campaign mouth piece for Tinubu and ensured the unimaginable victory of Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2023. The same class is rooting for the reelection bid of Tinubu in 2027.

With all the clerical hullabaloo of the last decade, where does that leaves the average northerner? Is the cleric's foray into politics for God, Man or Self? Does the clerics that endorsed the Almajiri system, a system that continued to enslave (physically and mentally) the millions of Almajiri roaming not only the North but parts of the country, in any way tried to impactfully transform the outmoded system or merely colludes in perpetuating it? Did the Almajiri enjoyed any dividend of democracy while their fathers (the clerics) are in the front row in the political space?

As a former Almajiri himself, did Pantami focused his energy when he had the power, to rally his colleagues and cleric co-travellers towards exploiting the newly created Almajiri commission to ensure the transformation of the Almajiri system into a modern and informed workforce as an asset not liability to the region? He certainly did very well at NIDTA and the ministry and most probably the taste of that power must have been the propeller for his quest to win the executive seat in Gombe.

To cut it short, it isn't Pantami's failure alone, but that of a region and of a generation. Religion has become a kind of bane and hindrance in the sense that we invoke it whenever it suits our political goals, never to be crystallized into concrete solutions to our problems. The political Shari'a has long been dead, leaving behind not only the old problems unsolved but in it's wake fresh ones. The Sharia states, despite having the most vibrant youth population, arable land, rivers and Dams, yet wallows in poverty and clung to the lowest ladder of all human development indices.

People from afar, the prophets of Eugenics with centuries old agenda of axing the bottom 10% of the world population, are genuinely scared of our population explosion and working overtime to checkmate it by pitting us against each other, in order to decimate ourselves through ethno-religious killings, poverty, crime and drugs, while here we are unmindful of any consequences as long as our short term goals can be met. For over a decade we had been warning of the dangers of redundant youth population, it is as dangerous or even more so than any bomb. Boko Haram, Banditry and kidnap has vindicated those fears. And as drugs continues to flood the region, only God knows what will rear it's ugly head next. 

Unless we begin to, sincerely, address the Almajiri issue, youth unemployment, drug spread etc through proper advocacy by the clerics and the creation and redistribution of wealth by the politicians, our appointment with doom is not a matter of if but when, if not already underway.

The soul of the North now lies in the hands of the Clerics and the Politicians, with the likes of Pantami earning the dual identity, despite his seeming complicity in the Buhari era of neglecting the real problems of the north, we still hope to see a transformation, not the kind of narrow Shari'a mentality of hudud and hisba boards, but of Zakat and inclusivity in sharing the wealth among the citizenry by investment and wealth creation, those are the only panacea to insecurity and pathway to real development. 

The Northern governors, regardless of religion or ethnicity, are united in neglecting their citizens needs for meaningful development as they remain self-serving. Unless the people of the north imbibes the Governor's spirit of uniting for their common good, unless religion is divorced from politics, unless excellence replace God-fatherism, unless we checkmate bad leadership by firing non performing parties and their agents, unless we stops our ethno-religious bickerings, unless we do that, there would be no end in sight for our continued long walk in chains of modern slavery as we continue to worship our elites.