Forty days without adorable brother

Next Tuesday will be 40th day since I lost my brother, Mallam Mustapha Hashim. It wouldn’t just be 40 days. It’s been days of melancholy and pain for me, our aged mother, my five older siblings and of course the widowed wife of Mustapha. His two children Muhammad, 10 and Sagir, 8 are too young […]

Next Tuesday will be 40th day since I lost my brother, Mallam Mustapha Hashim. It wouldn’t just be 40 days. It’s been days of melancholy and pain for me, our aged mother, my five older siblings and of course the widowed wife of Mustapha. His two children Muhammad, 10 and Sagir, 8 are too young to feel the real blow of what has befallen them.
For all these days, I have made attempts to pen this, or anything else to immortalise the life and experience of this dear brother. I failed at all attempts. In the days following his death on February 18, I drove in the streets of Kano turning over verses in my mind about that beautiful constant smile on his face, about his love and care for us all, about his generosity in spite of his frugal income, about his sense of hygiene and organisation. The thoughts only brought tears in my eyes.
I also imagined Mustapha reading whatever I am going to write about him. I imagine him opening this page and reading about him in a newspaper and a possible comment he would pass. As I type this, I smile despite the teary eyes, thinking of how he would have smiled should he have the opportunity to see this. He’s someone that even if he were to read my bleak recollections of his many sufferings in the course of his 49 years on earth, or a portrait of a well-built rotund man emaciated by the many months he spent fighting a protracted battle with renal failure, he would still find a space to smile.
I am sure he would giggle when he reads about my recollection of his moments with every child of any of our siblings that I would take to him, from Hashim Armayau (Halifa) to Yasir.
I know Mustapha would have been amused to be reminded of how he cared for little children in the neighbourhood, not minding the stained shirt or drooling phlegm, that they also jump around him, in anticipation of a sachet of wafer biscuit or a N5 note in lieu.
Mustapha and I represent some contrast in my family. He typified the most the humble beginning and struggle the five of us went through growing up. I ‘enjoyed’ the most largely as a beneficiary of their earlier toils and partly for my caring father who ensured he provided to whatever extent he could. 
After his primary school at Fagge Primary School and formative secondary education at Government Secondary School, Gwammaja II, Mustapha passed the science schools examination and was admitted into then tough Dawakin Kudu Science School, graduating in 1986. However, I think it was while studying at the Usumanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto in the late 1980s that he had his toughest time. Sokoto then had the epithet, lahiran ‘yan boko , the great beyond of students, for its geographical and social inclemency.  
Sokoto germinated the problem that complicated his situation, leading to pathetic complications culminating in his death. We all give it to him as a very brilliant person among us all. He was studious. Diligent and had no extra life outside what is of benefit. As our mother often said, growing up Mustapha had literally no playmates – as someone that was in love with his body, he stayed away from peer group quarrels that often would lead to scuffle.
After his national youth service in Oyo State, Mustapha was employed as a teacher in the services of Kano State. It was the job he knew the most, as he would tell me many times in his last days whenever we discussed of his intention to start up something to support the meagre pay from his. And here too was another tragedy. For a science graduate who had taught in various secondary schools for over 20 years, and having crossed into the managerial cadre – passing his management course exam with an excellent grade in 2013, his pay was still nothing to comfortably live on. Somewhere along the line, he picked up tailoring to complement his salary, but as typical of trades ventured into late in the day, he could not accomplish much. He abandoned it.
And this story is a familiar story of the Nigerian teacher, especially those who have the trade in heart, not those in it by accident. Mustapha took his teaching job very serious. His promptness to work shaped even his entire life that whenever he was visiting a relative he would arrive so early in the morning like the proverbial debt collector. A few weeks to his death while I was in Kano for my own school engagement he begged me about three times to take him to Yankaba, the headquarters of the zonal education headquarters where he was transferred to about a year ago. A few times in between relapses, he would be taken to the offices, and that gave him a lot of satisfaction.  
Yes, the troubled Nigerian healthcare system is also part of his tragic story. During the last Ramadan period, Mustapha complained about ailments that was thought to be symptoms ulcers. In retrospect, it was actually the signal of the kidney problem. He was admitted into a private clinic in Kano. There was no proper diagnosis and the medication was done under utmost secrecy that even his family was denied the right to know what was the problem or on what medication he was placed on. This is in spite of Salisu, his younger brother, being a pharmacist demanded to know. And then the outstretched public hospitals that are also ill-equipped that a patient would have to be carried from one place to another to run a simple test or even for bed space. He went through all this.   
Our collective prayer is for the repose of his soul and for the almighty Allah to recompense all his sufferings here with a restful abode in the great beyond. Ameen.
Abdulaziz writes from Zone 3, Abuja