Comrade Shehu Sani - 'No one can stop me!'

Since the publication of his play, Phantom Crescent, COMRADE SHEHU SANI has been under attack from both Christian and Muslim groups on the grounds that the book is critical of the application of Shari?a law in Northern Nigeria in a manner that is capable of causing religious crisis. The Concerned Northern Christians dissociated itself from the book while the Concerned Shari?a Forum took the matter to an Upper Shari?a Court, asking it to ban the circulation and staging of the play. But Sani, who is the leader of the Socialist Front and the Northern Civil Rights Society Coalition, is no stranger to controversy. He has been imprisoned many times for his human rights activities and even sentenced to life imprisonment by the Abacha regime. In this interview with SUMAILA UMAISHA, he expresses his determination to fight on till he succeeds in getting the book widely circulated and staged in order to get his messages across.

Comrade Shehu Sani: It is a play. Before it, I?ve written other plays. And the intention of writing the play is simply to use a stage performance to enlighten and educate the citizens on how they can defend and protect their fundamental human rights. It is also meant to sensitize the citizens on the need for them to jealously guide their constitutional, political and civil rights. It is intended to send a message to rulers and the ruling elite in general that by seeking public office through the constitutional process and swearing under oath to protect and defend the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, they are under obligation to run a government, to operate a government and to preside over the people in accordance with the dictates of the constitution. One of the fundamental differences between dictatorship and democracy is the rule of law and respect for the fundamental human rights of the citizens. As a writer, a playwright and an activist, I believe that rather than organising seminars, workshops and conferences that have always been done in thousands every year without making full impact on the lives of the people and without necessarily sending clear messages to the political leaders, one could use stage play to clearly send the message.

Now, the book became a subject of controversy simply because it takes on the issue of the principles and application of the Shari?a system. And it is only ignorant people who have not read that book or people who have simply decided to make an issue out of it or people who are sentimental in their own way of thinking that have treated the book as a controversial document. It was never meant to be controversial. The fact remains that in democracy, people must have the right to express their opinions. And you cannot hide under the guise of any religious dictates to undermine and subvert the rights of the citizens. I?m a Muslim and I don?t believe we have any spiritual leaders. People simply contested for elective positions under a secular political party, print their posters and make campaign promises of providing roads, water, electricity and bettering the lives of the people. Now, if you happen to be in political office you have to live up to the responsibility as a political leader who has won an election and has a contract with the people. You don?t have to hide behind religion, using prohibitive laws to disguise yourself while you have not lived up to your obligation. I believe these are issues which we have to clearly separate. And my play is simply to educate, enlighten and to pass a clear message. It is also to inspire people to stand up to the defence of their rights because it is only by doing that that we can safeguard our democracy.

Well, they took the case to court demanding that the Shari?a court should ban the book and to grant them their prayer. But when we challenged them in the same court, the judge rather than give our side victory, simply washed his hands off the case. He said he has no jurisdiction to hear and judge the case. Now, to come to your question; the book is not specific on any person. All the characters in the book are fictional; it is all a work of fiction. But the message is a reality among our society and it is like the Hausa proverb that says, whoever goes to the market and makes anonymous abuses knows the person he is addressing it to. So I did not mention names and I?m supposed to be ignored. But those who know that they are feeding fat on religion, using religion to fester their own nest and to plunder the treasury of the country or who have failed to deliver the dividends of democracy who are using religion to hide their failures are the ones that feel attacked by the book. If you know you are a man of God and you don?t exploit, you don?t oppress, you don?t deny people their fundamental rights and you don?t deceive people, then you don?t have problem with Phantom Crescent.

Well, I don?t know who is the governor called Yerima. But I know as a Hausa man that Yerima is a title, though it can also be given to a person as a name. And the person you mentioned is called Ahmed Sani while my own character is Yerima. So if Ahmed Sani now says his name is Yerima then he is entitled to his own opinion. And if he says the personality in my book fits him, he is entitled also to his opinion. But as far as I?m concerned, my play reflects the socio-economic and political reality in my own part of the country. And if any person feels offended by the book, well, it is quite unfortunate, it wasn?t meant to offend anybody, it was simply meant to enlighten, entertain and educate people and getting offended over it or raising emotions over it will not stop us from going ahead with what we are doing. We can?t be intimidated into silence. No one can stop me!

What is important for politicians is, rather than being panicky about literally works and write-ups, they should simply do their job. Why is it that nobody is castigating the likes of Aminu Kano and Sardauna of Sokoto? Each time their anniversary comes hundreds of thousands of people rally round to say the best of them. It is simply because they have made good conduct of themselves. For instance, General Olusegun Obasanjo who was just out of power less than a year ago, all sorts of attacks and abuses are being rained on him. When he was in power he thought he had loyalists, supporters, he had all the world and the country on his side. Every time he moved about, politicians praised him, even some journalists praised him. But you see, at the end of the day the truth shall be out. Today he is been receiving missiles from all parts of the country and also from some of the people whom he counted as his own loyalists. Leaders like Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, Samura Mitchell, Augustina Neto and Kwame Nkuruma are leaders that have lived their lives and have passed on, but each time you speak about them people are always full of praises for them. So it is your conduct in the office that will speak for you and I believe that as time goes on we will reach a point where leaders who have refused to live up to the expectation in office and who have deceived their people would certainly have no resting place.

Well, so far, the judge of the Shari?a court was ambiguous in his decisions. The first court order we received stopped us from further circulation, distribution or performance of the play. And we went to court and argue the case and the judge simply made a generalised judgement which is very ambiguous. And from what I have seen, he was simply trying to satisfy both sides. When he was asked whether the book has been banned or not he simply remained silent over it, saying he has no jurisdiction to entertain the case. It seems he didn?t want to offend them or offend us. Now they have gone on appeal in the Shari?a Court of Appeal and their prayers was that the court should compel the judge to entertain the case. So I think the case is now in that very process. And our own legal representatives are also there. So at the end of the day what we want is to have a clear judgement. And when we have a clear judgment then we can go on with the performance of the book.

So far, a lot of offers have been made; many people have reached out to me from both within and outside the country, that they want to reproduce the Phantom Crescent and that I should even perform it in London, Paris and other places. But I?m not interested in performing in London or Paris, because I want to simply educate and enlighten the people that are here where I come from. I?m not intending to make it a show business kind of thing; I wrote my book to reach out to my own people and to send a clear message and it is here that it should be performed and not anywhere else.

Well, I think it is quite a legion of people or groups and they called themselves members of Concerned Shari?a Forum. They say my book is capable of causing crisis, confusion and violence and it is insulting to the implementation of Shari?a law and that it is a dangerous document that must not be allowed to circulate. It was based on the alarm they raised that the court granted them the prayer of stopping the circulation of the book.

Well, Shari?a has been applied in a number of countries, such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Orman, United Arab Emirates, etc. In all these places what you see hand in hand with Shari?a is that people are comfortable; they have good roads, electricity, a bright future, their children are in the best of schools and they have the best medical care system and everybody is living up to his own responsibility. But in this country there is so much poverty, neglect, penury. People are in pains, people hardly find it easy to educate their children, to take care of their bills, to live like human beings. In this society you have a wide gap between the rich and the poor not because the rich are working hard, they are simply rich because they either have direct access to the treasury of the state or they are close to the people in positions of power. And you have a mass of poor people who find it difficult to eat and drink. Three years ago, about six young men were in Zaria prison for two years. It has to take me and my legal team to go and free them from the detention. They were awaiting amputation. One of them stole a bag of rice, another one stole provisions for tea for his wife who is pregnant. Another one stole a bicycle and the other two; one stole a goat and the other one stole a ram. Now, these are the kind of petty thefts we have that attract so much interests of our own politicians and the security agents. And this is a country where billions of Naira have been carted away by people in the position of power. So, I think what we need to do before you talk of the implementation of any law in our society is to see to it that the leaders make it impossible for people to resort to criminal activities to make ends meet, by addressing the problems of poverty. Then after that they can hold any person responsible for whatever he has done. In Saudi Arabia, if you arrest and jail a man, while in prison the state takes care of the family, so that members of the family are not made to pay for an offence which they have not committed. But we are living in a society where it is very difficult for people to be law abiding. In Nigeria?s 136 prisons, 80 per cent of the prisoners are kept there for offences that involve less than ten thousand Naira. It is a situation where bigger thieves are free while petty thieves are bearing the brunt of the society. If we are going to operate socialist system, well, it is working in Venezuela and Cuba. And if we are operating a capitalist system, it is working in Britain, France and the United States. And if you want to operate an Islamic system, it is working in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and even Iran. But if you look at all these countries, you will find that in all these socio-economic systems, the basic problem of poverty, want, disease, illiteracy are simply addressed. And people have reasons to live, to have hopes and dreams. But in most countries in Africa, the reverse is the case.

So you can?t put the cart before the horse. We must ensure that first of all our people are treated equally as human beings and then from there we can talk of any other thing.

Well, what I will say is that we cannot have laws in a society where the leaders are lawless themselves. We cannot have one kind of law for the poor and another one for the rich. I think for the implementation of Shari'a to be effective certain things are necessary. One, there should be enlightenment and education. Those who are for it and those who are against it must be enlightened. Secondly, there must be a serious attempt to solve the problem of poverty. For instance, if you have money as a government, you have two options; either to solve the problem of water or solve the problem of water borne diseases. They should know it that when you address the problem by providing clean water there will not be water borne diseases. But if you think you can allow people to drink from the mud and then cure those who are affected by the diseases that come from that sources of water, I think you are simply wasting your time. So you must solve the problems that lead people into crimes or else you will only succeed in punishing and jailing people and the problems will not be solved.

Well, I have not covered everything; in fact, I have not covered even two per cent of the books I want to write. Right now I have written a lot of books and I?m releasing them gradually. But funny enough, when I sent one of them to a publisher, the moment he read it, he said I will end up in jail again if it is published. But I don?t care about that. So, you can?t finish writing. You just have to keep on doing it. For example, since the book on political assassinations in Nigeria came out more than 50 people have been assassinated. So that book must be updated. Even the book I wrote on the killing and violence in Northern Nigeria; since after the publication of that book, there have been series of violence in the North and I feel that book has to be updated. There is no road closed for literature and writing. It is simply something you have to keep on doing. And I think one interesting thing about books is that it makes you immortal. When you write a book you live forever. So I think whoever wants to live forever should write books.

I?m a member of ANA, because if you are interested in the development of literature you have to get yourself involved in such organization. ANA is one of the most important organizations that I have ever belonged to. Their contributions to national development is something that is worthy of recognition more than it is given now. In other countries of the world, literally associations like ANA are part of the policy making bodies of such countries where you have group of intelligent people that give their own views and ideas on how the country can move forward. So I am involved in some of the activities of the ANA, but I am more of a rebel in the sense that in as much as I want to belong to an organization I also want to maintain my independence in terms of getting my message through. My own kind of writing is not simply a writing to entertain people or a writing that you read when you have nothing doing. I write to inspire you to make a change in your society or to participate in it, and in the process of that I don?t want to be inhibited by a group decision. I am more of a rebel writer, someone who writes to change the society and to confront injustice. For instance, if I want to write about the ruling People?s Democratic Party, I would seek the advice of people in the group, because it is most likely that some people who are in that group are members of the party. But I don?t want to be inhibited by that. So in as much as I belong to an organization I would not also like to be restrained by the decisions of the organization. Some writers write books that give you joy and create for you an atmosphere of comfort and luxury. But I write my books to make you see the true situation, to make you restless and wake you up from your sleep to do something to your own society. And that is the difference between me and some of them.

Well, I think it is most important to contribute towards the growth and the advancement of ANA than to seek to be among its leaders. ANA deserves all the assistance from all members of the society because a society without literature is a deaf and blind society. And it is literature that energizes and gives vitality to a generation and as far as I?m concerned we will continue to be in ANA and give all the necessary support it deserves. And as far as the leadership of ANA is concerned, I think it is a democratic organisation. Whosoever the majority of the people of ANA see as the one with the potential to lead the organization to greater heights, I think what we should do collectively is to see to it that we give him all the necessary backing to do that. I feel what ANA needs right now is structural presence. We have ANA executive but we don?t have ANA headquarters in Abuja; it is very unfortunate. And the same thing with the local chapters in the states. You find most of them struggling financially to exist. They really need our help.

I travelled to most part of the world, especially the western world, and I was surprised to see that people who are economically prosperous are still rushing into shops and buying books in thousands. It is of interest to me. But in our own case, only the young people of the 60s were interested in books and literature, those of the 90s and 2000 are more interested in CD and DVD shops. You can see the level and difference of their intellectual thinking. And that is why you find most of the great African leaders were people who could speak with great eloquence. But what is happening now is you find a graduate that can?t even give you good tenses. And how many of them today read books? They don?t. So this is the kind of situation which we have found ourselves now and I think what we need to do is to understand this changes in our society and see how literature can be adopted to the new reality in our society for the betterment of ourselves. We could see to how book could be reduced to software in text on cell phones where people can simply read them. And how books can also be reduced to audios where people can instead of listening to music, listen to someone do the readings for them. These are all changes that are necessary.

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