SPIKINS 100 QUESTIONS Blueprint Newspapers Page 3 November 14, 2013. When you suddenly find yourself living in a land far away from home, where culture, religion and other values differ, you begin to see all the things that you were used to back at home from a different light. In fact, you begin to covet anything that will remind you and therefore reconnect you with that home you have left. This is what is happening to me right now in the land of the white men. By the grace of God, I have travelled far and wide in this world and spent some time in those places. But I have never lived like this – renting a house, paying electricity, gas, tv and internet bills and all. Yes of course, you have to pay to watch television, any television! It is a different ball game altogether. You feel that with a house and all, you should feel at home. But you don’t. You are missing your family, your friends, your environment and your normal way of life. So you could imagine my delight when I found Mal. Mudi Spikin’s Hausa song, titled ‘100 Questions’, with a friend here in this cold land. I quickly grabbed it. Needless to say, I have never parted with it since. Having listened to this song, many times over, I cannot help but feel very sad at the loss of such a good man – a great man. I remember hearing that he passed away, sometimes in February this year, but in retrospect, I should have made efforts to get close to him when he was alive. I had the opportunity, because he was married to a ‘second’ aunt of mine, but I guess I met him only once, over twenty years ago, when he visited my late grandmother. Now his are the words keeping me company and pricking my conscience in this far away land. I don’t know when he wrote this old song, possibly before I was born, but the questions he was asking are indeed relevant to the Hausa community today, more than ever before. I think we need to keep asking ourselves those questions and finding answers, perhaps we will save ourselves from the impending system collapse that stares at us. I will not be able to translate all the questions, but I will make the effort to share some of them here with you. I will try my best to translate (perhaps paraphrase) them as I understand them, but it should not be taken as a formal translation of his beautifully woven poetic work. He ended every verse with words that end with the syllable ‘wa’. Remarkable. Please find an excerpt below, read it, reflect on it and do something about it. So let us begin with where Mudi Spikin said: Why do the rich refuse to share their wealth, and why do the poor want to snatch it away? Why do women go out, strolling shamelessly? Why do some women disrespect their husbands? Why do some men refuse to meet the needs of their wives? Why do the rich not want to help the poor? Why are we no longer interested in sustaining kinship ties, why do we forget the importance of brotherhood? Why do younger ones disrespect their elders? Why are we not taking education seriously, but we are busy chasing money by hook or by crook? Why do the children of nowadays refuse to help their parents that have become weak? Why do we now see some otherwise responsible people visiting beer parlours? Why do we have many people in Hausa land now engaging in gossiping and useless discussions? Why have we stopped thinking about the Hereafter, all we worry about are the issues of this world? Why do we now have situations whereby you will see a Muslim not on speaking terms with another Muslim? Why is it difficult nowadays to find trustworthy people? Why do we have too many ailments in our land? Why is everyone running helter-skelter with no peace of mind? Why do people enjoy telling bad lies about others and why are we all afraid of them? Why are we not having pity on the unlucky amongst us and why are the kind ones dwindling in number? Why is our country becoming so poor and wretched? Why are our businessmen not using their heads to help bring prosperity by investing in ventures that will help the community to develop? Why do we now have guests in our midst striving to do better than us in what they wear, what they eat and the houses they build? Why do they eat and drink while they drive their cars and we watch them incredulously? But why do we on the other hand live in wretched houses with leaking roofs? Why do we just sit down and watch other tribes struggle to make something of themselves? Why are we so lazy, extravagant and directionless? Why do we make marriage so difficult to fix? Why do we have so many irresponsible people among us? Why do we refuse to enrol our children in schools? Why do we prefer turning them into hawkers, from where they will become spoilt and useless to the society? Why do we always promote discord between kins and refuse to improve relations? Why do we like spreading bad news about others? Why do we refuse to come together to protect our community from threats and external aggression? Why do we just sit down in our fore-halls and discuss useless issues? Why do most of us have nonchalant attitude towards the direction of the evolution of our communities? Why are we having the worst morals? But in spite of this, why do we still think we are better than everyone else? Why are we not concerned about personal and community development issues and why do we seem to exalt ignorance? When are the women in our society going to know the ills of seers? Why do they always visit them to hear about the useless unknown? Why do they believe the lies that the seers tell them, that ‘your co-wife is after your life’ or that ‘she wants to make you run mad?’.... Mudi Spikin continued to tell us the hard, difficult truths about our lives and was admonishing us so that we could mend our ways. I found this work of his so relevant to our current challenges that had he been alive, I would have visited him as soon as I come back to Nigeria, to appreciate his foresight and to drink from the fountain of his knowledge. But since he has passed away, I will have to console myself with keeping the company of these beautiful songs of his and praying for him. As I pray to God to rest Alhaji Mudi Spikin’s soul in peace and place him in his paradise, Al-Firdaus, I will suggest we focus on the 100 questions that he asked us. Our salvation may lie therein. blueprintng/new/2013/11/14/spikins-100-questions/
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:02:01 +0000
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