By Jude Atupulazi
As a newsman, the farther away you are from the public, the less likely you will get to be abreast with what’s happening around you. The simple reason is that people talk; either by gossiping or by just giving away the hard facts. And so, whenever it is possible, especially when my car is doing shakara, I will jump buses to get to work and to get back home. It is usually quite an experience because you get to meet all sorts of people, hear all sorts of things and entertain all sorts of opinions.
Last Monday was another such day that I used public transport. And one thing that struck me was what I can call the changed attitude of civil servants. They were in their numbers in the bus I boarded from Amawbia Express Junction to Aroma. Unlike before, they were going to work on a Monday in their numbers and in a hurry to make it to their offices to boot! When the driver of the bus branched into a filling station to buy fuel, all hell was let loose as the passengers rained abuses on him. ”Why are you buying fuel now?”; ”Why didn’t you buy fuel before now?”; ”You are wasting our time”; were words that rent the air. The passengers were hurrying to make it to their duty posts on time in order not to have their salaries slashed.
You will recall that the Governor of the State, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, in bid to eliminate the vexatious sit-at-home syndrome initiated by proponents of a new Biafra Republic under the aegis of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, decreed that every Monday should no longer be observed as a sit-at-home day. The sit-at-home stuff was ordered by IPOB to protest the continued detention of their leader, Nnamdi Kanu, who was later given a life sentence by the Nigerian Government over his atrocious acts in the Southeast Zone of the country.
Apart from initial compliance to the IPOB order by members of the public out of fear, some people, especially civil servants, would gradually start using such days to do their private businesses rather than the one they were employed by the Government to do. They used the sit-at-home order by IPOB as an excuse to dodge work, despite many entreaties by the Government for them to be reporting to work.
But that changed when Soludo went into another gear and threatened to slash the salaries of those workers who stayed at home on Mondays. Having probably thought Soludo was joking, many still dared him and refused to come to work on Mondays.
However, they saw at the end of last month that he meant business when their salaries were slashed. Hence, this Monday, not one of them wanted to be scapegoated. They were all scrambling to get to their offices on time.
I laughed when I saw this, play out, last Monday. No longer were they giving excuses; no longer were they coming to work late. They are now full of seriousness, scrambling to be the first to report to work to avoid another salary slash. I loved what was playing out before me.
This tells you one thing about our people: they don’t listen to pleas; they listen to threats. I am happy that Gov Soludo stood his ground in maintaining that the sit-at-home nonsense is stopped in the state. It started with the closure of the Onitsha Main Market and that of Nnewi which forced traders to start doing business on Mondays.
Soludo’s insistence is now bearing fruits. Traders have started going to the market on Mondays, just as many banks in Awka have started being open for business on Mondays. The era of some fools hiding in the bush and issuing threatening voice notes to the sane population seems consigned to the trashcan of history. And may that continue.
I have always maintained that those who try to dissuade others from going to work are failures who don’t want others to progress. It is those who want to pull others down with them and don’t like it when they see other people working hard and succeeding. But that era is gradually ending, to the glory of God and common sense.
Is Nigeria’s Islam different from that of other countries?
The trending news is what we are hearing coming out from the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, where the school authorities have threatened instant marriage for male, female students seen together during Ramadan (period of Muslim fasting).
According to the story, the Management of the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi sparked widespread controversy after issuing a directive prohibiting male and female students from “standing together in couples” on campus throughout the month of Ramadan.
In a notification dated February 25, 2026, and signed by the Registrar and Secretary to the Council, Alhaji Kamisu Salihu, the institution warned that any student found violating the order could be subjected to an immediate arranged Nikkah (Islamic marriage).
The circular stated that during the Holy month of Ramadan, standing together ”in couple (boy & girl)” is strictly prohibited.
“Please respect the sanctity of the Polytechnic and avoid unnecessary closeness,” the notice read, adding that in the event of such a marriage, the couple would be responsible for funding their own Walima (wedding feast).
Now, anyone reading that would think that the institution’s greatest problem was male and female students standing together on campus, rather than the dearth of facilities in the institution. I am not so sure that the said polytechnic is the best in terms of infrastructure in the country. In fact, how am I even sure that the school has enough classrooms and hostels for the students.
But it is going through the extra mile to impose sanctions on students seen standing together during the period of their fast. But I ask; what is the sitting arrangement in the classrooms? Are the classrooms big enough for male and female students to sit so far apart? I’m not sure that’s the case and if so, why not shut the school till after the Ramadan?
This again shows the hypocrisy of Nigerian Muslims and takes me back to the time they were insisting that female Muslim corps members must be allowed to wear hijabs by the authorities of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC.
Just recently, some Nigerian Muslims condemned the attack by America and Israel on Iran when no such condemnation had been done by any other Muslim country outside Iran. Yet, those who condemn such did not say a word when some Muslim students passed a fatwa on a female Christian undergraduate, Miss Deborah Samuel, who was killed for allegedly committing blasphemy against Prophet Muhammed
In case you have forgotten, Deborah Samuel, a 200-level student at Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto, was brutally killed by a mob of Muslim students in May 2022. She was accused of blasphemy against Prophet Muhammed after posting a comment on a WhatsApp group criticizing religion-related posts shared by her classmates.
The incident sparked widespread outrage and condemnation, with many calling for justice for Deborah. Two suspects were arrested and later acquitted due to lack of prosecution, a development that shocked no one as that has been the pattern in this country when Muslims kill Christians.
But when I see other Muslim countries doing so well, I wonder what is wrong with our own. The United Arab Emirates, for instance, is a very, very Muslim country, but you will never hear the kind of things happening here taking place there. They are mainly concerned with growing their country economically, politically and socially.
But in our own country, our Muslim friends are more concerned with mundane things that lead us nowhere. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Turkey, are all Muslim-majority countries unlike Nigeria with a teeming population of other religions. Yet, these countries prioritize development over religion and are giving their citizens the kind of good life we only dream of here.
But here the topics range from wearing or not wearing hijab, fighting perceived blasphemers, to ordering students of opposite sexes from being seen together on campus during Ramadan. Here we hear about people killing ”non-believers” in order to be given ten virgins in paradise, and other bullshit. Chai! Onye melu anyi ife nkea?
Thus, I ask, is our brand of Islam different from that practiced in some other Muslim countries? Biko anyone who knows should tell me.
