A YEAR WITHOUT HAIDAR!
Two days ago was exactly a year since Haidar was taken away from us, forever! Haidar, my most charming and handsome nephew! Sober memories are still fresh in my heart. It was not that Haidar went to sleep and never woke up! It was not that Haidar got ill and was taken to the hospital […]
Two days ago was exactly a year since Haidar was taken away from us, forever! Haidar, my most charming and handsome nephew! Sober memories are still fresh in my heart. It was not that Haidar went to sleep and never woke up! It was not that Haidar got ill and was taken to the hospital but gave up. No! Haidar was not involved in an accident, neither was he born with any terminal illness. Haidar was just a little boy kidnapped from his Islamiyya schoolbut murdered and dumped in a bush on Wednesday March 5, 2014 (JumadalUla 3, 1435).A tragedy my family will never forget.Inna lilLahiwainnailaiHiraji’un! We are from Allah, and to Him shall we return.
When I began to write this tribute, I was in a quandary – should I ask Haidar’s parents how they feel a year on, or should I leave them to their pain as time continues to heal old wounds, knowing fully that this isa wound which, I must admit, is almost unhealable. But I summed up the courage and asked the father first. Aminudeclined to comment – as I expected – but Fatima, Haidar’s mother, did say a few words.She says what pains her themost is the thought of the pains Haidar must have gone through before he died. (We may recall that there was evidence of brutal torture on the body of the little boy – his eyes had been gouged with a sharp object as Haidar had apparently recognised one of his kidnappers. The boy’s little hands showed rope marks – he had being tied and bound and restricted.)
Hajiya Hauwa, Haidar’s grandmother and Aminu’s and my own mother, remembers the loving and charming grandson who always insisted that the driver bringing him back from school stop by the ‘old’ house to say hello to her and show her his homework before proceeding home. Every school day! She remembers that whenever he spoke, one would think he was much older than his age. And the most tragic of the things she remembers was the rice sack they brought Haidar’s body in – she now doesn’t buy that brand of rice, so painful the memory.
And yes, you would want to know the progress of the court case. It is still dragging on, and on, with the three suspects still being tried at the Kano State High Court. Witnesses have been coming – one had said he had seen one of the suspects with Little Haidar on the day of the kidnap; the other said the ransom money landed in his account. And it continues, and continues, and…Inna lilLahiwainnailaiHiraji’un! Sagir, our most senior brother, is representing the family at court. The pains he is going through with every repeat narration!
I also recall the poem sent to my husband a few days after the incident by Sir IDK Simon ([email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>;, author of “101 Country Lyrics” poetry online) from Maiduguri, a poem he had titled “A LAMENT FOR ALIYU HAIDAR” and from which I quote a few stanzas:
You did not fall off a swing
When the table sang, ‘Ding-dong!Ding-…’
In the playground where friends stood
Waiting for their turns for good
You did not drown in a pool
I would have raged at the fool
Who let you swim unsup’vised,
Permanently you baptised
If you had been in Maid’guri
Perhaps somewhere in S’nmari
‘Casualty’ I’d label you
Happens often. That’s not new
Alas! That Wednesday!
Proved to be your own ‘Last day!’
May you be ‘mong‘Wildanun
Mukhalladoon’ morn and noon!
Oh! Haidar! Cursed be the hand
That led you ‘way to the band
Of the wicked who killed you
And dis’ppeared into the blue!
Another poet and good friend, Hafsatu Muhammad ([email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>😉 and an avid follower of my husband’s Column, also penned a poetic tribute. She says she wrote this poem with a lot of feelings in her heart two months after having her own son. Each time she holds him and hugs him, she says,she remembers Haidar and a mother like her who lost a child so young. And she would break into tears. I quote a few lines from her poem too:
ýHaidar, our time with you cut short
Tears elude my eyes
My grief…my pain so deep I cannot feel
Even though you are gone
I can never be without your love
I will simply close my eyes
And you will be there as you were before
In every child’s hug I feel your touch
In every child’s laughter yours re-echoes
I have it all in me, Haidar…
Then there’s Muhammad Abdul Qadir, that 10-year old boy in Gwarimpa, Abuja, who cried his heart out and couldn’t sleep or eat when he read about Haidar’s tragic end. His mother and he have since become family friends, and Muhammad is now friends with my own son, 10-year old Mahdi, Haidar’s cousin. The fact that Muhammad had also lost his own father in an accident not too long before Haidar’s murder is enough for me not to call and ask him how he feels now. His memories are full, and he must be left to them – in the hope that he will moved on strongly to face life as he grows up himself.
To Aminu, my brother, and Fatima, Haidar’s mother, I remind you what Allah says in the Qur’an (Surah al Ankabut, The Spider 29:2): “Do people think that they will be left alone because they say: ‘We believe,’ and will not be tested?” You have been tested. We all have been. We are all in this pain together. So take heart. Sai hakuri.Allah Yajikansa.
And then there is Husna, Haidar’s Little sister. She is too young to remember, but they used to play together. Indeed Haidar used to carry her around as they played together. They used to play together, but she now plays alone. Inna lilLahiwainnailaiHiraji’un!
That was Jamila’s tribute to Haidar. This Column remembers Malcolm X (Alhaji AbdulMalik Shabazz), whose fiftieth murder anniversary was February 25. My senior colleague AdamuAdamu did Malcolm a wonderful tribute two Fridays ago. We also remember General Murtala Muhammad, whose thirty-ninth murder anniversary was February 13, and many papers did carry tributes on him. Brother Malcolm and General Murtala – two great Africans!And then we continue to ask – Who Killed Professor Ahmad Falaki? We await answers from the Inspector General of Police. And finally, may Allah forgive our senior colleague AbubakarGimba, a past President of the Association of Nigerian Authors, who died a few days ago.
And here we are, still at HasbunalLahuwani’imal Wakeel! (Allah is Sufficient for us and He is the Best Disposer of affairs). And to this we add Inna lilLahiwainnailaiHiraji’un! (We are from Allah, and to Him shall we return).