Encore
Last week, we discussed people’s misapprehension and misinterpretation of the clear wordings of the Holy Bible and Holy Quran as regards good neighbourliness, freedom of thought, conscience, religion and worship. We conclude today with Quranic and Biblical injunction against trespassing on another person’s property and the truism that no one can defend God.
The holy Quran abhors trespass in 24:27-28:
“O ye believers! Enter not houses other than your own, until ye have asked for permission and saluted those in the in”; that is best for you, in order that ye may heed. If ye find on one in the house, enter not until permission is given to you; if ye are asked to go back: that makes for greater purity for yourselves: and Allah knows well as that ye do”.
In 24:30, the holy Quran frowns at the youth’s action: “Tell the believing men to reduce (some) of their vision and guard their private parts. That is purer for them. Indeed, Allah is acquainted with what they do”.
In the holy Bible God specifically warns us in the 10th Commandment in Exodus 20:17:
“You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, not his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour’s.”
Deuteronomy 5:21, on the other land, states: “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.”
The holy Bible affords us many bad examples of coveting. David, for example, coveted Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:1-4). Ahab coveted Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21:1-6). In both cases, this mental sin of coveting led to other more terrible sins, including outright murder.
True, Islam and Christianity teach peace and good neighbourliness, strive to create inter-denominational harmony, endurance and tolerance. No more. No less.
Yet, those misguided youths, who allegedly profess Islam were publicly doing ablution with their “private parts” (genitals), shamelessly unguarded. They turned this holy book of salvation upside down. Let them go and read how to perform “Ghusi: Janabat” and “Wudu” in the Holy Quran, 5:6.
Let them get lectured on Emile Durkheimi’s imperishable social theories of functionalism, anomie and division of labour, which lead to societal harmony.
Who can defend God?
So, who can defend and fight for Allah, God, Osanobua, Chukwu, Olorun, Abasi, Osinegba, Oghena, Abadeh, Jamaga, Afjaa, Taroneesh, Davar, Dadar, Khudawand, A-gar-agar? Just who can?
The Holy Quran, 16:70 says that Allah is all knowing, all powerful. Al-Alim (the all knowing), appears 157 times in the Holy Qur’an. The Quran states that Allah is omnipotent, omniscient, most merciful, most beneficent (Ar Rahman, Quran, 55:14). In the Holy Bible, God is omnipotent and exalted in power (Job 37:23). He is omnipotent in salvation (Philippians 1:6). God is all knowing (Matthew 11:27), John 10:15, 1 Corinthians 2:10-11, Romans 11:33-34, Psalm 147:4, Deuteronomy 29:29.
Said George Carlin, “religion is like a pair of shoes… find one that fits for you, but don’t make me wear your shoes.”
Tiffany Madison reasoned, “of all the religions in the world, perhaps, the religion of liberty is the only faith capable of purity.”
So, how can any one kill another in the name of defending God? We are demeaning and profaning God and defiling His hallowedness by claiming to be defending, or fighting for Him? This is great insult, disparagement and affront to God Almighty, the Alpha and Omega.
God, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. To all our Muslim brothers and sisters in Nigeria and across the world, Ramadan Kareem; Ramadan Mubarak.
Niki Tobi the painful exit of an iconic jurist
For 41 years, this luminous iconic jurist and intellectual prodigy bestrode the Nigerian legal firmament like the legal colossus that he was. In erudition and depth of the law, he was outstanding.
In jurisprudential analysis and thematic impact of what the law represents, he was in the pantheon of the likes of Chukwudifu Oputa, Kayode Osho, Anthony Aniagolu, Udo Udoma, Karibi-Whyte, Nnamani and Uwaifo.
He saw and used law, not just as an instrument of social engineering, as was once envisaged by Dean Roscoe Pound. He went deeper. He viewed law as vehicle and handmaid of socio political, economic and cultural engineering to mirror society, solve her ever evolving and competing centrifugal forces, with a view to having a better society. He brought his intellectual depth and sharp academic professional mind to retool the fabric of our corpus juris.
We are here talking about Justice Niki Tobi, who passed on last week. A great legal author, professor of law, teacher, philosopher, historian and former Head of Department and Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Maiduguri. Justice Niki Tobi left his indelible imprints on the sands of time, of both the academic and the bench.
An expert in property law, Tobi even served as Deputy Vice Chancellor at the University of Maiduguri, before Karibi-Whyte (another legal prodigy) convinced him to cross over from the academic world to open up new vistas in the world of representing God on earth, through delivery of judgments between man and man and man and government.
On the bench, he was simply terrific and incandescently outstanding, using flowery, prosaic, at times, poetic language to convey his thoughts in a manner that held the reader or listener spellbound and transfixed like an insect rendered immobile by some insecticide.
Niki Tobi’s endearing nature and nurture impacted on his humanism. He was simply bold, courageous, incorruptible, but humble and humane. The scion of Esanma, Bomadi LGA of Delta State, was born on July 14, 1940.
Tobi was a great author, who wrote tirelessly on constitutional, criminal, procedural, civil and property aspect of our laws. Making one wonder how he found the time to combine his judicial duties with authorship.
Having travelled the High Court bench (1985-1990) and Court of Appeal (1990-2002), Tobi berthed at the apex court in 2002 and served meritoriously till 2010 when he retired honourably, having clocked the compulsory constitutional retirement age of 70 years.
His wide views of life and patriotism came in handy at the trying moments in Nigeria’s history. Thus, the present 1999 Constitution was midwifed by him, when in 1998 General Abdulsalam Abubakar’s transitional government appointed him as the Constitutional Review Committee Chairman.
I worked closely with Tobi at the 2005 Obasanjo propelled National Political Reform Conference, when I headed the sub-committee on civil society, media, labour and trade unions. His accommodating temperament and Pan-Nigerian outlook saw to the conference’s success.
Alas, its recommendations were dumped into the archives of history.
He was the Judge who presided over the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in April, 2007, that saw the emergence of Yar’Adua as President. A holder of the order of the Commander of the Order of Niger (CON), Tobi had also chaired the 2001 Commission of inquiry into the bloody Plateau State crisis.
On the 10th of April, 2010, he was on the high table, as special guest of honour in Sheraton Hotel, during the reception organised in my honour upon taking the silk as Senior Advocate of Nigeria. He poured uncommon glowing encomiums on me. He said something to the effect: “Look, Mike, don’t let anyone take credit for being made a SAN. You more than deserve it. It was too late in coming. You are one of the best legal minds in this country and many of us were embarrassed that you were still not a SAN until recently.” I have the videotape. I felt humbled, taller and more energised with such words, coming from such prodigious phenomenon.
This is the time the Federal Government and the Judiciary should immortalise Tobi, though his judgments already makes him unforgettable.
Death, when will you stop preying on the best? Thou art shamed! Death, where is thy sting? True, “when beggars die, there are no comets seen, the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes” (Julius Ceaser).
Niki Tobi came. He saw. He conquered. Grant him eternal rest, O Lord. Adieu, great jurist. Farewell, legal colossus.