Praying, Wailing And Waiting For
Brother Gawat: A Missing Popular Nigerian Muslim
17 July 2012
By Abdulwarees Solanke
Gawat is a brother, a Muslim brother, a Muslim brother
in the media. The bond of brotherhood in Islam is
strong, stronger than in any relationship: it's the
strongest in humanity; it is of divine essence and
permanence.
Brother Gawat has a gift, the gift of sibgatullah,
which only Allah gives and none can deny. He has
charisma, carriage, colour, glamour, panache,
ebullience, oratory, dynamism, passion, network, in
spite of which he is extremely humble. Such gifted men
are rare. My brother, Gawat is. On Thursday July 12th,
a colleague just entered my office throwing a
bombshell, Brother Gawat is missing, but his car found
somewhere in Lagos. I prayed that nothing evil happens
to him. As I reached home later in the night, Modupe
my wife confronted asking if I got the news that
Brother Gawat is missing. I told her someone just
shattered my day with the bad news earlier in the day.
We wanted to latch on some conspiracy theories as to
what could be responsible, but we soon gathered our
thoughts that Allah is everywhere, knowledgeable of
the hidden, that Brother Gawat will come out from
wherever he is held hostage and we will rejoice at his
safety and health, because this is the season that we
need him, the season of Ramadan.
So, the news of Brother Gawat disappearance or
abduction is shocking, paining to the marrow. Where is
Brother Gawat, our mouthpiece in the media? We are
wailing, waiting to see Brother Gawat today to spread
the joy of Ramadan that's fast approaching.
Brother Gawat has a mission; he works for it, he lives
the mission and calls to the mission. He does nothing
else, but to see the glory of the mission in all
homes, the mission of Islam. This is the pain of a
co-worker on the path, the path of honor, the path of
Islam. Allah has purchased the life of believers for
bargain that is most everlasting. Al-Jannat Firdaus.
They are pleased with Allah and Allah is pleased them
because they are always steadfast.
From the circumstances of his disappearance, this is a
terrible trial for all of us, the Muslim ummah. We
wait on Allah to lift the veil of darkness shrouding
the whereabouts of our brother, as we are still in
shock on the circumstances of Brother Gawat's
abduction. We want to find and see that our brother is
in the best of shapes, that nothing ominous happens to
him. We wait for Brother Gawat, For he is a light in
Ramadan, bringing happiness to homes in the midnight
of Sahur until fajr when the sonorous voice of the
muadhin pierces the early morning. This has been his
calling.
Ramadan is the period that the best of Brother Gawat
comes to the public and the Muslim homes and he was is
surely mobilizing his gifts and talents to give every
viewer the best of treat of Ramadan, showering all who
wakes up in the night for Sahur with all sorts of
gifts he mobilized from people of means and goodwill.
With his Ramadan program, he filled Muslim homes with
joy and happiness, dishing and dashing out gifts like
dust of the earth and foam of the sea to the flimsiest
of questions on Islam, gifts he gathered from all who
want to gain barakah and thawwab from Allah with the
instrumentality of Gawat's programme on NTA in
Ramadan.
Brother Gawat gives gifts that turn lives around in
seconds, benumbing gifts, gifts that leave you shell
shocked, spellbound, speechless and yelling, crying
Allaaaaaaahu akbaaar! God is great, God is great, God
is
.and you could go berserk or snap into coma.
Brother Gawat's gifts are gifts that can lift you high
above in the clouds, over the Red Sea and drop you on
the desert sands of Arabia, drag you to the vicinity
of the inimitable House of the Lord, the precincts of
Al-haramain, to perform Hajj, in Makkah and you return
holding keys to your own house as part of the package
that Gawat dashes on his programme. Brother Gawat
himself is a gift from God.
The kidnap of Brother Gawat, coming at this auspicious
moment when muslims prepare for the fasting of
Ramadan, should raise serious concern among the Muslim
ummah on the neglect of our obligation to Allah and
the nation. This is the concern I raised in my earlier
piece last week in some national dailies. If we
muslims are tenacious to obliterating darkness from
the surface of our land with the teachings of Allah
and minds are reformed, corruption will be
substantially eradicated. The state of insecurity we
found ourselves won't be the case.
When we show the sunlight of Islam, or present the
mirror of Islam, the fruits of Islam will not be
threatened, but be adored, nurtured and preserved.
Abdurrazaq Aremu Gawat is one of the finest fruits of
Islam. He is a Muslim media practitioner like me, a
daiyah of inestimable value who has no scruple
genuflecting before even people of his children's age
public functions, throwing banters and calling them
baba in reverence and adoration.
Brother Gawat cannot hurt a fly and I am sure he
cannot engage in haram deals that will warrant a
threat to his life. Brother Gawat is an epitome of
virtue, a gift of Islam, our mouthpiece in Islam. This
coming Ramadan, we pray Brother Abdurrazaq Aremu Gawat
is released by his captors from bondage into our
embrace so he can continue his mission of making this
fasting period happy and filled with basket of goodies
for all , making this season of fasting one month of
expectations with the great gifts he showers for
little efforts, little as asking an adult to read ABC
on TV.
We are praying, wailing and waiting for freedom of
Brother Gawat who gives what others give him to be
given out without holding back, without pocketing some
unlike many Nigerians, because Allah is sufficient for
him. Brother Gawat gives as one entrust with the trust
of spreading joy. Today, we ask, where is Brother
Gawat to give gifts generously at Sahuur on NTA this
Ramadan . We are waiting and wailing for Brother Gawat,
our mouthpiece.
AbdulWarees Solanke, Head, Voice of Nigeria Training
Centre, Broadcasting House, Ikoyi Lagos studied Mass
Communication at the Univrsity of Lagos and Public
Policy at the Universiti Brunei Darusslam, writes via
korewarith@yahoo.com,
korewarith@voiceofnigeria.org
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EsinIslam.Com
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