Another Haruna dies

On Tuesday July 4, 2017, we received the sad news of the death of HarunaVatsa, Director General of Protocol to the Governor of Niger State. The last time we met, I said, “Hey man! You look good. You’ve lost weight. I thought it was a result of exercise, until he told me he was actually […]

On Tuesday July 4, 2017, we received the sad news of the death of HarunaVatsa, Director General of Protocol to the Governor of Niger State. The last time we met, I said, “Hey man! You look good. You’ve lost weight.

I thought it was a result of exercise, until he told me he was actually ill.   That didn’t come to me as a surprise.  Haruna had been in and out of hospital for a long time.  At a point, if I didn’t see him for a while, I assumed he must have gone back to Kaduna to get better.  What was surprising was how energized he was whenever he came back, joining the governor’s convoy and travelling long distances on Nigerian bad roads.  He did all that with humour and cheerful disposition.

“Get me a diary like this one,” he said to me sometime in 2015. 

But I forgot, as I always do. After a few days, I saw him with a diary where he scribbled his notes. 

“You got one by yourself?” I asked, embarrassed. 

“Well you didn’t give me, so I got this one.” He said. 

Haruna was an extremely accommodating person. Only two people in Government House I knew I could constantly trouble without them getting mad, now one of them is dead. 

Any time people pushed me to do something for them in government, such as inviting the governor to their events, I told them I would connect them with someone in the Government House who would help, and then linked them with him. Now he’s dead. 

Out of the six of us appointed on the first day of the administration, three of us had an inside joke. Now only one person is left to trouble me with that joke. I don’t know to what extent the description of “gentle giant” applies to humans. But in the case of HarunaVatsa, it was an apt description. It fitted. He was a giant and he was gentle. 

There’s what marketers (especially online marketers) call A/B testing or split testing, which means testing different strategies with one’s audience to see which works best. 

In the case of HarunaVatsa, you can flip that and test one content with different audiences. While the same thing would displease the easily-offended, it wouldn’t wake the same emotions in Haruna.

As his father, late MammanVatsa was a general, so was Haruna, in his own way, mostly in politics. 

The first time I met him (during the gubernatorial campaigns), I looked at his huge frame, considered his famous family and concluded that he must be snobbish.  But like Daniel Kahneman wrote in his bestselling book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,”   using System 1, our more automatic mind (against System 2, the more considered mind) can be wrong.  In this case, Kahneman was right.  My intuitive system failed.  Because as I got to know him, I realized that he had zero pretentious airs, that he was actually down to earth.

He loved to take us to his house whenever we were in Kaduna to eat. And he was indeed a generous host.

I also enjoyed going to his house to see his animals, some of them exotic, from birds to horses.  Haruna was a passionate farmer and always had plans to try new farming ventures or expand.  I remember sharing some of my agricultural plans with him.  “It wouldn’t work,” Haruna said.

I asked him why he thought my idea wouldn’t work.  “Because I’ve tried it,” he said.

It was at the house in Kaduna that I met his brother.  Few months later, the brother, Jibril died.  When he died in 2015, I was the one who announced it, as the chief press secretary then. Now Haruna has joined him. Starting from his father, the frequent deaths within the Vatsa family is as though death insists on visiting them before their mates; I learned that it has now left only one girl standing, Aisha.

I also learned that his death occurred about the time his boss, Governor Abubakar Sani Bello was on his way to Kano and decided to check on Haruna to see how he was feeling.  He wasn’t feeling well, not at all.  He now has an illness which nothing can cure.

His funeral prayers, attended by Governor Sani Bello and Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto, were done in Kaduna on Wednesday July 5, 2017 at 10am.

Dear Haruna Mamman Vatsa, many people are going to miss you. May Allah grant you Aljannatul Firdausi. 

We that are left behind should hear this as an ayah, a sign that soon, we too are going.   

So far, two political appointees have died in the new administration in Niger State. Both were called Haruna. No one knows who’s next.  Please pray for them.