Adamu Baikie’s Sabongarin Kano (I)

It was a crowded affair two Saturdays ago at the Digital Bridge Institute Kano, where the North’s first Professor of Education, Adamu Baikie, launched two books on the two subjects that are dear to his heart: Education, his life-long passion and Sabongarin Kano, his family homestead.

The two books were titled ‘Nigerian Education, Ivory Towers and Other Issues’ and ‘Sabongari, the simmering melting pot of Kano State’. My colleague who attended the occasion told me that Adamu Baikie, now at the venerable age of 92, was on that day lively and full of energy. He spoke eloquently. It was only after the occasion that my colleague noticed that the ebullient celebrant was sitting in a wheelchair.

I have always been curious about Professor Adamu Baikie because I have never met him. When I became a student at ABU, Zaria in 1972, Adamu Baikie was a well-known figure on the campus. He was already a professor, one of four northerners then. The other three were Ishaya Audu, the vice-chancellor, his successor, Iya Abubakar and Umaru Shehu who would later be Vice-Chancellor University of Nigeria Nsukka.

Adamu Baikie distinguished himself in ABU leading to his appointment as vice-chancellor to three universities. He was appointed to VC University of Benin in 1978 where he served a meritorious two terms of four years each.

After his tenure in Benin, the Nigerian Government recommended him to the Kingdom of Lesotho to serve as the VC National University of Lesotho, Roma. After serving for two terms in Roma and on his return home, he became the foundation VC of Nasarawa State University, Keffi. Another two terms were also served in Keffi. Considering the number of years he spent as vice-chancellor of these universities, he could be safely said to be the longest serving in that post in Nigeria!

Our paths never crossed. It was only recently when I read his autobiography, ‘Against All Odds’, that I realised that Adamu Baikie had traced his ancestry to Borno where I was also born and bred. As related in the autobiography, Adamu’s father Abdallah Hamda was a Shuwa-Arab born in Lai on the shores of Lake Chad. At an early age, during the closing years of the 19th Century, young Abdallah was scaring birds away from destroying his father’s crops when he was pounced upon and seized by invading slave raiders. It was a period when the Germans, French and British colonialists were active around the Lake Chad region seeking territory. Young Abdallah was liberated in 1901 at Dikwa by the British and he tagged along with them to Zungeru, then a military garrison and their putative headquarters.

It was in Zungeru that Abdallah had contact with the missionaries of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) which enabled him to acquire a modicum of education, a change of religious orientation as well as a name change from Abdallah Hamda to Jacob Baikie. He was employed by the Nigerian Railway Corporation and posted to Minna and later to Sabongarin Zaria where Adamu was born in 1931. Jacob Baikie moved to Kano in 1932 to take up employment with the Kano Native Authority where he remained all his life. They lived in Fagge, a part of what metamorphosed into Sabongari. Adamu grew up in Sabongarin Kano. He had his early education and socialization all in Sabongari.

I guess it must have been a pleasant labour of love writing and publishing a well-researched book on how Sabongarin Kano evolved. He wrote the book, he said, because he was “Fascinated by the concept which gave birth to the establishment of Sabongari in many cities of Northern Nigeria. Having myself been born in Sabongari (Zaria) and grew up in Sabongari (Kano). I was fired up in the twilight of my life to satisfy my curiosity and at the same time put down my experience for the benefit of my children and those who may wish to know more about Sabongari”.

Sabongari was a product of its time, a child of necessity, which marked the beginnings of economic and social interaction between the people of the north and south of Nigeria. It emerged when people from the south moved en masse to the north following the availability of rail services between the two parts of the country either as railway workers or in whatever jobs they found themselves. This was true of not only Kano but also Kaduna, Zaria, and Gusau. However, as the majority of those moving from the South to the North were of a different faith, it became pragmatic to accommodate them outside the walled cities to avoid undue friction. In Kano, Emir Muhammadu Abbas was said to have allotted large swathes of land to the new arrivals in 1912 to build their dwellings and places of worship.

This is the Sabongari that Professor Adamu Baikie grew up in and has been associated with for over 80 years. The book is therefore a compendium of his recollections of the place, particularly in the 1930s and 40s when it experienced massive expansion.

To be concluded next week