NIGERIA @ 50

My best friend in secondary school, Abubakar Tafida, was born in Ilorin of Zaria parents on October 1, 1960. Since he shared his birthday with Nigeria’s Independence, they called him Mulki (Independence) in Ilorin as he grew up and went through primary school. The name Mulki stuck and followed him to Kano when he came […]

My best friend in secondary school, Abubakar Tafida, was born in Ilorin of Zaria parents on October 1, 1960. Since he shared his birthday with Nigeria’s Independence, they called him Mulki (Independence) in Ilorin as he grew up and went through primary school. The name Mulki stuck and followed him to Kano when he came here for secondary school. Though he was a little older than some of us in that Form One at School for Arabic Studies (SAS), Kano, back in 1976, we became very close friends. As well as Mulki, we also called him Garba, the Hausa equivalent of Abubakar.

While, by Allah’s permission, I led the class in English (as attested to by present Vice Chancellor of Bayero University, Kano, BUK, Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, our then English Teacher and Tafida’s cousin), Tafida always led us by far in Mathematics (as attested to by our unforgettable Mathematics teacher Mallam Haruna Ungogo, one-time Secretary to the State Government in Kano and also one-time Governorship Candidate). At one time, for example, Tafida scored 99% in Mathematics to place First; I came Second with 60%. That was how good Tafida was.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un! We are from Allah, and unto Him we shall return! Tafida died last year at 49, and did not live to witness his and his birth-mate Nigeria’s 50th Birthday. Tafida had always looked forward to this date of October 1, 2010 when he would have turned 50 with Nigeria. Alas! It was not to be, for he died unsung and mourned only by the few of us who knew him and were close to him. He is not Facebooked, not Twittered, and not YouTubed. In short, anonymous. Tafida is the classic example of all what is wrong with Nigeria at 50.

Tafida had died of liver cirrhosis. Or hepatitis B. Or something in the pancreas. Or in the kidney. No one can exactly say what the correct diagnosis was, or should have been. By the time the doctors came round to understanding what was wrong with him, Tafida was almost dead.

As Tafida lay on what turned out to be his deathbed (there is no ‘deathbed’ in Hausa) in hospital, we were at a meeting of our old boys association, called SASOSA. At that time, we didn’t know he was ill, only that he was ill off and on, like all of us Nigerians. On and off. Noting that he wasn’t at the meeting, I texted him, asking in Hausa: “Garba, where are you? Meeting has started!” A few minutes later, he had replied (in what we later learned to be a supreme effort): “Bala, I am dying!” He had replied in English, as there was no way one can render ‘dying’ in Hausa. Scared stiff, I promptly announced to the meeting what Tafida had written. Meeting promptly broke up and headed for the hospital (after calling his daughter to find out where).

By the time we reached Tafida, he was unconscious. And he died that night. Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un! We are from Allah, and unto Him we shall return!
Despite being so intelligent, Tafida would only earn an NCE all his life, when many of his friends had PhDs and MScs, not to talk of BAs and BScs. Not that Abubakar didn’t try to earn a degree. When we finished secondary school, he had passed his exams with flying colours. But while many of us were rushing to get into university, Tafida had inexplicably applied for NCE at an advanced teachers’ college. Which would have been good, had he read a sensible combination.

But to this day nobody knew why at that school they let him study the incongruous combination of Education/English/Mathematics, but that was what he read and graduated with. By the time his cousin (now Professor and VC) Rasheed found out, it was too late. So Tafida came out with that unwieldy combination. After some years, whenever he tried to get into university, he would be told that his combination traversed three different faculties (Education/Arts/Science) and such he was inadmissible. I remember Rasheed, then a young Lecturer in English at Bayero, sparing no effort to get Tafida into BUK or ABU Zaria and other places, to no success. We advised Tafida to re-write private GCE ‘A’ Levels. He refused, with reason.

Finally, Rasheed got Tafida admission into the then University of Sokoto (now Usmanu Danfodio). But by that time,Tafida had a family to his name and so declined to leave Kano. Try as we could to get him to risk it and go to Sokoto to earn a degree and join his comity of graduate friends, Tafida refused, and it was not to be. We remember Rasheed cajoling, threatening, warning, even boycotting Tafida; all to no avail.
And Tafida was not only talented in Mathematics, he was an excellent playwright and dramatist, ostensibly veering into my English field. He founded and led the now-rested Kano Association of Youth Entertainers (KAYE) which staged plays at secondary schools all over Kano State. And towards the end of his life, Tafida wrote a book on the Miracles of Mathematics, which was reviewed and prefaced by no less a person than Mallam Ungogo.
Such has been the loss of talent and opportunity and potential in the death of Tafida. Such is exactly what we have lost in the story of Nigeria. Each one of us can relate a similar loss. So we mourn Abubakar Tafida, Mulki, as we mourn Nigeria who, at fifty, has not much to show for her age.
But then Stop! Think. Is there really no silver lining in Nigeria’s almost thoroughly gloomy picture? Thinking deeply, one may come up with some Joys, as well as more Sadnesses, of being Nigerian.

JOY: Where else in the world can you go to a restaurant, order rice and fish, and they tell you fish has finished, but there is fish-head. Big and small. And the price list says: Fish-head is According to Size. You order your fish-head, suck all the muck and enJOY.
SADNESS: You come home after a long day, there is no light, the generator (if you have one) has gone on strike, and the mosquitoes have resumed duties. And the temperature is at 39 degrees centigrade. And you have a choice between suffocation and malaria. Almost all year round.
JOY: You fall ill, go to the hospital; the Doctor gives you that pink lab test form asking them to screen you for malaria and typhoid fever, called widal test. The lab assistant takes your blood ‘specimen’ after ‘widally’ puncturing you all over (tough finding a vein for tomato faces), you come back for the result later and they tell you it is only malaria. You say Alhamdu Lillah! (or Halleluyah! as the case may be), thankful to God Almighty for just malaria, and no typhoid.

SADNESS: Where else but in Nigeria that even the President of the country cannot boast of a reliable facsimile (fax) line?
JOY: Only in Nigeria can you have a full (I didn’t say nutritious) lunch for fifteen naira. The other day I was returning from a trip to Bida in Niger State. Was hungry, so was my driver. No eatery around. We saw a boiled/cooked Masara (maize, corn) seller. We bought ten naira worth each, bought two five-five naira ‘pure’ water, and downed both. We arrived home quite sated. Or Zaria carrots. Red and succulent. Or sugarcane. Where else?

SADNESS: At a photocopy place on Zoo Road (now Magaji Dambatta Road), Kano, there is this notice on the door: PHOTCOPY FIVE NAIRA ON NEPA, TEN ON GEN. Because we are Nigerians, you would see tens of people lined up in front of the centre, waiting for NEPA and five naira. Time means nothing.
JOY: Where else but in Nigeria would you find this Family Planning NGO that has a driver who reported one day that his wife had put to bed. When asked how many children he had, he stated nineteen from three wives, and he was planning on adding another wife. Needless to say, the Canadians fired all the Nigerian staff, rolled up their tent and left.
O the joys and sadnesses of being Nigerian! May Mulki, Abubakar Tafida, my Hero of Nigeria @ 50, rest in peace, and may his birth-mate, Nigeria, start growing now that she is fifty. Amen to all that.