Father of late comedy star Dan Ibro speaks…‘Life will never be the same without Rabilu’

How would you describe your late son, Rabilu?
Rabilu, may his soul rest in peace, was the kind of son every father will pray to have. He took upon himself the responsibility of shouldering all our needs at a very tender age. All through his life, I observed that his greatest moment of joy was when he was fully convinced that we lacked nothing. Everything we eat, what we wear and what we spend are all courtesy of late Rabilu.
When he was a child, he used to say to me, “Father when I grow up I’m going to make sure you’re distinguished from other people. I’ll make sure you lack nothing.” I will laugh and say to him “Allah ya yarda,” meaning, may Allah grant your wish. Though he was very young and naive then, still I had no doubt then that if he got the chance he will surely do just as he said. Before his death, he had done much more than he said he will do to me (Sobs).
What was his childhood like?
As a boy, late Rabilu was always hard-working and supportive of us and his young siblings. I was the one who insisted that he go to school, but he wanted to remain at home to assist us in the farm. That was why when he finished his secondary school, he quickly took the prison service job. Similarly, when he told me he wanted to resign from the service, I gave him my blessings because I totally trusted his sense of reasoning.
Rabilu was always travelling but made sure he came back at every slight opportunity. He refused to relocate to the city for the fact that he never wanted to live far away from us. He built his house attached to ours and renovated ours. He made sure we live like kings. His immediate younger brother is a councillor who was elected for the third time, but Rabilu always tells him to concentrate on building his political carrier and never mind about our upkeep because he will do it, and he was true to his word. He was more concerned with our plight than he was with his. He always used to say, “I only need your blessings father, nothing more, nothing less, because with your blessings, the sky is my limit in what I do for a living.”
How did you feel when you received the news of his death?
I was not told because he died before us. I and his mother were with him at his sick bed in the hospital. When he became very sick, we were so worried because for years I had never noticed him fall that sick. We kept praying for his recovery and after his return from India all things returned to normal.
However, when he was sick again we all became scared but gave him courage at his sick bed. The night he died, we helped him take his bath and put him in bed. He was scheduled for dialysis the following morning and we were all looking forward to the break of dawn because we were told that after that he will be alright. But as Allah will have it, he gave up early in the morning of that day.
How would you describe life without Rabilu?
As a Muslim, I believe he died because his time has reached. If you could remember, he was rumoured to have been dead many times before his death. As a father, I can only pray to God to forgive all his sins because he has been a good son to all of us. Today is his seventh day fidda’u, yet you can see many people shedding tears because the pain is still fresh in our minds. To us life will never be the same. Though I have ten children, of which he is the eldest, yet the pain of losing Rabilu cannot be compared to anything.
Also, I never knew my son had attained such high social class until his death when my house was filled with dignitaries that I only hear their names but never set eyes on. They all came to condole with our family. Words alone can’t express our gratitude to the people that came from far and near to offer words of condolence. He has gone and is never to come back. I will always pray for him till the day I join him.