Alhaji Dauda Birma, a former Minister of Education, also held several positions in the old Northern Region.
In this interview, the 80-year-old statesman narrates his experiences as an administrator, marketer and politician, saying God blessed him because he refused to cut corners as a public servant.
Can you tell us about your formative years?
I was born on July 21, 1940 in Garkida, Gombi Local Government Area of Adamawa State.
I was the lastborn of my mother; there were four or five people older than me.
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I was born at a very interesting time.
1940 was during the Second World War.
My father was before then the headmaster of the elementary school in Garkida.
It was a missionary school, and obviously, he was a Christian.
When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the missionaries closed all their functions because there were problems moving from the United States to Europe, then to Africa, because of the hostilities that were over the place.
Therefore, my father stopped being the headmaster.
He looked for employment with either the Native Authority or the government, and when he went to Yola, one obvious employment was the recruitment of every able-bodied young man into the Nigerian Army to aid the British war efforts.
Because he was educated, they wanted him to join the army at a certain non-commissioned rank, but he had eye problems and did not fit into army recruitment.
He was recruited as a civilian employee in Yola.
My father continued as a civilian employee of the military until he was transferred from Jimeta to Yola.
In 1949, something happened in Maiduguri – the civilian employees of the military who were in charge of administering the funds for the discharge of soldiers and upkeep of the wives of soldiers had tempered with the money that they were charged with, and therefore, my father was transferred from Yola to Maiduguri for a clean-up exercise.
We joined him in 1950. I resumed my education, which I started in Jimeta, in Maiduguri.
I was enrolled in Hausari Elementary School.
I finished in 1950 and then moved to Borno Middle School in 1952.
This will still be awkward for people to understand because there are no middle schools now.
By the time I finished middle two, I did not do well, and therefore, I was forced to repeat the class.
I was able to go to the middle three in 1956.
The secondary education set up was such that in form 6 you sit for the West African School Certificate (WASC).
I went through the Borno Provincial Secondary School in 1956.
I was there for six years and passed out in 1961.
A few of us sat for the sixth form entrance examination and I was one of two people who was selected to proceed from secondary school to a Higher School Certificate class.
I was selected with the late Mohammed Goni, who had been my classmate throughout secondary school.
We went to Kano in 1962 and 1963.
We sat for the Cambridge Higher School Certificate in 1963.
Four subjects were offered – the general papers and any three papers of your choice, or any three available papers.
I sat for the general paper and English Literature, History and Geography.
I passed all the papers.
Upon completion of my HSC, I had wanted to go to Cambridge University to study Archaeology and Anthropology based on my result from WASC.
Initially, there was only one university in Nigeria, the University College Ibadan, but other universities sprang up – the University of Ife and the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria.
I applied to go to Cambridge, but the Northern Nigeria Scholarship Board, which automatically assumed responsibility for all northerners seeking higher education, interviewed me and said I was going to Ahmadu Bello University.
They even determined what subject I was going to read.
They said Public Administration.
One reason they gave at that time was that colonial officers were leaving the services of northern Nigeria en masse, therefore, they wanted people to become administrators.
What about your days at ABU?
So I went to the ABU in 1964 and came out in 1967.
It was a very tough competitive setup, but pleasant because somebody from Adamawa would be in the same place with somebody from Benue, Ilorin, Niger, Sokoto, or Katisna.
It was in that environment that the camaraderie in northern Nigeria became forged. Students who were at the top of their respective classes, exposed and ambitious, were all brought to Zaria.
And they became friends, comrades and established loyalties. Some of these loyalties are now eroded.
How did you get your first job?
When I was in ABU, the Nigerian Tobacco Company (NTC) came and started searching for potential managers.
Two of us were selected – me and one Musa Aliyu from Binrnin Kudu, Kano was recruited to work in the Nigerian Tobacco Company as vacation employees to sensitise us.
The company was hoping to persuade us to join them after we graduated.
The persuasion was very easy because we were employed for three months during the vacation periods.
We were posted to the marketing department.
We had a lot of outdoor life, excitements, travels. And we were paid 30 pounds per month as students.
You can see that whereas there were certain students who were on vacation and absolutely broke because they had nothing, we were employed by the NTC and were paid 30 pounds per month for three months.
We earned 90 pounds.
You can imagine what 90 months would do. My father retired from public service in 1958; he was paid 23 pounds per month.
When I finished the first three months after my first year, I went back to the university, and at the beginning of the second vacation in the second year, the NTC requested me to report to Jos Divisional Marketing Officer and to work for another three months during the vacation, which I did.
I had enough money to get married in 1965 with a very little parental contribution.
I got married in December 1965 and was helping my parents at the same time.
In 1967, I graduated. And one phenomenal thing was that at graduation I did not apply to the NTC for employment, they just sent me a letter, saying they had employed me.
I got employment during my third year in 1966.
I was not sitting for my examinations to get a job; I was just doing everything for self-actualisation.
I graduated in June/July 1967 and reported to the NTC in Zaria.
The NTC is now the British American Tobacco Company.
How was the job experience?
I joined the NTC and was posted to Jos.
I was the youngest and the lowest level of management staff.
So we toured the whole of Jos division. Life at that time was very nice.
We went to where we felt we should go to promote the sale of cigarettes.
We determined where we went and how long we stayed; and opportunities created rascals of us because we just pleased ourselves.
Every place we went to, the NTC provided us with vehicles, paid for our accommodation and generally financed our rascality.
I was posted to various parts of the country while at the NTC.
In 1969, I was already an acting divisional marketing manager.
The same year, I was transferred to the Maiduguri office, and in 1971, I was transferred from Maiduguri to Kano, where I became a divisional marketing manager.
A friend informed me about a vacancy in Northern State Marketing Board, to which I responded.
I was made the chief marketing research officer of the Northern State Marketing Board, with headquarters in Kaduna in 1971.
While I was there, the governor of North Eastern Nigeria, Brigadier Musa Usman and the permanent secretary, Ministry of Finance, Alhaji Abubakar Umar, both of them of blessed memory, came to Kaduna and invited me to move to the North Eastern State Ministry of Industry as commercial officer.
I was reluctant, but they insisted I should fill the form, which I did.
They did not call me for an interview; they just brought a letter that I had been employed as the chief commercial officer and I should report to Maiduguri.
It was a very challenging and interesting assignment because Musa Usman, a brilliant, focused and committed air force officer, wanted to achieve results in that place, and he did.
In 1975, there was a military takeover when Musa Usman and his colleagues were thrown out. Colonel Muhammadu Buhari became the governor of the North-East, and after a while, his administration decided to move me to the Ministry of Cooperatives.
So, when they said I should move to the Ministry of Cooperatives, I said no, insisting that I never asked to come to the North-East.
I was requested for a purpose, and if that purpose was no longer there, there was no point being there, so I resigned.
I only had N140 in my account.
I resigned and set up a company called South Chad Limited.
The company still exists.
It went into construction.
How did you end up in politics?
In 1978, Waziri Ibrahim invited me to float a new political party called the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP).
We were in the process of actualising the party when a crisis developed and Waziri Ibrahim wanted to be the chairman and presidential candidate.
Other people said he should choose between being the national chairman or presidential candidate of the party.
We consulted and decided there were cases that would make him incapable of realising his ambition of becoming the president of Nigeria; therefore, we opted out of that arrangement and put a prefix, G, so it became the Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP).
The long and short of it was that the NPP succeeded in Anambra and Benue while the GNPP succeeded in Borno and Gogonla.
If the two had not broken apart, they would have formed a very formidable political party.
I became active from that time because I was a confidant of Waziri Ibrahim.
He helped me tremendously to build the infrastructure of the business.
In 1983, when I decided to resign from the GNPP because things were going haywire, I decided to join the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), but out of respect for my colleagues in Borno, I decided that I would not join the party in Borno, so I went to Adamawa.
I was made the chairman of the campaign committee in the northern senatorial district.
We campaigned for Bamanga Tukur, who became the governor of Gongola State in 1983.
In 1984, General Muhammadu Buhari staged a military coup.
People were detained, including me, as I was the chairman of the Borno Water Board.
I was detained for five months.
They investigated every aspect of my stewardship at the water board, but at the end of it they did not find anything.
I resumed my life, but it was difficult because, for you to have been under investigation and detention for five months, my financial base was broken.
We had to pick up from there.
Were your siblings also educated like you?
I became what I became principally because of my elder sister, Mrs Laraba Dagash.
She inspired me, taught me at home and guided me.
When I was in secondary school, she was in England doing nursing.
All the newspapers and magazines she read, she posted to me.
I could lay claims to substantial mastery of the English language because of Mrs Dagash who made sure that I was exposed to English Literature.
Sanusi Dagash is my nephew, Laraba Dagash’s son.
Before him, there was Amah Dagash, who graduated with a first class in Law from Yale University.
Sanusi had first class in Architecture and now about four master’s degrees.
It is interesting that his daughter, Habiba, came out with first class in Pharmacy from Oxford University.
She also has a doctorate degree from the Oxford University.
I come from a family that is very educated.
I told you that my father was a headmaster before I was born; therefore, education radiated around the family.
Today, at various branches of the family and things like that, you see everyone who is proud, and from that family, I think we can produce about 25 graduates.
You said Mohammed Goni and Sani Abacha were your schoolmates, were there other notable people?
Well, I want to emphasise on Mohammed Goni and Sani Abacha because Goni and I were in the same class for 12 years.
He died about a few months ago during this COVID-19.
Few people were my classmates.
For instance, Ayo Salami, who is now chairing Magu’s inquiry panel, was my classmate in HSC for two years in Kano.
We did HSC together and we are still friends.
There was Kabiru Ahmed, who came from Daura, but he was in Kano. We were in HSC together. He is a district head in Daura.
We were in the same class as Biliyaminu Usman, who came from Bauchi.
His father was an emir.
Eventually, his father died and he became emir.
He became the Emir of Dass before he died 10 years ago.
Another person I should have mentioned is Professor Sa’ad Abubakar, who came from Adamawa.
We did HSC together in Kano.
When we finished, he went to the ABU and read History.
He became a professor of History and died about six months ago.
For those who came from the South, we parted company in 1967 without much contact, but I would want to mention Festus Nze, now a professor somewhere in one of the universities.
There is one Cornelius Ogunsawo, who went to the University of Ife. I don’t know if he is still a professor there.
And there is one Balogun too, who is also a professor.
Would you have preferred to read a different course, other than Public Administration?
I was offered Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge.
Cambridge admitted me and wrote a letter to the scholarship board.
The letter was on their desk, and when I told them that I was going to do Anthropology and Archaeology, they looked at me and said they wanted people like me to replace the colonial masters who were leaving.
At that time, there was a stiff competition among Ibadan, Ife and Nsukka.
Everybody wanted to develop a university to be proud of.
Therefore, the Northern Nigerian Government wanted to send the best of its people to the ABU.
There were a lot of rivalries, jealousy and things like that; therefore, we felt we were selected by northern Nigeria to represent the region.
And we did our best.
So you couldn’t go against the northern government?
No, after all, your father did not pay even 10kobo for your education.
If you wanted to pay for your transport fares your father could not do it.
We were just like government children, born and raised by the government.
Looking back now, are you happy you attended the ABU?
Absolutely, I chose Anthropology and Archaeology because I wanted to go to Cambridge.
It was a question of sending me to Zaria on account of my academic performance, and that type of thing gets to your head.
You said you were exposed to rascality, how do you mean?
As a manager in the sales department of a company at the age of 27, with a car, house and plenty of money; and you would travel from one place to another; even if you were married; you were not moving with your wife.
You would go to Makurdi and they would be playing swange and you would be dancing.
You would go to Adamawa and go to the nicest places.
As a young graduate with plenty of knowledge in your head and money in your pocket at the age of 27 or 28, the girls would be falling over you and you would be having a good time.
That’s what I was saying.
Which of the places you worked did you enjoy the most?
The emphasis I put on the Nigerian Tobacco Company will give you an indication that I enjoined working there, but I realised that if I continued in that company I would not be anywhere near governance in Nigeria.
I had my eyes on getting closer to the government so that I would not see myself being irrelevant in a commercial firm.
I gradually moved towards government when the Northern State Marketing Board asked me to join them.
I was very proud.
I was honoured because at that time, the Northern Marketing Board was responsible for the economy of the North.
It set up the Bank of the North and all infrastructures in the North. I moved into it.
When I went to the northeastern state, I did not ask to go there, they wanted me to go and I was very proud and honoured.
You repeated a class and later had distinctions, how would you reconcile that?
There is brain development sequence.
I deliberately mentioned that because I do not want to live in denial.
When I was in that class, I had a bad company.
When people were reading, we were playing, and things like that.
With the result that limited spaces in the school, I did not make it.
The headmaster met my father and told me I was not daft despite failing to make it to secondary school.
I came first in English Language in his class.
He said I would repeat the class and my dad should talk to him at home.
My father scolded the hell out of me, so when I had to repeat, I became diligent.
Mind you, people’s brains develop either gradually or suddenly.
Fear a child whose brain development is sudden, and watch the child whose brain development is gradual.
When I went to form one in the Borno Provincial Secondary School, my first position in a monthly test was number 23, out of 30 students.
By the time I got to form two, my position was 18.
When I got to form three, my position was 12.
When I went to form four, my position was six.
In form five, I took third, and when I went to form six to sit for my senior school certificate, I was the only person who got division one in the class.
You can see the progression.
And fortunately, if your brain develops late, you take it to your grave.
Today, if I am pressed I can repeat things I did in form one and form two because of my late brain development, which created retentiveness.
While scolding you, did your father also give you lashes?
My father was a headmaster in a missionary school, with their set rules.
At home, if you did anything wrong, he would never hit you with his hand.
He would be the typical headmaster.
He would call you and tell you what you had done and tell you to lie down while he whipped you.
He would tell you how many lashes he was going to give you.
And he would never exceed nor reduce it.
He was a disciplinarian.
And I lived with him until I was 48, when he died.
I had that rigid, regimented upbringing by a father who knew what he was doing, a father who was himself brought up by the missionaries.
You were in administration, marketing and politics; which of these positions made the most impact on you?
Unfortunately, I did not stay too long in any place.
In the height of excitement, something would happen and I would move out.
When I was in the Nigerian Tobacco Company, I was happy; first in Jos, Makurdi, Lafia, Bauchi and things like that.
It was all excitement. And then, I was posted to Maiduguri.
It was a time I was number one, and I was doing my best.
Then I went to the Northern States Marketing Board, the atmosphere was very nice. I really liked the place.
I floated around a lot, but they were all exciting.
Looking at your background, who would you say had the greatest impact on your life?
Family; to start with, my mother, who gave me absolute, undiluted and unqualified love, then my sisters, Mrs Dagash and Hajiya Mairo.
I became very fond of women because women looked after me.
They loved and cherished me. They brought me up.
There was a time when somebody commended me when he was talking about my intellect and my broad education.
In fact, it was Sani Abacha who complimented me.
I said I went to three different universities.
I went to the ABU and obtained a degree.
I went to the university of Musa Dagash and university of Garba Satomi, in the social system that mentored and helped me.
Then there was Waziri Ibrahim, the chairman of the GNPP.
I was very close to him.
There is no way I can talk about him without mentioning that he was one of my mentors.
Also, the Lamido Adamawa, Aliyu Mustapha, the father of the present Lamido, brought me very close to him.
He treated me like his son and trusted me.
At 80, what would you say life has taught you?
Life has taught me that there is predestination.
God has planned out what you would do.
Throughout my schooldays, I read outside the ordinary, and therefore, I was able to achieve outside the ordinary.
When I was given any job, I did it beyond the call of duty because I hate being ordinary.
I hate taking the second, third, or fourth positions or something like that.
I preferred self-actualisation at the very top, but I also realised there is a limit to what you can achieve, and in Nigeria due to ethnic or religious bias.
Somebody may have been sponsored by some people who are not half as educated as you are.
They are not half as intelligent as you are, but they have got the connection you don’t have.
Therefore, you cannot be everybody and you cannot be everything, so I am satisfied.
Materialism does not help you.
You do not have to be materialistic and greedy.
In 1977, my company, South Chad Limited, was allocated somebody from the National Youth Service Corps, an accountant.
We even took him to the village where we were building.
His name is Ugochukwu Nzewi.
When he finished his one year, I was so impressed with him and wanted to employ him.
I told him we would give him a car and a house.
He declined to pursue his education.
I was looking at him from the northern perspective and he was looking at himself from the Igbo perspective, but it was very nice he declined; that was in 1978.
Then in 1998, during my time as the minister of education, a file came on the selection of a rector for Federal Polytechnic, Oko.
I made it a point of reading every single line on every single page.
He was one of the recommended candidates.
I opened his papers and in the forms he had filled I read, “I did my NYSC in Yola, with South Chad Limited.”
I closed the file, called my special assistant and said he was the rector.
That was it.
He was not number one, but the third recommended candidate.
He became rector till the day I stopped being a minister.
What do you consider as your major challenge?
Most of the time, I am broke, so it is a major challenge.
I had the opportunity to use my office to make money, but it was not possible with the type of background I had.
With the type of father who brought me up, it was not possible to be dishonest.
Till today, 32 years after he died, I am still afraid of him.
I still feel I am accountable to him.
When I was in a primary school in Maiduguri, somebody’s one pound dropped and I picked it, went to the police charge office and gave it to them.
I could not go home to either tell my mother or father that I picked one pound because they would think I stole it.
So it was safer to take it to the police.
No matter how broke I was, I had this feeling of not putting my family to shame or not looking stupid in the eyes of people who would accuse me of this and that.
When I was the chairman of the Borno Water Board, we went to Germany, Frankfurt, to inspect a factory that wanted to supply us tantalite and pipes.
When they took me to my room, one of the directors of the company brought out an envelope with money inside it and said, “Sir, use it for your shopping tomorrow.’’
But I said I didn’t come to do shopping.
There was nothing this man did not do, but I didn’t take a kobo from him.
I refused to accept that envelope.
At the end of the following day, we went to the factory.
When we came back, I presided over the contract for that company.
It didn’t bother me.
I would have felt very bad if I had collected the money.
God is my witness, I didn’t take 10 kobo from them, I am proud of that.
I chaired a contract of 5.2 million.
We awarded the contract for a dam in Biu.
The dam had been completed.
I presided over it, so they knew they could not give me 10 kobo because I was above that.
When I was the chairman of Water Board and businessman, I was doing very well.
I am grateful to God because I didn’t collect money from people.
You can see that God blessed what I did because I did not cut corners nor take advantage of people.
