Memories of Malam Kalli, a great pioneer

While there, he attended the Aberdeen University in Scotland, and graduated BSc in forestry in the fifties. Due to this lofty attainment, it was inevitable that he would eventually take over from the last Bature, to become the first Chief Conservator of Forests in Kaduna then headquarters of Northern Nigerian Government. Earlier he had also served as the second substantive indigenous Principal of the School of Forestry in Jos, after Musa Daggash, the first to hold the post.
It was a time when citizens of Borno, due probably to a good start in the field of education seemed to have monopolized the top positions in the Northern Nigerian Government. They had a hold particularly on the agricultural field with the likes of Dr. Mohamet Lawan, the doyen of them all, who along with Dr. Bukar Shuaib, were among the first five indigenous permanent secretaries to be appointed by the Sardauna of Sokoto. There was also Dr. Musa Goni, the second northerner to Dr. Shuaib to hold a veterinary science degree and the first indigenous head of the National Veterinary Research Institute, Vom. Musa Daggash has already been mentioned as a veteran forester, who went to even greater heights at the Federal level as Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defense, in the mid-sixties.
It was in Kaduna that Malam Kalli honed the fine administrative skills that will come to bear so productively on the agricultural and natural resources of the north-eastern region of the country. In 1967 when Nigeria’s four regions were broken into twelve states, Malam Kalli, was in the first group of seasoned technocrats sent from Kaduna to assist the very young Military Governor, Musa Usman to midwife the newly created North-eastern state (now comprising Gombe, Bauchi, Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Taraba states).
Governor Musa Usman, though barely 27, was sagacious enough to use the technical and administrative skills of the likes of Malam Kalli to put the young state on an even keel. They were briefly stationed in Bauchi town as a temporary capital before finally moving to Maiduguri in 1968 and he was a key member of the team as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Agriculture. Throughout the North-eastern state years, Malam Kalli’s deft hands were manifest in many agricultural projects that were undertaken by the government. By the time Borno State was created in 1976 with Muhammadu Buhari as the first military governor, Malam Kalli had attained a senior status among the Permanent Secretaries and could be moved to other ministries. He was in the Ministries of Health and Finance. He was preparing to retire in 1978, having attained the age of fifty, when he was named General Manager, Chad Basin Development Authority, then, the largest irrigation project contemplated by the Federal Government.
Malam Kalli came to Chad Basin Development Authority at a crucial time of its development. The authority created, along with Sokoto-Rima in 1973, had by the end of 1977 under the tutelage of the first General Manager, Musa Daggash, established most of the infrastructure needed for the irrigation project to come to fruition.
There was no time to waste and he set about it with gusto. To face this enormous task he was fortunate to have the support of a star-studded team in the management of the authority which included among others, Dr. Musa Goni, Eng. Mohd Abba Gana, Eng. Abba Kyari Wakilbe, Baba Fada, Eng. Bunu Sherrif Musa, Mai Mohammed Jir, Mohammed Goniri, Moses Ibiyemi, Shittu Dumbai, Olusegun Irivboje, Abba Ibrahim Bashir, Mohammed Adam, Garba Baban Mubi, Eng. Mohammed Kachalla Abubakar and several layers of expatriate engineers and agricultural officers. On top of this he had a Board of Directors chaired by the indomitable Dr. Mohamet Lawan. And of course there was always in the wings, Dr. Bukar Shuaib, then, Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources at the ready to give solid support.
Malam Kalli was still in Ibadan in 1994 when he was appointed a commissioner in the Federal Civil Service Commission. This time he didn’t need any prompting to proceed to Abuja to take his seat in the commission. He found the commission a convivial place to operate among colleagues of similar background and aspirations of putting the civil service on a sound footing. The chairman of the commission was Abubakar Umar, a colleague permanent secretary. When Abubakar Umar died in office, he was replaced by Gaji Galtimari another colleague permanent secretary with whom they all served in Musa Usman’s government. He finally retired in 2OO1.
Alkali Kalli Jafar Goni (AJKG) Imam, was born in 1928 at Benisheik, where his father was on posting as a staff of Borno native authority. He came from the illustrious Imam family – a family that was prodigious in producing jurists and Imams for the courts of many Shehus of Borno right from the days when Borno capital was at Kukawa. He was raised in his uncle’s house who was the headmaster of the only Borno middle school in Maiduguri. Inevitably, he was one of the lucky few to be educated. He went to Kaduna College in the set of 1943. His surviving classmates include Justice Mamman Nasir and Maitama Sule, Dan Masanin Kano. He passed out of Kaduna College in 1947 with a Cambridge School Certificate. This enabled him to get into Aberdeen University, Scotland, to graduate with a degree in Forestry.
Malam Kalli, a civil servant par excellence, a role model to many of us who had the privilege of working with him, died peacefully in his sleep, in the evening of 23rd September 2O14. He is survived by his wife Hamra Imam, four children and many grandchildren as well as an elder brother, Dr. Musa Goni, and a younger sister, Hajja Hauwa.
Dori wrote in from Abuja