Gov Aliyu’s use of books as change agents

To those of us in the book industry this is cheerful news.  Regardless of the caked cynicism that may greet this announcement, any discerning mind will immediately recognise the fact that Dr Aliyu is marshalling his understanding of the lesson, as Stanley Aronowitz and Neo-Marxists would have us believe, that “a discursive community and political […]

To those of us in the book industry this is cheerful news.  Regardless of the caked cynicism that may greet this announcement, any discerning mind will immediately recognise the fact that Dr Aliyu is marshalling his understanding of the lesson, as Stanley Aronowitz and Neo-Marxists would have us believe, that “a discursive community and political self organisation are necessary elements of class formation”. Thus, no class, such as Dr Aliyu is intent on forming can evolve without a discursive community.

 

Although, philosophers and scholars have written copiously on the importance of books to human societies such that nothing new can be added, what will appear probably new is the insistence on, and reification of, the fact of books’ immense importance to humankind even in an era of hyper informatics. This fact is underscored by John Milton, the English poet and puritan, who states that “a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life”.

The same Milton avers that “books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them”.  Not only did this assertion underscore the importance and timelessness of books, it also reveals that books are products of master spirit, the living intellect, which always contain meaningful information to be learned such that the humankind is able to derive pleasure, soulful liberation and enlightenment. And to be learning something new, Aristotle tells us, no matter how modicum is the most pleasurable thing, not only to the individual but to the entire mankind.

Intellectuals, as bastion and products of knowledge, are thus the transmitters of the master spirit in books. This means that both intellectuals and books are indispensable aspects of the same coin that is, acting complementarily to bring about progress and development of human society.  In other words, intellectualism comes with studious learning and vigorous acquisition of knowledge, and books are necessary by-products of this effort.  That is why the intellectuals often sit atop a hegemonic political power especially each time they successfully displaced a prevailing common sense by introducing another.  Whenever this happens, intellectuals, according to Antonio Gramsci, “acting on behalf of a new rising class become a central object as well as a subject of political discourse”.  In Gramsci’s view, the new class wishing to upstage the dominant form of rule is obliged to contend for ‘intellectual and moral leadership’ of society, always choosing to discredit the prevailing social order by replacing it with a new common sense.

This then makes sense of Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu’s intellectual vibrancy and obsession with books as change agents.  The cornerstone of his intellectual vibrancy is the servant leadership philosophy which seeks to obliterate the tawdry and tendentious approach to leadership.  The servant leadership philosophy is thus a new common sense, a somewhat hallowed idea operationalised as a discursive knowledge which seeks to reconstitute social structures, and hence social power.  In a way, Dr Babangida Aliyu’s intellectual vibrancy seeks to re-orientate people’s perception of leadership and leaders in ways that will entrench positive political culture, harmonious and improved social order.  He seeks also to uphold the view that when leaders lead aright and judiciously, the people will develop more confidence in the leadership, trust their leaders, and be able to make positive value judgments and contribution to the growth and development of the society.

On the other hand, his obsession with books is complementary to his intellectual vibrancy.  Not only have books been written to explain the thrust of his intellectual vibrancy, relatedly also he has been involved in the development of books through sponsorship of publications, support to writers’ organisations, and funding of reading campaigns.  While this is unprecedented in the history of governance in Nigeria, this engagement with books expresses his belief in a knowledge-driven society as well as his commitment to leaving a legacy of a knowledge based society for, a society that is not driven by knowledge, whose people are averse to knowledge production, will invariably flounder endlessly in the murky waters of underdevelopment. This is especially the case, as Stanley Aronowitz puts it, “in the era when scientific and technologist innovations define the pace and direction of economic growth, the configuration of social policy, and more broadly, the character of cultural life”.  And as Stanley further puts it, in a particularly knowledge based society and economy “intellectuals may constitute a new power centre, not on the basis of a culture of critical discourse but on the foundation of the hegemony of scientific and technical knowledge for propelling both the economic and social machine”.  What this portends is that knowledge in all ramifications is central to human progress.  And books are the repository of knowledge even in the face of hyper informatics.

On the whole, it is pertinent to note, least, at this formative juncture, that Dr Aliyu recognises the place of books and intellectualism in the contest of the class he is labouring to create for intellectual and moral leadership.  Books indeed can function as agents of change when words are held in sacredness, when words take on concrete reality other than were vaunting speech or the venting of them in marketplace without anybody paying attention to what they mean, or what they command us to do or not to do.  And until such a time books will mean less than nothing.