Reminiscences with Ambassador Yahaya Kwande

Yahaya Kwande served as a teacher, civil servant, administrator and former Nigeria’s ambassador to Switzerland, between 1981 and 1984, before he delved into partisan politics. In this interview, Kwande, who recently turned 90, took Daily Trust on Sunday through his early childhood, how he crossed over from teaching to administration, his relationship with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and how a 30-year conspiracy threatened his ascension to the traditional stool of Long-Kwo in his village.

You turned 90 recently, how did your journey of life begin?

I was an only child of my parents in a big home of about 50 people. It was a royal home where there were children of cousins and other relatives. My father had four wives, but he was only blessed at the early stage of his life with me, until he was 75.

My father was brought up in Kwatan Tunga, where Dangote now has his rice plantation by the side of River Benue. He came back home after studying Arabic to marry my mother and had only me. Then, the Roman Catholic missionaries came and settled at the banks of River Benue, near Ibbi, where they established their ministry. My father knew about western education when he stayed in a place in Lafiya, known as Anguwan Rimi, where Yahaya Sabo, a very famous politician died. Sabo’s grandfather, who was a slave trader from Kano, used to come and stay in my father’s house on his way to the South, so I was named after him. My father wanted me to learn Arabic, but he also wanted me to learn western education. And there was no other school other than the missionary school in my village. And because I belonged to the royal family, I was brought up with three religions. The first was a traditional belief, where at the end of every year, all the royal children and grandchildren, both male and female, would go to the shrine and be blessed. I was always one of them. But in school, I was a Christian, not because I was baptised, but because everyone in that school was a Christian. It was there that I learnt to pray in Latin. Because I was in that missionary school, I was one of those picked to serve at mass. And then coming home between 12noon and 1pm every day, my parents who were Muslims would say, ‘Tashi kayi sallah’ (get up and pray).

I grew up thinking that those three religions were all aiming at one God. My tradition was talking about a god they called Naan. That god was not visible, but you prayed under a tree and made sacrifice with blood of chicken or other animals. It was when I ended up in Wase as a pupil teacher and stayed with Malam Zakari Wase and the late Emir Abdullahi Maikano, who was the grandfather of the present emir, that they looked after me and strengthened my Islamic faith. It was only there that I dropped Christianity and traditional faiths. From there, I went to Toro Vernacular Teachers’ Training Institute, then Bauchi Teachers’ Training Course, Katsina Higher Teachers’ Training Institute. After Katsina, I never taught again because I went into administration. From there, I joined the civil service of Northern Nigeria. I was there before independence and I ended up at Oxford University for training as an administrator.

Have you always wanted to be a teacher?

We were not given the opportunity for an alternative. I woke up and found myself being sent to Riyom as an assistant teacher. After that, I went to Toro, and I found myself back in Pankshin and Shendam, where I taught people like Domkat Bali in primary school. I don’t think somebody asked if I wanted to teach. We were just selected and sent to where they thought we could make an impact in the country. Even the choice of going into administration was not mine. Towards the end of the British rule, Sardauna brought in the idea of northernisation after Chief Obafemi Awolowo introduced his westernisation. The East followed later with Nnamdi Azikiwe’s easternisation. Northernisation was prominent because Sardauna suddenly realised that he didn’t have enough human resources to run his government, and the only alternative for him was to bring in the southerners who were educated to that level. But he felt that if he brought them he would leave his own people as underclass. So he closed his eyes and went round, picking us. I was a grade 2 trained teacher. I was one of the 24 students in northern Nigeria that they took to Zaria to train as administrators who would take over from graduates of Oxford and Cambridge. He agreed to sacrifice some of the standards in order to uplift the status of northerners. We all had in-service training. What northernisation meant was that every job in the North was for a northerner, and if there was no northerner that could do it, a European would be brought in because he would one day leave, and by then, a northerner would have been qualified to take over from him. The third choice was for a southerner to be engaged on a contract of two or three years while they sent us to England and America to be trained so that we could catch up. He was trying to protect the future of northerners because if he had gone by the thinking that these are Nigerians, let them come and take the jobs, we would have remained where we were because I would probably have retired as a chief clerk somewhere.

How would you assess the civil service during your time and now?

In the past, as a representative of an organisation nobody, including the owner of the organisation, could sack you at will. In our days, when you committed a wrong they issued a query and you would answer because everybody was afraid of sacking you wrongly. But today, a governor can wake up one morning to make you a permanent secretary because he has the power. During our time, he had to go through a process; and you had to be qualified. After you were appointed, you had to be confirmed; and after that, nobody could just remove you. You could report your head if he did something wrong; but today, a governor can put you there and remove you at will because he has the absolute power.

The military administration after the colonial days tried because there were some elements of discipline. But when General Murtala came; out of anxiety of correction within a short time, they sacked people indiscriminately. Anybody could be employed and sacked. That was when the civil service was destroyed. That brought corruption within the civil service because you didn’t know if you would be there tomorrow, so you had to prepare yourself.

What major sacrifice did you make as a civil servant or administrator?

I was a permanent secretary after the creation of states – Benue/Plateau. During the Biafra war, all the southerners that were doctors left, so those of us in Benue/ Plateau were left without manpower. I was asked to go to Egypt to get some Muslim doctors who were more comfortable to stay in the North. I employed them and they dictated their salaries and allowances because they were coming to a war zone.

We had Indian and Pakistani doctors here, but when the Egyptians came, their salaries were higher than the Indians. Then they came to me to ask that I change their salaries, and I said no. They went to Governor Gomwalk and he asked them to come to me since I was in charge. I told them that they had different contracts and conditions with the Egyptians, and that at the end of the contract, they may dictate. But they said it was because I was a Muslim and I was favouring the Egyptian doctors.

Meanwhile, my wife was pregnant and the Indian was the one looking after her in the hospital. They decided to kill my wife to punish me. They sent a car from the hospital to take her, saying she had hypertension and was overdue. I was told in my office and I rushed home and found that she had already left. I went to the hospital. I found her in bed and she was surprised that they said she was overdue and that they were going to induce her. I left her and went to see the doctor to ask what was going on. And he said, “Alright sir, give me just two minutes to talk to you.” Twenty minutes later, I found my wife in blood, and one hour after, my wife was dead and my daughter, Nafisa was born premature.

Nafisa is the third child after Waziri and Kabiru. That was the punishment of civil service in my life. It was the sacrifice of a civil servant. Gomwalk said there must be an inquiry. It was a very big crisis in the Ministry of Health. But as a Muslim, I was the one who stood firm, saying if the result of that inquiry would not bring back my wife, there was no need for it; so I rejected it.

What happened to the baby and how has your relationship with her been?

Nafisa was premature, and after three months, her aunt, same mother and father with her mother, who was also an ambassador in the Netherlands, came all the way and picked her in a calabash and took her to Netherland. They are Christians, so she stayed with them and lived up to the age of seven. She was always crying, wanting to go to church with them, but they refused, saying I wouldn’t want that, so they would lock her up. We decided as a family to bring her back at that age. I thought I was clever and took her to Federal Government Girls’ College, Bakori since it was a Muslim area. But they put her in a room with a Christian girl, whose family was like my situation – a Yoruba mother Christian and a Muslim father. But in their case, the mother was very influential, and at an early stage, the girl was practising Christianity. When they finished secondary school, she was stage-managing and practising Islam for my happiness while practising Christianity in Bakori. When I was the chancellor of the University of Abuja, she went there and there was no accommodation, so she had to stay with another aunt, same father with her late mother. We didn’t know the woman was a member of Jehovah’s Witness and was preaching from house to house with Nafisa, carrying the Bible. When I got her an accommodation, Nafisa and that girl from Bakori again shared a room. So she still remained a Muslim on the surface until she finished her university and came to me one day and said, “Baba, I want to be a Christian. I said good luck to you, but don’t come back to this house. She cried and cried until one day I was in this house with my village chief imam and she came. In my mind I was worried that he would judge me, especially since I was then the secretary of the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI). But when the chief imam saw her, he was pleasant and spoke to her. Instead, he started preaching to me and asked if I had any right to change a person that Allah had not changed? He said “Allah will show you the way, Alhaji Yahaya, he will test you. If you can change her body, can you change her heart?’’ Since then, I allowed Nafisa to go for her evangelism and even financed her ministry. I paid for her to go to Jerusalem. She went to South Africa to train. I once told her that if she was going to be a Christian, why not be a better Christian? She asked, “What is a better Christian, Baba? And I said to her, Catholic. But she said no. She has married another Christian and has her ministry. They invite her to go to places to preach. My wife, who is also a Christian, always conspires with her against me. But whenever I find them talking, I tell them they are wasting their time because I have already reached there.

After the 1976 bloody coup, you were arrested and incarcerated for two weeks but later released on the grounds that it was a mistake. Did you ever find out why the military may have thought you were connected with the coup?

Yes, I found out what happened to me. I was sitting in this house when two uniformed policemen came in and said they were requested to come and get me. I asked for what reason and they said until I got to the station with them. We went together to the station and I found the then commissioner of police in charge of the Nigerian Security Organisation (NSO) as it was called then. He gave me a chair and said to me: “Alhaji Yahaya, you know that we have nothing against you, but we have been asked to bring you to Lagos. We don’t know why, and the request did not originate from here.’’

They asked me to go home and get few of my belongings and one policeman escorted me to Lagos. As soon as we arrived Lagos, they chained me and imprisoned me and no one said anything to me. One day, I wanted to pray and they took off the handcuff. But a security agent pointed a gun on my head all the time I was praying, even while I was doing ablution. I suffered, until on the 14th day, I said to God, ‘What have I done to You or anyone? I have done nothing and I know You are a just God.’ I said, ‘God, if this is a test, then it is too much for me because I cannot take it, my strength cannot take it.’

I asked God to let me out of the prison and return me back to my family. As I was saying those things loudly, after the prayer, I felt peace of mind and relief from my head to my feet. As I wanted to return to my iron bed, someone just rushed in from the gate and told me to get whatever I had; and instantly, I was released. This is between me and my God and I am not saying this for anyone to believe me or not. I mean instantly I was released. That was how God brought me out. On my way back, I landed in Kaduna, and if I were to die, it would have been the trip from Kaduna to Jos. I arrived Kaduna between 7pm and 8pm and did not want to spend the night, so my in-law requested to drive me to Jos. But he was very drunk, and as we were coming, the car was veering into the bush and coming out at almost every minute. I can say we were on the verge of dying. That was how I arrived home. When I got home, I met almost all my family members, including those from the village and my mother. They said they heard that I had already been shot and they were just hiding it.

Did you find out why you were arrested?

Yes, I did. One of my royal cousins was a captain in the army and he was involved in the coup. The evil aspect of his mind made him to decide that he would not die alone from our village. So he told them that I knew about the coup and that they had a meeting in my house. He also said I took Buka Dimka to my village in Kwande. The only thing that saved me was that the day he said we met, I happened to be in England and they saw my passport. That was what saved me.

What happened to the captain?

He was shot. He was one of those that were killed.

Did your relationship with the first military governor of Benue-Plateau, Joseph Gomwalk, have anything to do with your arrest?

I built this house in 1972 at the cost of N16, 000. The SCOA Company wanted me to buy the next house, but I said it would be too much for me as a civil servant. One day, I went to see Gomwalk with a file for his attention because I was a permanent secretary and he told me that he loved the way I built my house and the landscaping, and that he did not know that someone from my tribe could have such idea (my tribe and his tribe have this joke among us and we call each other our slaves). I told him about the house SCOA wanted me to buy and he came in the evening and I showed him. SCOA wanted to sell it at N16, 000, but he said they should ask them to reduce it to N14, 000, and when I contacted SCOA in Kano, they said it was not only about the house but also the fact that the land was big. But Gomwalk told me to remind them that he was the governor of the state and land belonged to the government; therefore, he was buying a house, not land. So they sold it to him at N14, 000. When the coup started, he left the Government House and came to live in the house. And in my tradition as a Kwararafa man, when you have a neighbour, you won’t allow him to cook for three days. So I was cooking from my house and sending to him for three days. I did not know that he was involved in the coup. That was another reason they arrested me. When the NSO were searching his house, they found a speech he was to deliver after the coup must have been successful. That is one secret people don’t know. So they took him, and with my cousin saying they met in my house, the authorities just believed that I must have known something at least.

You have been a close associate of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded presidential election, how did your relationship begin and how have you sustained it over the years?

Throughout my civil service years, I had always been close to the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, since he picked us from the villages and established us. I was the secretary to the Electoral Commission in 1961 to the whole of northern Nigeria. I was also the deputy chief electoral officer. All these, of course, had already put me in politics, and administrative officers are politicians, by the way. We may not be partisan politicians, but everything about these positions had already put one in politics. But the person that introduced me to partisan politics was Shehu Yar’adua. When he retired from the military and handed over, he invited five persons from each state of the federation to meet him in Kaduna, and I was among the people he invited. The reason he invited me was that I had invited him before for the launch of one Plateau Development Association, and we needed to get some money from him to execute some projects on the Plateau. He was supposed to be the chief launcher, so he came. I had never met him in my life, but when he saw me, he said I should be the one to host him. After he left, he invited me and said I should bring four people from Benue-Plateau. Al-Makura and Inuwa Ali were among us.

Chief Tony Anenih and Atiku could not even enter the meeting of the seven members and had to wait outside. First, because he was still in the civil service and the seven of us were the cardinals. It was when Atiku resigned that he joined our group, which we called the Peoples Front (PF). When Atiku joined us, he was very nice and generous. I remember one day when Yar’adua, Anenih and myself were discussing and Atiku was coming in and Yar’adua spoke to him in Hausa to please wait for us outside. He had to go and wait for us. Atiku was patient, and gradually, he became a strong member of the group until we got him into a leadership position. Later on, when Yar’adua, Adamu Ciroma, Lateef Jakande, Abiola and others were banned from participating in politics, before we knew it, Atiku became our leader because all these people died. This is because Atiku was very generous and kind and he held unto us very well. That was how my journey with Atiku started, and for the past 32 years, we have been together. We have never left each other, and whenever he moved, we moved with him. But this time, when he suddenly moved from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the PDP to vie for the presidential ticket, he did not tell me. So, I refused to follow him. When I told him that I was too old to be moving, he said, “Yahaya, you and I are members of the APC Board of Trustees, and the constitution of the party states that the chairmanship of the Board must be either a former president or vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And if there was none in the Board, the most senior governor should become the chairman, but for two years they refused to inaugurate the Board because I (Atiku) is supposed to become the chairman. They went and created something and said Bola Tinubu is the leader of the party, which is not in the constitution.’ He said if they could even allow us be in a committee, why should we stay? I agreed with him. And till date, the Board has not yet been inaugurated.

Did he discourage you from leaving the party with him? 

Usually, if Atiku is doing something that he hasn’t made consultation, he moves alone. Now that I know the reason why he moved, I could have gone with him, but I stayed behind. I had taken Lalong to him before the 2015 elections; that was before he moved. I told him that Jonah Jang had made a mistake politically by jettisoning the zoning arrangement and that it was an opportunity for someone else to easily win the governorship election. So I told him to support Lalong. Later, he called me and gave me N10million and we shared N34, 000 for every ward in Plateau State in the name of Lalong. People started saying, ‘So this Lalong has money, that means he is serious about the governorship race,’ People started picking interest in him. I went back to Atiku with him and some APC officials. Atiku gave us another N20million, which was used to get the state party office and furniture.

Again, while I was in Saudi Arabia, the APC officials went to see Atiku without me. This time, they wanted N50 million and Atiku asked them of me and they told him I was in Saudi Arabia. He asked them to call me and they did. I then phoned back and told him to give them the money, but he should make sure they were all together before giving them. And he gave them the money. That was how Lalong suddenly became a proper contestant. And when he (Lalong) eventually won, he did very well. There was a time Atiku broke his thigh and was in a German hospital and Lalong went to visit him with some members of his executive and took some gifts. Till date, Atiku likes Lalong and no one can convince him that Lalong is a bad man.

Your emergence to the Long-Kwo stool about 30 years ago was later marred by controversies that led to court injunctions. But in 2013, a Court of Appeal judgement ruled that you were one of the princes of the chiefdom, therefore, eligible for the throne, why is the stool still vacant and how has this void affected the Kwo people?

The simple answer is that it is a matter of religion. People say that Plateau is predominantly Christian, forgetting that there are those who are non-Muslims and non-Christians. Believe me, if you take Muslims aside, take pure Christians aside and then leave non-Muslims and non-Christians, you will find out that Muslims are not in minority on the Plateau. They started saying I would convert the area to Islam and all sorts of things, so they went against me. I was unanimously selected. I did not influence anyone. The kingmakers knew who was a Muslim and who was a Christian, but I was selected. They again came up with the story that the nomination was wrong, and during the court case they said there was a problem with the document and that it was not signed.

What is the situation now, after the Court of Appeal judgement?

After the judgement, which favoured me, they said we could go back and do proper selection. And who is to do the selection? It is the state government itself. I then fell into the hands of the former governor of the state, Joshua Dariye. They fixed a date, and on the day we were to do the selection, there was another court case stopping the process because they said something was wrong. While we were there trying to correct it, I again fell into the hands of Jonah Jang, the former governor, and as far as he (Jang) was concerned, making me a paramount ruler would give me influence. When Jang left office, I thought I had gotten Lalong who would do the right thing, but a Christian group went to him and said that if he okayed a selection to take place and I emerged, I would convert the whole area. And slowly, he succumbed. Instead of upgrading the stool, Lalong, being my tribe, re-graded it downwards. My title was a first class one like that of the Emir of Kano and Gbong Gwom Jos, but he made it second class.

Are you still interested in the stool, despite the re-grading?

Yes, I am interested because, out of the 44 titleholders of my land, only two of us are alive. The young generations don’t know our tradition because they didn’t see it. And I always think, if I die now, what will happen?  They do not even know that I have the royal regalia. Even if it is re-graded to Maianguwa (Ward head), provided they call it Long-Kwo, as a Kwararafa man, I am still interested. So, everything is in the hands of the state government now, if they want it done tomorrow, they will do it.

You have just turned 90 years. How do you feel?

Surprisingly, I don’t feel 90. I don’t know why, but I feel much younger. I thank the almighty God that all my organs are functioning: I can see properly, I can hear properly, I can smell, and all that. Sometimes I see people at 50 years sitting down and massaging their legs, but I don’t have all that. I eat very well too, I love my food; the only thing I don’t like is oily food. From my head to my feet I feel sound. Sometimes I ask myself, ‘Am I truly 90?’ I have just concluded that age is just a number.

What is the secret?

Well, I do aerobic exercises and others the missionaries taught me right from when I was a child. I swing my arms, twist my body everyday and I go round. Any day I miss it, I always feel that something is wrong.

What would you want to be remembered for?

Humility. My door is open, not only to my sitting room but my bedroom. Whenever we travel with my driver we buy akara on the road to eat. People say that eating that way can give me typhoid, but I just ignore it. Whenever you come here, you won’t know the difference between my servants, my children and their friends. That is how I am.