10 years without Liman Ciroma

He also spoke on behalf of the two other honorary degree recipients. It was 9 years later that I saw him again, this time at the Tudun Wada, Kaduna residence of Ambassador Muhammadu Aliyu Carpenter. Malam Liman and Malam Adamu Ciroma attended the naming ceremony that morning of Carpenter’s grandchild.It was another 7 months later, […]

He also spoke on behalf of the two other honorary degree recipients. It was 9 years later that I saw him again, this time at the Tudun Wada, Kaduna residence of Ambassador Muhammadu Aliyu Carpenter. Malam Liman and Malam Adamu Ciroma attended the naming ceremony that morning of Carpenter’s grandchild.
It was another 7 months later, in January 1992 that I had my first real encounter with Malam Liman Ciroma. A week earlier I had suggested to Malam Mohamed Haruna, my boss at Citizen Magazine, that he should encourage General Hassan Usman Katsina to write his biography. I knew Haruna had served on the board of National Oil of which General Hassan was chairman. Haruna took my suggestion seriously and that afternoon he went to General Hassan with it. The General readily agreed and asked Haruna if he would write the book. Haruna said he was too busy to write it but suggested that I should write it since it was my idea. General Hassan did not know me, so he demurred.
Some days later, I received a message that General Hassan said I should go and see Malam Liman Ciroma. I did not know why. I asked my General Editor Malam Mohamed Bomoi, who is Liman Ciroma’s kinsman, to take me there. We got to the house after Asr prayers.  Malam Liman received me well. He said my father was a year ahead of him at Kaduna College in the 1940s. He then launched into a wide-ranging discussion of local, national, African and world affairs. He spoke about the Falklands war, the Balkan wars, origin of the Slavic peoples, the Malays, apartheid, Arab-Israeli conflict, Nigerian civil war etc. Whenever he paused, I commented on those issues. I later realized that General Hassan sent me to Malam Liman for him to evaluate me and determine if I could write a biography. I concluded as much because, a few days after that encounter, General Hassan sent for me to come and start work on the book. He was so eager about the work that he gave Citizen N40,000 to finance my research work.
In the following months, I went to greet Malam Liman quite often in company of Malam Mohamed Lawal, who knew him much better. In the 1992-93 period there was a snag to our visits because Mohamed Lawal was campaigning for Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi whose main NRC rival was Malam Adamu Ciroma, Malam Liman’s kinsman. Malam Liman knew this so during all our visits, he avoided any discussion of politics.
Things changed after the June 12 election annulment. The nation was in crisis and with the politicians in complete disarray, elder statesmen such as Malam Liman took centre stage. Groups of Northern elders held frequent meetings to decide what to do. Malam Liman chaired those meetings and I got a message that he had placed me in the secretariat. One day in early 1994, I arrived late at one of the closed-door meetings and the secretary-general said I should go back. Malam Liman saw me being chased away and he firmly said I must be allowed in. Present at that meeting were Dr. Sola Saraki, Alhaji Sule Katagum, Alhaji Aliyu Mohamed Wazirin Jema’a and Alhaji Sule Gaya. At that meeting another young man present, Salihijo Ahmed, greatly annoyed Malam Liman when he said the current crop of Northern elders did not follow Sardauna’s footprints in bringing up younger generations.
During the rest of the Abacha era, Mohamed Lawal and I visited Malam Liman’s house many times and engaged in long discussions with him. At first he wasn’t fond of Sani Abacha and was very critical of his policies. However, at the height of the Abacha tazarce phenomenon in early 1998 Malam Liman seemed to have changed his mind about the regime. I think he felt that the North could be in trouble if it lost political power at that stage.
Some months later, with the situation completely altered by Abacha’s death, we were again at Malam Liman’s house. He was an early supporter of power shift to the South. He was however very disturbed by what he saw as Yoruba political and media blackmail of the North. I therefore suggested that the North could help to install an Igbo or minority president instead. Malam Liman grimaced at my suggestion. He said, “If power must go to the South, it has to be a Yoruba man.” I asked why that was so and he said the Yoruba have a better sense of managing a diverse polity because their ancestors built large empires. Don’t forget, Malam Liman Ciroma was Nigeria’s first graduate archaeologist.
In 2000 AD, Malam Liman Ciroma spearheaded the formation of Arewa Consultative Forum [ACF] in direct response to the Afenifere and Ohaneze Ndigbo. His formal position in ACF was chairman of the Board of Advisers but in practice he was its intellectual and organizational driving force and the single most influential member. All strategic as well as day-to-day decisions were cleared with him. I happened to know this because when I was on my annual leave in 2000AD, I had nowhere to go but the ACF’s secretariat where my friend Inuwa Abdulkadir was acting secretary general.
When I got there, I found Malam Liman chairing a meeting of ACF’s Rapid Response Committee. He promptly told me to sit down and join the committee. The six or seven member committee met every day, discussing issues as they arose in the newspapers. Malam Liman did most of the talking. His knowledge was really profound and he would discuss issues from historical, philosophical, sociological and political angles. When my leave was about to end, Malam Liman fixed another meeting and Inuwa said “Mahmud may not be able to attend it because he would have resumed work by then.” Malam Liman lost his temper. He said, “Mahmud is not attending this meeting because he has nothing to do! He will continue to attend even after he resumes his work!”
I attended the next meeting of ACF’s Research Committee at Arewa House, at which I incurred Malam Liman’s wrath. He had tabled a proposal for the entire North to raise N500m to set up a newspaper. Every Northern Emir and Chief would be told to convene a community meeting and raise money. The North had done that kind of thing only twice before, Malam Liman said, to send a delegation to the Colonial Office in London in the 1950s and during the Civil War. When Malam Liman asked me to comment I criticized the idea, saying a paper in which every Northerner is a direct stakeholder would be impossible to handle editorially.
The meeting adjourned for Zuhr prayers and when the prayers finished, a group of us waited for Malam Liman to emerge from the mosque. As soon as he came out, he looked up at me and said, “Why did you disagree with my proposal? Am I not the one that sent for you? Don’t you know that I sent for you so that you will come and support me? Next time when I say something you must support me, you hear?”
I did as I was told. In the ensuing months, Malam Liman sent for me whenever ACF leaders hosted visitors at Arewa House, including the American scholar Professor Richard Sklar and a member of the British House of Lords. At all such meetings I listened attentively to what Malam Liman had to say, then I shopped around for some national or international anecdotes to support what he said. Malam Liman Ciroma liked me very much for that. This week marks 10 years since his untimely death in May 2004. May Allah grant his great soul eternal rest in Aljannat.