Reminiscing late Abdullahi Danburam Jada

Three years ago, Daily Trust published a rare reconstruction of a long interview with Alhaji Abdullahi Danburam Jada, an elder statesman and Minister of Animal Health and Northern Cameroons Affairs in the defunct Northern Region Government. With his death on Monday, we produce an edited excerpt of the insightful interview.   By Abdullahi Tasiu Abubakar […]

Three years ago, Daily Trust published a rare reconstruction of a long interview with Alhaji Abdullahi Danburam Jada, an elder statesman and Minister of Animal Health and Northern Cameroons Affairs in the defunct Northern Region Government. With his death on Monday, we produce an edited excerpt of the insightful interview.

 

By Abdullahi Tasiu Abubakar

 

Alhaji Abdullahi Danburam Jada, who died at 97 on Monday, was a rare breed elder statesman who had vast experience in traditional leadership and modern governance. He was an agriculturist, a district head, a First Republic politician, a parliamentarian, a minister, a commissioner, a university pro-chancellor, an anti-corruption tsar – the list is endless. He had witnessed massive social changes, served in many governments and travelled extensively.

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Sixty years ago the Nigerian Citizen – the forerunner of the New Nigerian – published a profile of Danburam Jada highlighting how he “shines in farm” and in Parliament. “Abdullahi Danburam Jada, Minister of Animal Health and Northern Cameroons Affairs,” the piece begins, “is the handsome agriculturist, who came to political limelight only in 1956 when he won an election to the Northern House of Assembly on the platform of the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC)”. He was “anti-sports” but a “good debater”, the paper claims. “Before becoming a Minister, Danburam was regarded as one of the most intelligent debaters in the House” – skills that probably helped secure him the ministerial post. “As a Northern Cameroonian,” the paper continues, “he would know better of the difficulties of his people and how to solve them”. He is, it says, “the right man in the right place”.

That was in January 1958, when Nigeria was under colonial rule and his own district Jada (in the then Northern Cameroons) was part of the United Nations Trust Territory being administered by Britain. The paper’s assertion regarding his knowledge of his people was about to be proved with his role in turning Northern Cameroonians into Northern Nigerians.

He pursued a campaign of having the United Nations integrate Northern Cameroons with Northern Nigeria without resorting to a plebiscite that some pro-Cameroon activists were advocating. Cameroon’s historian Bongfen Chem-Langhee, citing UN documents, reported that a United Nations Mission had recommended integration without a plebiscite and that Danburam had supported it.

The UN records show that on 25 February 1959 Danburam told a meeting of the United Nations Trusteeship Council in New York that “there was no need for further consultation on the question of the integration of the Northern Cameroons with the Northern Region of Nigeria when Nigeria became independent on 1 October, 1960”. He argued that Nigeria-Cameroon border was a colonial creation that divided the old Adamawa Emirate. He said “for very weighty reasons of history and geography, and of close ethnic and cultural ties with the people of the Northern Region of Nigeria,” Northern Cameroonians believe that “their true destiny” lies in joining Nigeria. “It was accordingly a matter of vital importance to the people of the Northern Cameroons that they should remain with the Northern Region of Nigeria”. Separating them from Northern Nigeria, he maintained, “would be a direct negation of all the principles for which the United Nations stood”.  It was a brilliant argument he presented to the Council but it couldn’t survive the Cold War politics raging then at the United Nations.

Britain applauded Danburam and vigorously pursued the suggested option at the Council but the Soviet Union blocked it. Eventually, the United Nations had to conduct a plebiscite in November 1959, giving Northern Cameroonians a choice of either joining Northern Nigeria or making decision later about their future. They chose the latter.

No favouritism

There had been claims of appointments of unqualified Northerners to fill posts in the region as part of the ‘Northernisation’ policy pursued by Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto. Danburam disputed this. Contrary to claims of favouritism in employment in the civil service, appointments were actually based on merit, he said. No bias also against any section of the North, he stressed. “We don’t favour anybody. People got jobs on merit,” he said. “When you finish your studies, you would apply for the job you like. We would look at your competence and give you the job, if you’re qualified”.

The emphasis, he said, was on competence, and that was why things worked well at the time. The former premier, Danburam maintained, focused his attention on manpower development. Provision of education and training and re-training of staff were key parts of his programmes. “We would visit many places to recruit qualified people to work in various sectors,” he added.

It was the same approach he transferred to the North-Eastern State after its creation in 1967 when he became the pioneer chairman of its public service commission in 1968. He recalled that students from the region who studied in various parts of the country and abroad were encouraged to return home and take up relevant roles to man the region. Danburam would lead his team to many places to conduct interviews as part of the recruitment drive.

Danburam also took to the commission the same culture of transparency and incorruptibility he had adopted while serving in Sardauna’s government. He built the commission on an excellent footing and was reputed to have fought a relentless war against corruption and nepotism. “The story of his refusal to sanction the employment of an unqualified relation of his is now legendary,” a citation on him by Bayero University Kano (BUK) said when the university honoured him with a doctorate degree in 1989. “Consequent upon carving for himself the image of a moral crusader in an age of moral decadence, Alhaji Danburam was invited by the reformist regime of General Murtala Muhammed to assume the post of Public Complaints Commissioner in the North-Eastern State and subsequently for the new constituent states of Bauchi, Borno and Gongola states from November 1975 to October 1979,” it added. He held the post for two more years in his then Gongola State before retiring in November 1981.

Nine months later, despite his protests, he was recalled to serve again, first as a member of Bayero University Governing Council and later as the council’s chairman and pro-chancellor. After spending about four years there he was appointed Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of Usman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto, in 1986 – a post he held for years. He was also a member of many boards, including Northern Nigerian Scholarships Board, Police Selection Board, and Regional Committee of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).

 A summon from Sardauna

Danburam’s biggest break was his ministerial appointment, and apparently it was the one that surprised him most. He had no prior knowledge or hint that he was going to be made a minister. He was in his hometown of Jada where he was serving as its district head when he got a call. It was an urgent call and so he had to attend to it. “When I received the call, I went to Lamido (the then Lamido Adamawa Dr Aliyu Musdafa) in Yola, and he said, ‘Well, the call is from Sardauna. He is the one looking for you’,” Danburam recalled. “I expressed my surprise but he said, ‘Well, go and see him. The message is from him’”. Danburam was very close to the Lamido. They had known each other since childhood, and it was Lamido who appointed him the District Head of Jada in 1955. He was only two years into the post when this call came. Unknown to him, the Northern premier had prepared bigger roles for him. When he reached Kaduna he got an excellent reception. Sardauna told him of the appointment. It’s a huge promotion. He did lose his title of a district head but he became the minister for animal health and forestry and Northern Cameroon affairs.

There was no lobby, no political manoeuvre, no crowd renting, not even an expression of interest.  He was simply offered the post. “I wasn’t looking for it,” Danburam said. “I didn’t even know there’s such a plan.” His talents were spotted and he was appointed on merit. His academic and occupational backgrounds have been in agriculture. He had attended School of Agriculture (renamed College of Agriculture, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria) and worked in the same field for eleven years. And he was a traditional ruler from the Northern Cameroons, an area Northern Nigeria was keen to get. With those fitting backgrounds, the premier apparently felt that Danburam was the perfect person for these portfolios.

How we handled herders-farmers problem

As minister for animal and forestry, Danburam had to deal with the issue of relationship between herders and farmers, and he could still remember some of the measures he took in that respect. He said first there were cattle routes, which greatly helped minimise areas of clashes between the two groups. There was also effective monitoring by the government, which aided early detection of problems. He admitted that even at that time there were cases of misunderstanding and conflict. But the government was up and doing, and never allowed things to degenerate. “Once we notice a potential area of conflict, we would involve traditional rulers to intervene quickly and address the problem,” he said, “We never allowed things to get out of hand.”

He believed that involving traditional rulers could still help in addressing the current herdsmen-farmers conflict. He wouldn’t want to be drawn into the politics surrounding it but he was clearly unhappy with the violence associated with it. Perhaps because of his experience as a former district head, Danburam placed great emphasis on the relevance of traditional rulers in conflict resolution. “They know their communities and could help in resolving many conflicts,” he suggested.

Right from young age, Danburam’s charisma and leadership qualities were unhidden. They became so obvious at the Yola Middle School that he was appointed its head-boy. After leaving school he joined the Native Authority as an agricultural assistant and later a supervisor of agriculture. He was a vice-chairman of NPC in Yola before he won his parliamentary seat and later became a minister. Queen Elizabeth II honoured him with the Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE), in January 1963 for his public service.  The Federal Government of Nigeria bestowed on him Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON).