Falaki: In cold blood
First, he had a flat tyre and as he stopped to change it, he had a brush with members of Boko Haram who snatched his Hilux pick-up van. Second, he who was the victim was mistaken for the perpetrator of the crime. Third, he was given no chance-neither by the people with whom he was […]
First, he had a flat tyre and as he stopped to change it, he had a brush with members of Boko Haram who snatched his Hilux pick-up van. Second, he who was the victim was mistaken for the perpetrator of the crime. Third, he was given no chance-neither by the people with whom he was chatting minutes before, nor by the police in whose presence he was killed.
Professor Ahmad ived and worked in the best Ummah spirit. A humble, soft-spoken, dedicated academic, he was until his death director of ABU’s Institute of Agricultural Research, IAR. From the way and manner he dedicated his time to the projects, it was clear that he was to all intents and purposes married to Shika. By six in the morning he was ready and gone off to project site, and by sundown, he was still out there in the field-planting, weeding, watering, testing, grafting, experimenting, harvesting and, on top of all this lecturing students and researching.
He was a loving father and head to his family, a sincere friend and a dedicated professional. But no tribute to Professor Ahmad Falaki would be complete without a mention of the Ummah, the Zaria group that was virtually his life. He was married to whatever he involved himself with. He had three wives: his wife at home, his agronomy at school and Ummah in his life.
The idea of the Ummah came out of discussions by concerned members of the Muslim Student Society on the campuses of ABU in the mid-70’s as they ruminated over post-graduation life. Since Islam is not just for students and fearing the inevitable fading into the secular maelstrom waiting for them in the outside world, they decided to form a post-campus moral and spiritual support group.
Having seen through the modernist argument in all its hollowness, having rejected the rival alternative on account of its own atheistic opium, students turned back to Islam. They decided to first launch a personal moral revolution, learn the religion of Islam to as profound a level as the circumstances would allow, recapture and live again the glory of Islam’s past, not by literally physically going back to its origin-even though some have tried to do that-but by living up to its ideals.
They vowed to stand up for justice whoever it is for or against, liberate womenfolk of this society from aspects of male chauvinism masquerading as Islamic law, posit Islam on its original civilisational foundation-the pursuit after knowledge of all types for all time, as enjoined: “Read in the Name of your Lord who created.” And they read.
All this effort fell the lot of Ibraheem Sulaiman, the unassuming Abu Zarr of our student days and a past director of the Centre for Islamic Legal Studies, CILS, of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, who founded what came to be known as the Ummah. It was an effort that brought together some of the finest, brightest and most morally-minded Muslim students of those days.
One of the pioneers of this campus moral renewal, Professor Musa Borodo, head of the department of medicine at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital and Islam’s unpretentious barefoot doctor in the tradition of ibn Sina, has remained an inspiration to all those who passed this way. And for his devotion to the cause, Ahmad Bello, today’s fiery exegete and preacher extraordinaire, almost sacrificed the entirety of his life-academic achievement, professional advancement and all the portion of his here and now-to Islam.
Passionate about many issues and classy in his style, Dr Usman Bugaje, politician, civil society advocate, public intellectual and the Ummah’s eclectic intellect, has been described as a one-man committee of elders. And Professor Awwalu Yadudu, constitutional lawyer and heaven’s legal advocate and a man of superior academic attainment, has always been religious without being self-righteous. Dr Aliyu Jibia, master of English prose, lecturer at Bayero University and novelist of the collective, has been one of the most consistent and of company most delightful. And his constant companion and friend, Aminu Hanga was the hospitable landlord to all of us, the fuqara of the Islamic renewal.
By his deportment and erudition in the sciences of Islam, Dr Salihu Abubakar, a past director of Nigerian Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS), who walks as if he pities the earth and who has latterly led the group, always reminds you of the Salaf. And Professor Na’iya Sada, deputy vice chancellor at Ahmadu Bello University, was the songbird and spiritual panegyricist of the collective and decidedly the Ummah’s most cheerful face. He complements Muzzammil Hanga, the poor philanthropist of the Ummah, who is also the most gregarious, perhaps the friendliest and assuredly the most ready to shoulder others’ burdens. But of the excellence of the late Dr Sani Ahmad Aliyu, soldier, doctor and activist, you are at an utter loss for words to utter. This in a nutshell constituted the group, the setting and the circle of friends within which Ahmad Falaki operated.
Only those who knew Ahmad would know the extent of our and the nation’s loss-and the degree of our pain, that blinding pain that comes with the realisation of the irreversibility of a fatal miscarriage of justice. There is probably nothing more hideous than the accusation of the innocent who is without an alibi; and sadder is the conviction of the guiltless who has been falsely accused; but the saddest of them all is taking human life without due process; for, it is wrong even if it is right. And not even the infliction of the death penalty can constitute proper payback; for, life has no price and its taker has no right, for, his very life is forfeit.
Extrajudicial killing is unacceptable whoever it is committed by-soldiers, lynch mob, police or Boko Haram; therefore police personnel who engage, nay indulge, in it or who looked the other way while it was happening must be made to pay and face the music full blast. The authorities must stamp it out or, in the end, the people will decide that justice lies only in their taking the law into their own hands. This is exactly the scenario that created Boko Haram. And if police cruelty or in this case carelessness, which routinely goes unpunished, causes just a mere one per cent of Nigeria’s population to become angered enough to resort to insurgency, that will be the end of life as we know it here. US intelligence officials estimate that Boko Haram consists of 4,000- to 6,000-strong hard core fighting force. This will be like having more than 350 different Boko Harams on our hands happening all at the same time.
Falaki and his group were way laid around the village of Kibiya in Kano State by attackers suspected to be Boko Haram, who made away with the Toyota Hilux pick up van in which Ahmad and his companions were travelling. The insurgents didn’t hurt them because they offered no resistance to them and they therefore escaped unhurt. Falaki had time to phone his wife and narrate what had happened to them. Distraught, they then trekked to the nearest village to report the robbery to the police and to arrange how to get back to Zaria.
It was while they were waiting for transport that the police arrived and set up on them, accusing them of being members of the Boko Haram. Falaki showed his ABU ID card and was trying to explain his mission when those present set upon them, beating the professor to death; and shot, beat and inflicted deep cuts on Abbas Falaki’s head, leaving him also for dead. While all this was going on, the driver who was sitting some distance away made for a dash into the bush. Later the police returned and collected Falaki’s corpse and threw it into the pick up along with Abbas and the driver and drove away to Kano where they deposited the corpse at the mortuary of Murtala Mohammed Hospital.
There was no ground to mistake the victim for the criminal in this case-to suspect Ahmad of being an insurgent; and certainly not after he had tendered his official identity card. And even if there was no police participation in the execution of this dastardly crime of the actual lynching, the police must be held culpably negligent for witnessing the act and doing nothing to stop it. While they might have been misled by the village head and the confused message he might have sent, nothing would ever excuse this act. After tendering his identity card, a simple telephone call by the police could have averted disaster. Indeed, the simpler act of listening to the professor would have solved the problem.
Obviously, this is a case that must be investigated thoroughly, with blame properly shared and punitive action taken promptly. While a proper investigation will not bring Professor Falaki back, it will reassure the public and warn the police that impunity will not pay, and that silent police presence at the scene of crime is full complicity in the crime. Already, both Falaki’s family and the authorities in ABU have written to the Inspector-General of Police demanding for an explanation and an investigation into the murder and the attack and what exactly happened and the role of the police in the whole affair. This is just in order and the Inspector-General should do eactly that.