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robeesanda@yahoo.com Hail, Saudi Arabia

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ARABIC INSCRIPTIONS ON THE NAIRA (NOT AGAIN!)

n its online edition of September 30, 2005, The Guardian Newspaper of Nigeria carried a news item titled CAN youths sue Govt. over Arabic words on currency. The article started thus:

"THE youth wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has sued the Federal Government over the inscription of Arabic letters on the country's currency.

The group wants the government to withdraw from circulation, all currency notes bearing the Arabic language, signs or inscription and to replace them with a language that is official and indigenous to Nigeria.

In the suit filed at the Federal High Court, Ibadan, by its national president, Dr. Niwo Oluwatade and secretary Victor Odabor, the group seeks to restrain the government from further issuance of the currency with Arabic language.

The suit, filed by their lawyer, Ranti Ajeleti, gives reasons for the group's action as:

• that the provision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act, Cap 47 Section 19(b), Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990 does not allow on the currency notes the inscription of Arabic language which is not officially recognised by the Nigerian constitution and not indigenous to Nigeria; and

• that the CBN, in issuing such currency notes with the Arabic inscription, sign and language, was violating the provisions of Section 10 and 56 of the Constitution…".

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I grant that in a fledging democracy like ours, free speech is not only necessary but paramount. It makes me sad, however, that a number of opinion leaders as here represented by the Youth Wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) would choose to ignore the necessity of a thorough homework before embarking on a frontal attack on a subject of volatile potential for bloodshed as religion in the context of our past experience. In an article I wrote on Nigeriaworld.com last January http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2005/jan/311.html and which was subsequently published in other news media, I tried to avoid making the link between Arabic as a language and Islam as a religion in that context. However, to those agitating against Arabic scripts on our national currency the two are one and the same, therefore, the need to correct some misconceptions here. My position is informed by being a Kanuri from Borno State and a Christian and also by the fact that I have spent the last nine years of my life fruitfully working as a doctor among Arabs in Saudi Arabia (a country that is 100% Arabs and very nearly 100% Islam).

The two grounds for the legal action against the Federal Government, namely that Arabic language is inscribed on the naira and that Arabic as a language is not indigenous to Nigeria are, both, not correct. Firstly, it is common knowledge that there are both Arabic alphabets and numerals on the Naira. However, the truth is that the language is neither Arabic nor the numerals English. Hausa records dating back to the later parts of the 15th century have been in Arabic scripts like many modern languages aside from Arabic itself. It was not until around the end of the 19th century that Hausa language was written in Roman scripts. Arabic numerals, on the other hand, form the language of modern science and we are quite comfortable with them even on the face of the Naira. So how do we explain our disdain for Arabic alphabets?

The suit demands that the Arabic scripts be replaced with an indigenous script. I find it hard believing that this is meant to be taken seriously. The fact is there is not a single script or writing in the entire African continent that could be said to be indigenous or original. The earliest script on the African continent, the Ge'ez, is classified as an offshoot of the south Semitic languages and it is the only surviving representative of the Sabaen script which is related to classical Arabic and was in use in the Arabian peninsula since around 1000 BC but was only introduced to the African continent around the 4th century AD by Christian scholars while translating the bible. It is used in Amharic, Tigre and Tigrinya languages in modern Ethiopia today. What indigenous inscriptions are we contemplating on to replace the Arabic scripts? The litigants should rather include in their suit that the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria violated the constitution of the Federation not just by using Arabic alphabets on the Naira but also by using Arabic numerals as well.

Secondly, the notion that Arabic as a language is not indigenous to Nigeria is false. By the provisions of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, let it be known that there are Nigerians that are Arabs and as such Arabic qualifies as a Nigerian language just as Yoruba, Hausa and Fulfulde are not exclusive Nigerian languages. Shuwa Arabs are known to have migrated and settled in the territory of Nigeria around the Lake Chad basin from the Arabian peninsula via north Africa (Fulanis arrived later) as far back as the 7th century AD and today they can be found in four countries (Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon). It could be said that these people arrived in Nigeria ahead of many of the ethnic groups that today call themselves Nigerians. Shuwa Arabs have been estimated to number around 100,000 as far back as 1973 and are found in the greatest concentration in Dikwa, Kukawa, Monguno, Konduga, Ngala and Bama local government areas of Borno State as well as in neighboring Yobe State. What more, during the Second Republic, the chief executive and governor of Borno State was produced from this ethnic Group. This tribe produced individuals that have served our country at various levels of government, civil service and the military counting themselves not as Arabs but as Nigerians.

On the religious dimension of the Arabic alphabets which by implication of the declared interest of the group charging the government of violation of the constitution and by published statements of individuals affiliated with the group, Arabic and Islam mean one and the same thing to them and this, perhaps, informs their course of action. Millions of Arab Christians in countries like Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco read their Bibles and offer their worship to God in Arabic language. Is the youth wing of CAN implying that these people are by any stretch of the imagination lesser Christians than them? Have we now categorized Arabic as an anti-Christian language? There are many converts to Christianity among the Shuwa Arabs who are bona fide members of the Christian Association of Nigeria. Therefore, CAN is 'tainted' with what they are zealously fighting against, Arabic.

The Saudi Arabian currency, the Riyal, is designed with entirely Arabic scripts on one side and entirely English scripts on the flip side. In my entire nine years in Saudi Arabia I have not heard a single Saudi protesting the use of English scripts on their national currency. Remarkably, in the 1980s, one Saudi Riyal was exchanged at SR15 to N1 but today the ratio is SR1 to N30. Shouldn't we as Nigerians be asking ourselves how come this development instead of embarking on a worthless exercise of chasing shadows? Where was the CAN youth wing when so-called Christians in cohort with believers of other religions misused their positions as political office holders, military generals, businessmen in stealing millions and ruining the economy resulting in this negative effect on the value of the Naira? What is CAN doing about the growing list of Christian names in the hands of EFCC, ICPC, 419 tribunals, armed robbery suspects, the London Metropolitan Police, etc which have more damaging effect on the integrity and value of the Naira and on our collective psyche and pride as Nigerians?

The greatest threat to Christianity in Nigeria today is not from Muslims but from practitioners of the Christian faith themselves. When Christian Missionaries from Europe, like the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM), first came to northern Nigeria, they were received well and regarded as benefactors by the indigenous muslim population. They built and ran schools (which many Muslim parents sent their children to attend). No Muslim would boycott a hospital because it was run by Christian missionaries. Leprosy colonies in places like Molay near Maiduguri, Garkida and Zaria were examples of the works of Missionaries where ill social outcasts were treated back to health with eventual reintegration to society. These were causes that had positive impact on society and which even the arch-conservative Muslims could identify with. Christianity thrived harmoniously with Islam in northern Nigeria from East to West. Visitors from the south were always amazed at the numerous churches in such northern cities as Maiduguri, Damaturu, Potiskum, Kano, Katsina and Sokoto. There was cordiality, respect and tolerance by each religion towards the other. I attended a Christian missionary secondary school in the north where Muslim students voluntarily took Bible Knowledge (Christian Religious Knowledge) in the curriculum. Religious festivals of either religion were times for exchanging goodwill and tokens of friendship. That was the time when Christianity was making converts in the north and was truly growing.

Towards the middle of the 1980s, slowly, a new brand of Christianity crept into the Muslim hinterland with a new agenda that drew neither respect nor enthusiasm. Rather than identifying with the mission of Jesus Christ by preaching salvation and charity, materialism and worldliness took center stage. They preached, and preached about prosperity even as the lots of the average Nigerian dwindled below the poverty line by the day. About the only prosperous Christians were the owners of those churches that preached the 'gospel' of prosperity. Is it any wonder then that churches in Nigeria are today diving for cover in the wave of armed robbery attacks against them? In vain prayers are offered to God in desperation as the number of churches in Nigeria being targeted increases each day. Shouldn't that be an issue of more immediate concern to CAN than the design of the Naira?

In 1987, I was there to witness the burning of over 150 Christian churches by Muslim youths in Kaduna State. Even in the height of hostility against southerners in 1966, churches were counted as sacred places and such acts would have been thought of as unthinkable. The principal of my secondary school (an Igbo man) took refuge in a church in the north and survived the war to become a priest thereafter. The relationship between Islam and Christianity in northern Nigeria has, however, taken a taken a turn for the worst ever-since. As those churches mushroomed on every street corner and became wanton like stock markets, Muslim youths lost their respect for our places of worship and rained hostility towards us with impunity. The Christian Association of Nigeria should, in my opinion, be addressing means of reclaiming the past evangelistic successes in the north rather than be engaging in this neo-jihadists vs. neo-crusaders clash that leaves lives ruined and the country poorer.

The leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria should reason with its younger members to save their energy for causes worthy of the Christian faith in Nigeria. The withdrawal of this legal action at the Federal High Court, Ibadan will not only save money donated to God for good use, it is the most sensible thing to do to steer the country away from further degradation and anarchy. I have made it clear in my previous article that I am in support of other ethnic representation on the design of the Naira along with the 'offending' Hausa in Arabic alphabets. But if as a result of continued legal action against the government arsonists are spurred to action, the Christian Association of Nigeria cannot escape a moral responsibility for the resulting loss of lives and property of innocent Nigerians.

It is imperative that the Christian Association of Nigeria should be true to the biblical teaching to "beat their swords into plough shears" and reach out their hands in friendship to Arabs and Muslims and in so doing we can rediscover the mission of Christ and help rebuild our country back to economic and spiritual prosperity. The Christian Association of Nigeria must rise along with the rest of us to defend the unity of Nigeria on its 45th independence anniversary and beyond

God bless Nigeria!