RAMADAN AMID CORONAVIRUS 2 – ‘AS KANO MOURNS DAILY’

All the online groups I belong to have been reduced to daily choruses of ‘Inna lilLahi wa inna ilaiHi raji’un! (From Allah we come, and to Him we shall return!) and ‘Allah Ya jikansu Ya sa mu cika da imani’ (May Allah forgive them and may He make us expire full of faith). In fact, sometimes morning, afternoon and evening it is the same dirge, the same lament, the same dread. One is sometimes afraid to even open a message – more often than not it is an announcement of death.

It is true that dozens of people are dying by the day in Kano. And it is true that, even if not from the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic, the deaths may be tangentially related to the novel coronavirus. Yes, many of the victims may have had other ailments; yes, many of the deceased may have been of advanced age (in Africa, even 45 years is already advanced). But the frequency and the numbers are what have been scary.

There was never a time so many of my acquaintances just fell and died in such quick succession. Among those I knew so very well in various circumstances, the first to go was Barrister Aliyu Umar, SAN, who was Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice during the Shekarau Administration (2003-2011) which I also served as Special Adviser and Director General on Societal Reorientation. On him, his Commissioner-Colleague Mallam Nour Hanga ([email protected]) said:

“Aliyu Umar was a champion of Shari’a Implementation Programme of the Shekarau Administration. In my view, no single government official, however highly placed, could justifiably claim to have contributed more than what the late Aliyu Umar contributed to the development of Shari’a Implementation in Kano State. He approached every piece of legislation dealing with Sharia Implementation with enlightened tact that only a sophisticated lawyer dedicated to the Sharia could muster. He anticipated that one day there were going to reign rogue governors in the state who would rather kill the Sharia than allow it to flourish. And he prepared for them by making sure that there was a law of the state to preserve each component of the Sharia Implementation program.

The second was Prof Ibrahim Ayagi, OFR, the person with the singular honour for kickstarting science schools in Kano and hence responsible for generating many generations of doctors, engineers, scientists and academics (laced with Islamic scholarship) throughout the North (including the children of this Columnist). On him, a friend, Barrister Abdullahi Majeli ([email protected]), wrote:

“Prof. Ayagi was a quintessential leader, an epitome of wisdom whose ideology inspired and motivated. He led with grace and elegance, candor and perseverance. He ensured that no one whose star deserved to shine was eclipsed unjustly. In addition, he was an accomplished administrator and banker who played professional roles in tackling Nigeria’s crippling foreign debts; a courageous and intellectual economist; a peerless leader quick to reprimand and quicker to forgive without holding grudges. A rare diamond he truly was among the latter-day ‘stone-heads’ of today. Prof Ayagi will be forever remembered and honoured for his selfless, diligent and outstanding contributions to the development of education and furtherance of a more favourable economic climate in Nigeria.”

And they were followed by Prof Balarabe Maikaba, my own colleague and brother at BUK Mass Comm, with whom we have spent the past 31 years (from my graduation, one year ahead of him). So much has been written on Balarabe, but I shall pick from the tribute by our mutual student Aliyu Abubakar who wrote:

“Prof. Maikaba was a core disciplinarian. In his office, he was like a lion guarding a territory. You mess up in Maikaba’s class, you get a piece of his mind. He was very strict to assignment deadlines and would rebuke any defaulter there and then. For you to survive in Maikaba’s course, you must be on top of your game. Little wonder that whenever he announces dates for tests, it was like a rat-race. You must read, read and read because Maikaba takes no prisoners. His courses could be tough, but there were no dull moments in them. ‘Maikabs’, as we often stylishly called him, would sometimes laugh mischievously after sharing a joke in the class. He will sometimes explain his lectures with the funniest of examples or anecdotes, evoking laughter in the process. He also had unique names for his friends. My course mates often laughed at how he used to address me whenever we met: “MACOSA People, how are you?”, in veiled reference to my position then as President of the Department’s Mass Communications Students Association (MACOSA).

Also among the ones we lost around the same time were two former BUK Deputy Vice Chancellors, Professors Aliyu Dikko and Sabo Kurawa, followed by journalistic colleague Mallam Musa Ahmad Tijjani (one-time Editor of the Triumph, Kano’s historic newspaper) ‘Kantoma’ Dr. Uba Adamu, an intellectual and administrator and father of VC NOUN and our BUK Mass Comm colleague Prof Abdalla Uba Adamu. And then followed by Shaikha Halima Shitu, an Islamic scholar and wife of Imam Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama’a Shaikh AbdulWahhab Abdullah.

Kai! Wallahi in Kano, we are losing count!

I remember three late Kano elder statesmen who really opened my eyes to the needs of the ‘intellectual elderly’. Mallam Magaji Dambatta (a journalist), Mallam Imam Wali (an educationist), and Mallam Halliru Gwarzo (a traditional ruler and administrator) were all fathers of my friends. They were ‘intellectual institutions’ in themselves with lots of ideas and knowledge. They used to visit me in my office (against my protestations that I should be the one to visit them. They would, individually and separately, tell me that they were the one that really needed to be out and about AND, most importantly, they were the ones that needed intellectual discourse to keep their brains busy.

Loneliness, I realised, is not only in being alone; it is also in being too far away from other people of like minds with whom one could engage in such intellectual banters. That is what I am suffering from after 15 days of lockdown. That is what is killing our elderly and our contemporaries.

Allah Ya jikanmu!