Farooq Kperogi

By Isma’il Hashim Abubakar 

I was prompted to pen this essay by two writeups of prominent newspaper columnists: Mr Gimba Kakanda and Professor Farouk Kperogi. The latter is one of the people I have been following due to their mastery of using his pen to communicate ideas. Both Kakanda and Kperogi have painstakingly struggled to deodorise the infamous Samoa (perhaps it’s more suitable to call it Tamoa) Agreement and exculpate it of its meticulously wrapped pro-LGBTQ+ substances. 

Maybe the authors of the document containing details of this agreement are so cunningly sagacious to beat the conscience and intelligence of the Atlanta word master who, as far I know him, is so wide-eyed to read things between the line and discern and decode messages from even unarticulated and not well coughed or well-lettered communications. Farouk Kperogi is not at all that simplistic type of a person that one could hoodwink by suggesting to him that a week is different from seven days or a year is anything else but twelve months. 

The 12-page document explicating different stages of agreements entered into by the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific states is so clear in the very first paragraph that “the multiple negotiation levels, the coronavirus crisis and difficulties in reaching agreement on sensitive issues, such as migration management and sexual and reproductive health and rights, …”. A witty reader would not even wait to be told that sexual rights emphasised in the quote would never mean the existing sexual customs prevailing in the beneficiary states just as no one will argue that sexual rights in this sense refer to what the West conceives of as new normal, acceptable sexual culture.

All the dull, lengthy noise and regular references to vague resolutions and procedures in the document, beating around the bush in most instances, reflect strategies meant just to propagate the incongruous norms the West is relentlessly hellbent on imposing on third-world countries. It may also sound controversial if one claims that the so-called autonomous countries like ours are, in real and practical terms, undergoing another form of colonialism in the modern day, of course, heavily pretentious, more diplomatic, possibly negotiable, and less confrontational.

Daily Trust, the newspaper outlet that took centre stage in unravelling Nigeria’s role in this agreement, should be commended for quickly alerting Nigerians to what our increasingly gluttonous, money-hungry leaders who could not resist a dubious multimillion-dollar loan are up to. 

The document being circulated currently seems not to be the only manual laying guidelines and terms of the negotiations. It refers to a monitoring group under the Committee on Development (DEVE) set up by the European Parliament, whose consent was crucial in the approval of the negotiations. In the report submitted to the  EU through the DEVE committee, several recommendations were adopted, including a particular “chapter on human rights” which “should explicitly list the forms of discrimination that should be combated (such as sexual, ethnic, or religious discriminations) and mention sexual and reproductive rights”.  

It appears that while the available document now within public reach may remain implicit and brief about the nature of rights this bill wants to get protected, there are appendixes which may be at the domains of leaders and top representatives of concerned countries and which explain in greater details and specify perhaps in exact terms the list of kinds of the so-called discriminations that must be stopped once the agreement is entered into. 

Admittance that there are divergences in positions on sexual orientation and gender identity (LGBTI rights) among EU Member States is not a definite declaration or solemn undertaking that this agreement will not pursue that goal. It doesn’t require any mental labour to know where this agreement is heading, even if it does not now literally endorse LGBTQ+. The reference in the agreement document about scepticism and misgivings nurtured by some affected countries is nothing but a deceptive pretence of objectivity and balancing, such that later it will be presented as a mere debate and leaning toward the LGBTQ+ as a mere result of in-house voting among donor institutions, vetoing the concerns of and leaving affected countries like our own with no option but to accept and be committed to the terms based on which we are handsomely paid. 

In fact, without any further denial, disclaimer or clarification, the document observes that “prior to the signing of the agreement in Samoa, several African and Caribbean CSOs called on their governments not to sign the agreement, fearing that it might lead to modifying domestic laws, in particular, to endorse LGBTI rights”. The authors do not attempt to deny the allegation above or make any further comments that will allay existing fears, thereby reminding us tacitly that to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Both Kakanda and Kperogi capitalise on the lack of literal mention to promote Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) in the document, thereby accusing the Daily Trust of misguided reporting but also rubbishing the understanding of the majority of Nigerians who interpreted the clauses emphasising the need to protect sexual rights and orientation as another way of reintroducing LGBTQ+ using the power of juicy loans. 

Since Kakanda is in government, we have no difficulty forming the proper framework to read his intervention. As a former activist now enjoying dividends of democracy, one should either keep quiet if one cannot defend the truth or at least not pretend to be ignorant of how Nigeria is run and what are the ulterior motives and hidden goals behind all loans that the third world is lured into accepting.

Kakanda’s points revolve around the absence of explicit devotion and literal commitment to LGBTQ+. Kakanda reiterates the insignificance of the anxiety this new agreement saga is generating by referring to the anti-gay law signed during the Jonathan administration, and he thinks that is absolutely enough to guarantee our safety and to suggest that the money could be collected and consumed without serious implications and disastrous consequences. If Kakanda is sincere, let him advise the government in which he now serves to institute operational frameworks that will deploy the same anti-gay laws enacted about a decade ago to end the LGBTQ+ movement that already practically exists and is being rigorously promoted and advertised via social media platforms.

Meanwhile, Kperogi, who has built a reputation of siding with the masses always against different government antisocial policies, has fallen so low this time around to fail to discern that sexual rights and other terminologies used in the document are not even so vague to think they are different from all those bizarre rights and queer sexual orientation freedoms. We are all not oblivious to how highly sophisticated and cunning heirs of former colonialists are and not as gullible to declare support for the scary LGBTQ+ catchphrase glaringly in their proposal, given that they faced resistance in earlier phases of their project. We ought to be mature enough and vociferously critical to detect proposals to institute LGBTQ+ even by mere mention of key phrases like “gender violence”, “women’s and girl’s empowerment”, “fight against discrimination”, “right of self-determination”, and so on, not to talk of sexual and reproductive health rights.

Kperogi is merely angry that people have been, for operational reasons, refusing to kowtow to his admonition to rise and execute his yet esoteric, misunderstood and almost ‘impracticable’ revolution. Now that people seem to be once again united and appear determined to fight this dubious bill which is at our doorstep, which, to him perhaps, is innocuous or at least less harmful, Kperogi is tactically venting his anger on people and accusing them of misplacing priority. 

In other words, people in Kperogi’s theory should better fight anti-masses policies which institutions like the IMF and World Bank are forcing Nigeria to implement than jawbreaking and investing unnecessary energy on sexual rights issues, which, after all, is what he encounters in the U.S day in day out, unlike the excruciating poverty and bad governance that bedevil Nigeria. 

At any rate, within a decade or something like that, even as LGBTQ+ right was successfully illegalised and the law to fight it constitutionally still exists, there has been a proliferation of growing LGBTQ+ movements, largely operating without any hitch in the virtual world and particularly on the social media cyberspace. Who knows if institutions behind bills and agreements like the Samoa agreement do not sponsor those movements and groups? Why is there little or no evidence at all to show and establish that those breaking anti-gay laws and other unusual customs have been made to face the wrath of the law? 

Sexual rights agents, manifesting in many forms, have now become celebrities and operate freely on the media while clandestinely running ventures that everybody knows are nationally outlawed. Sponsors of these agreements might have been convinced that it is now the right time to secure legal frameworks for protecting their representatives, having taken some years to experiment and implement their projects successfully. 

We should not be deceived by any government defence on this matter—either by a government official or a likely bribed or even gagged scholar. We all know well what some powerful elements in the Western world are after when they set goals they want to achieve at all costs, deploying short—and long-term plans, even if the latter will span a century. As things go this way, let us ponder what will happen in the next 50 years for those who will live to see that period.

 As people are now sinking into excessive materialism, suffering from a lack of focus and shortsightedness,  and unduly obsessed with imitating the Western lifestyle, it is so hard to suggest that posterity could effectively challenge and fight bills like LGBTQ+.  Therefore, there is a need to start thinking of ways and techniques to instil zeal and introduce mechanisms for combatting moves like this in future. If they have not succeeded now, they have patience; they could wait and hope to see their plan triumph within less than a century from now. One better way to start tackling LGBTQ+ is to begin addressing the decline of morality that has been mainstreamed on social media now. Otherwise, once the law succeeds one day, God forbid, it will consume us unimaginably.

Isma’il writes from AERC, Rabat and can be reached via iahashim@fugusau.edu.ng.

By Aliyu Barau, PhD

Farooq Kperogi is among the few Nigerians who elegantly sandwich scholarship, media and English language expertise. On the contrary, I am neither a language expert nor a political analyst. Here, I am just trying to figure out the naughtiness of Kperogi’s thinking machinery. How Kperogi thinks substantially determines his writings and opinions.

No doubt, Kperogi’s articles are a cynosure of the eyes of many Nigerians across political, cultural and social divides. Some of his Nigerian readers pluck his linguistically well-crafted and yet asymmetric views and dye them in the colours of their sentiments or ignorance. It is very normal to manipulate any text on this planet. Interestingly, it is not unusual for bohemians and intellectuals to dress and feast on controversies.

I see Kperogi as a sort of a roller coaster dripping joyful and sorrowful moments on public sentiments and obsessions. Indeed, considering Nigeria’s contested socio-political landscapes, Kperogi personifies Hankaka (a pied crow in Hausa) which they say, “whoever sees its black must see its white too.

I am indifferent to Kperogi’s criticisms of the powers that be. I don’t care about his tirades and vituperations directed at the political class who sold their moral rights at the markets of failures and misgovernance.

So, what’s my headache with Kperogi? Well, I am deeply touched by his overriding superficiality, unidirectional views, bigotry, extremism and spider mannerisms. To be fair to Kperogi, no elites in the social and political divides of this country are immune from his pen. Nevertheless, his seamless and borderless forays are in many instances unconscionable and peddling post-truth constructs. My labelling of Kperogi is based on my readings and analysis of his recent blog stuff:

• Presidents Who’ll Make Me Renounce Nigeria (https://www.farooqkperogi.com/2022/03/presidents-wholl-make-me-renounce.html)

• Osinbajo’s RCCGification Part of Plot for Theocratic State Capture (https://www.farooqkperogi.com/2022/04/osinbajos-rccgification-part-of-plot.html)

• 10 Reasons Osinbajo Will Ignite a Religious Civil War (https://www.farooqkperogi.com/2022/03/10-reasons-osinbajo-will-ignite.html)

As a transdisciplinary environmental researcher, I always prefer wider views, co-produced, and inclusive opinions. I am diametrically opposed to ‘single story’ constructions – as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie would say. My reading of the above articles has convinced me of Kperogi’s single story-driven narrowed conclusions on crucial and critical national issues. Before I explain my points, I have tried further analysis of Kperogi’s knowledge production mannerisms to see how that fits my labelling. For instance, I conducted a rapid assessment of his authorship of academic works on leading research archives namely Researchgate and Google Scholar. Both repositories reveal in him a professor with a very limited network and co-authorship. By implication, any scholar with limited networking and co-authorship will have little room for alternative views, tolerance and thorough analysis. This evidence convinces me as to why he writes less holistically and cares less to get into deep layers of issues.

Kperogi is a good reflection of the proverbial Dubarudu – a character in one of the Hausa riddles. Dubarudu owns a mirror in a town where no one owns any. He alone uses it and no one can use it including his wife. Nigeria is a mirror that we need to share to see our faces and appreciate our different outlooks.

My reading of the three blog articles produced by Kperogi leads me to carry out further analysis of how this versatile writer thinks. Scholars make use of Low-Order Thinking Skills (LOTS) and Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) to determine the thinking capacity of scholars and students. I always assume that the Nobel Prize winners and other high ranking scholars utilise HOTS. Without prejudice, blog articles produced by Kperogi appear to belong to low-order thinking skills.

Then, how is he seen as a low thinker at least in the three articles under consideration? The answer is discernible to all his readers who care. He uses interrogatives such as ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘which’, ‘how many’ and ‘who’ in driving his opinions in the three articles. We could see mentions of places, names of persons, the number of persons, places, when and where in his labelling of religious bigotry by VP Osinbajo. Healthy and informed minds would care only about the HOTS interrogatives such as ‘why’, ‘how’; ‘what evidence is there?’, ‘cause and consequences’ etc. Unfortunately, less informed and sentimental Nigerian readers can easily be misled by the lots of LOTS he always amplifies.

At this point, I am bringing out my real problems with this language scholar. I really find it very nauseating and irritating when he declared in his blog, on March 28, 2022, that he would renounce his Nigeria citizenship if any of the four individuals he listed in an article would become Nigeria’s next president.

The four Nigerians he condemned were Osinbajo, Tinubu, Bello and Wike. How on earth! What depth of hatred is this? What if God has decided one of them to be? To me, this is exotic bigotry, branded intolerance and egregious extremism. Where is his knowledge of the language of contestations, resistance and resilience that characterize the works of Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, and Karl Marx? Maybe, I should remind him of the struggles of the Irish activists captured in Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh’s Language, Resistance and Revival. Such a Kperogian declaration amounts to cowardice, hopelessness and disillusion. How can I give up my citizenship on account of a tenured president that could be at the mercy of the judiciary, parliament, media and civil society? I never expected him to easily forget how spirited men and women stood against the caudillos (strongmen of Latin America) seen in Pinochet of Chile, Stroessner of Paraguay, Somoza in Nicaragua, and Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. I wish good luck to the listed four and to Kperogi, especially when one forsakes Nigeria for America where black lives matter. The people brutalized by the Nigerian junta yesterday are princes of the Aso Rock Villa of today. That is how time works.

No little thanks to Farooq for giving us a neologism -RCCGification through his April 14th 2022 blog opinion. I was distraught reading that as I saw in it that article tight shortness of sight and breath considering it is coming from a scholar. Saying that one church denomination will overrun Nigeria is a devilish statement. Even Satan might call that the last post-truth reality. Nevertheless, I find solace in Mehdi Hassan’s response to Anne-Marie Waters during Oxford Union Debate On Islam held at the Oxford University in the UK sometime in 2015.  Putting your article in the context of that debate and Mehdi’s response means Kperogi is a big fanatic and bigot. Why? Because RCCGification is the same thing as Islamisation.

Every time a Muslim rules Nigeria some Christian bigots use the thread of Islamisation to weave clothes of suspicion and division. So what’s the difference between the advocates of Islamisation and RCCGification? Is it not flipping sides of the same coin? I would be happier to have as a leader, a just Christian than an unjust Muslim. RCCGification of Islam, Catholicism, Protestants, and traditional religions are all mirages. RCCGification of Nigeria is a charade since this church has not even seen the intergenerational transition of itself let alone overrun others.

Let us be frank with ourselves, it has been a standing tradition of Nigerian political, religious and business leaders to bring close to them the people that they know. Hence, I am unruffled by any list of political appointees associated with the RCCGification agenda. I am always amused by fears of Islamisation and I always see weak and ignorant Christians as its drivers and authors.

When you insist on going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem as Muslims do in Mecca, you are just Islamising Nigerian Christianity. When you say let us block the Muslims or deny them their rights what is your name? Islamaphobe, unjust, conspirator or still a Christian? What I like most about religion is the sweet taste of spirituality. Those forwarding the RCCGification agenda are either mischief makers or ignorant of Nigeria’s social, historical and political institutions. 

When I saw the casket of Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu draped in Nigeria’s flag and carried by the Nigerian military officers, that is the day I realised that Nigeria is bigger than all its citizens. Nigeria overwhelms anybody with any hidden agenda. A critic must learn how not to be like a spider. Its knowledge of design is superb and its nest is outstandingly beautiful. However, the skinny guy builds its nest on the common pathways not minding trapping everybody.

Aliyu Barau, PhD, is an Associate Professor from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. He can be reached on Twitter via @aliyubarau.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari.

Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media at Kennesaw State University, Farooq Kperogi, has faulted the Redeemed Christian Church of God’s interest in partisan politics. 

Kperogi expressed his disdain regarding the church decision on his verified Facebook account on February 10, 2022, in an article titled “RCCG’s Dangerous Foray into Politics for Osinbajo.”

He said he was not surprised at the church’s sudden interest in partisan politics. 

“This isn’t really surprising, frankly, because Pentecostal Christians see Osinbajo as their representative in government and think he is the fulfilment of Pastor Enoch Adeboye’s oft-quoted prediction that one of them would become Nigeria’s president during his lifetime.”

Kperogi also threw a subtle jab at President Muhammadu Buhari, faulting Osinbajo’s rise to the presidency as a ploy to burn the notion that the president is a fanatical Muslim.

He also described Osinbajo as a pentecostalist whose inner circle are his fellow pastors and churchgoers. 

“Osinbajo himself defines his role in government in the narrow terms that his co-pentecostalists see it: as the materialization of a Pentecostal Christian theocratic dream. That’s why his inner political circle is almost entirely made of Yoruba RCCG members,” he wrote.

Kperogi further argued that Osinbajo is not fit to be president. 

“There’s no Christian in government in Nigeria’s history who has ever been as narrow-minded, as culturally clueless, and as insular as Osinbajo, which was why, a senior Yoruba Christian professor told me recently that Osinbajo would “create greater instability as president” than Buhari has because “The Sharia folks will confront [Osinbajo’s] Christian fundamentalism with more violence” which would precipitate disabling communal upheavals.”

Several people have also reacted to the development. 

Aisha Yesufu, a human rights activist, in a Tweet said there is nothing wrong with the church supporting Osinbajo

“So let’s assume RCCG is doing this for Osinbajo, what is wrong with that? Why shouldn’t RCCG support a candidate? If the candidate is good, we vote. If the candidate is bad, we do not vote! Simple! RCCG have (sic) as much right to be interested in politics as anyone else.” She tweeted

Also reacting to the news on the Daily Reality Facebook page is Mallam Muktar, who condemned RCCG’s political move, said that “religious leaders participation in politics will lead to divided allegiance”.

“It will be devastating to hand over Nigeria presidency to religionists/extremists whether pastor or Imam because their first allegiance will invariably go to their faith. They are the propelling force behind the clamour for religious configuration of contesting persons and religious blackmail of our electoral process. Who knows, they might also be behind the continuous blackmail of that notable SW Muslim presidential aspirant and political benefactor of their man, who may be perceived as their major obstacle to the presidential ticket.

“Nigeria doesn’t need such leaders. Nigeria needs [a] liberal Muslim and Christian who only fear God but [is] not bound by a non-displaceable religious creed or allegiance. We should resist and shake off religious politics in 2023 by demystifying religion configuration ticket and by voting for liberal candidates with total disregard to their faith,” he concluded.

By Ambali Abdulkabeer

On January 22, 2022, a seemingly terse letter by one Muhammad Rabiu Jibril to the perennial critic of Nigeria’s asphyxiating political system and its enablers was published by The Daily Reality, an online news medium headquartered in Kano. In the letter, Bashir writes about Kperogi’s consistent verbal umbrage at Nigeria’s geriatric political stagers and asks him to recommend a candidate for Nigerians in the 2023 elections. Bashir implicitly hints that faulting our leaders alone won’t suffice. More worryingly, several people who commented on the letter challenge Kperogi to, in lieu of writing belligerent, “big grammar” articles to condemn all the candidates currently available for Nigerians to pick from in 2023, come out and participate in the laborious task of choosing a leader for Nigerians during elections. That, to me, seems ignorant at best and unwarranted at worst. Here is why.

We need to understand that political participation is in layers. In other words, our involvement in politics, as significant as it is, can take various forms. Some of these include voting during elections, participating in mature political campaigns, conducting political sensitisations especially in places far removed from the mainstream politics, holding political positions, donating money to a political cause (in the interest of collective prosperity), participating in meetings that keep citizens close to their leaders and blogging writing about political happenings.

It’s unarguable that Prof. Farooq Kperogi is renowned for one or all of the above. As a dyed-in-the-wool political commentator and justice advocate, he writes consistently about political issues. His writing has propelled many public decisions that have shaped the country’s economic, social, cultural and political trajectories. His weekly political columns are devoted to critically analysing the myriad of sociopolitical issues bedevilling Nigeria in the last three decades or more. For me, this is a heavier role to assume by someone who, despite not being directly affected by several political diseases in the country, takes his country’s progress as a priority.

The fact that Kperogi has taken it upon himself to right the wrongs of the monsters in power by exposing their egregiously corrupt practices, not minding the consequences, should be enough for us to know that he wants the best for the country.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan man of letters, aptly reminds us about the responsibility of a writer in his essay “Writers in Politics: The Power of Words and the Words of Power” when he argues that writers in politics operate within complex forces. He refers to them as people who risk many things to create a befittingly just world. One of the paragraphs in the strongly-worded essay is worth quoting here:

“He (writer) must reject, repudiate and negate his roots in the native bourgeoisie and its spokesmen, and finds his true creative links with the pan-African masses over the earth in alliance with all the socialistic forces of the world. He must, of course, be very particular, very involved in a grain of sand, but must also see the world past, present, and future in that grain. He must write with all the vibrations and tremors of the struggles of the working people in Africa…behind him. Yes, his work must show commitment, not to abstract notions of justice and peace, but the actual struggle of African peoples…and be in position to lay the only correct basis for real peace and real justice”.

In all fairness to Prof. Farooq Kperogi, his writing has always been within the prism of the above-identified responsibilities of writers, especially those who are caught up in the terrible sociopolitical conditions of countries like Nigeria. Nigeria is plagued by existential problems, including bad leadership, mass ignorance, and smelling regional biases exemplified in people’s attitudes toward the establishment and others. Therefore, for anything, any writer that informs their people and unrelentingly writes to challenge the status quo by giving the blueprint for emancipation and genuine leadership, which Nigeria truly needs, doesn’t deserve ill-founded condemnation.

This is not to argue that Prof. Kperogi’s political essays are watertight recommendations; it’s hard to discredit the courage and foresight his work forges for concerned Nigerians. Perhaps, this is what Breyten Breytenbach means in his polemical essay titled “The Writer and Responsibility” when he says, “a writer, any writer, to my mind has at least two tasks, sometimes overlapping; he is the questioner and the implacable critic of the mores and attitudes and myths of his society, but he is also the exponent of the aspirations of his people”.

Those who have commented on Jibril’s letter by calling Prof. Kperogi out should know that it takes massive grit to do what he is doing. They should know that his writing is really helpful. Even though he is not in Nigeria, he is doing what many Nigerians who are direct victims of the mess the country is enmeshed in can’t or fail to do. Of course, many scholars in Nigeria should have taken it upon themselves to inform the public through writing and go against the grain in the interest of a better Nigeria.

I would end this essay this way: Voting during elections isn’t the only way to participate in politics. Before voting, voters need to have the required knowledge of the process and understand the qualities a responsible political aspirant should possess. They must also come to terms with the power dynamics in the country and know who is fit to say this and that on their behalf. This is the leitmotif in Kperogi’s writing. So, before launching baseless ad hominem digs at a patriotic Nigerian who is voluntarily doing his part to fight for a country we can all cherish, we should understand that the role of a writer, first and foremost, is to inform. And that is exactly what Prof. Kperogi is doing.

Ambali Abdulkabeer is a writer and critic of contemporary writing. He can be reached via abdulkabeerambali@gmail.com.