SHEHU GARBA DURBUNDE: 25 YEARS AFTER

If I hadn’t planned to write this tribute today, I would have written on the sad demise this Wednesday of my senior colleague Ujudud Shariff who lost a long battle with kidney ailment. As it happens, the person I’m remembering today is another journalist who exited this world 25 years ago: Shehu Garba Durbunde of […]

If I hadn’t planned to write this tribute today, I would have written on the sad demise this Wednesday of my senior colleague Ujudud Shariff who lost a long battle with kidney ailment. As it happens, the person I’m remembering today is another journalist who exited this world 25 years ago: Shehu Garba Durbunde of Kano’s Triumph; the Pen/Alkalami; New Dawn and Abuja’s Nation. Shehu died in an accident on June 6, 1991 on a trip for the Council of Ulama, Kano. I was to have been on that trip, but at the last minute the organisers had changed the departure point and I missed them – there was no GSM! Allah in His Wisdom willed that I would live to write this tribute.
But for this milestone of 25 years after Shehu, I could have written on Ujudud, or JNI Annual Conference in Kaduna last weekend, or two other important events holding in Kano today: 2nd Annual Ado Bayero Memorial Lecture at BUK, and Late Capt. Ismail Yadudu 8th Annual Liver Disease Workshop in Dawakin Kudu; or JAIZ Bank Interactive Session at the Afficient tomorrow. But as it happens, I had asked a number of those close to Shehu to each send in a 100-word tribute. In the end, I was overwhelmed with 5,000+ words for a 1,200-word column! So, apologies to those whose 1,000 words become 50; and apologies to those I couldn’t contact!
Shehu’s death devastated many. I remember the funeral; I remember late Shaikh Ibrahim Kabo (who eventually took in all of Shehu’s family) sermonising at Shehu graveside; I remember the NTA cameraman who also died with him; I remember Shaikh Rabi’u Inuwa Ibrahim who was in the same car and was injured and spent several weeks in comma in hospital. How painful, even 25 years on!
HAJIYA HAJARA ABDULLAH MU’AZ, Shehu’s widow ([email protected] : It was on the 6th of June 1991 that the life of an amazing man, Shehu, ceased. Though monuments were not build in his name, he left positive memories that can never recreated. His death was sudden; that day is still very fresh in our hearts – I, his wife; his two daughters, Aisha and Ummi; and his son, Abdullahi, who was born posthumously. No words can ever explain our pain. Our tribute is summed up in Abdullahi’s words: “I have his looks, most people say. I never got the chance to see him, but my love for him is strong and the pride that I carry for being his son is probably the thing that keeps me going.”
HIS EXCELLENCY ALI SA’AD BIRNIN KUDU, first civilian Governor of Jigawa State and Shehu’s close friend ([email protected] ): Some 25yrs ago, we tragically lost Shehu. He lived a religiously-fulfilled life. He was an excellent Muslim. To his parents, he was an obedient and dutiful son. To his family, he was all that they wanted; a trusted and dependable partner and a caring and loving father. He was to us not only a good friend, he was truly a brother in every sense of the word.
SHAIKH RABI’U INUWA IBRAHIM, Shehu’s close associate ([email protected] ): Shehu and his other departed associate Mallam Isa Ahmad (who died March 1990) played leading roles in the formation of Council of Imams, a precursor to the founding of the Council of Ulama. Before this final trip, Shehu was a consultant in establishing a national daily, Nation, in Abuja. He applied for an advance and got N20,000, part of which he promptly used to pay for Hajj for his mother – his lifelong ambition. She went after his death.
PROF AHMED ADAM OKENE, NDA Postgraduate School, colleague of Shehu’s at The Pen/Alkalami ([email protected] ): I started my active working life under his leadership. He was my Editor at Pen/Alkalami and I was a reporter under him. He was hardworking, in fact a workaholic. He was a man in his own category in terms of good character, sharp memory, simplicity and sacrifice. He was an all-rounder; a reporter, writer, script analyser, translator, transcriber and, above all, an excellent editor. Despite these enviable qualities, Shehu was humble to a fault – he carried everyone along.
BELLO BASHIR GWARZO, Dept of Political Science, ABU Zaria, Shehu’s associate at the Muslim Students’ Society, MSS ([email protected] ): Shehu was jovial and full of pranks; he was an irrepressible extrovert. That, to me, makes a good journalist, or better still, broadcaster. Why Shehu chose to work in a newspaper and not in the radio is still puzzling to me. Shehu did not care whether you liked him so long as he had dropped his message or registered his presence. That is the way of preachers. He died in an accident on his way to spread the word.
SUWAIBA USMAN BIRNING KUDU, Shehu’s nephew ([email protected] ): Shehu was my uncle. He was a humble, honest gentleman, respected by all the family. I can describe him as a very religious man, a tireless person who engaged himself in ‘amr bil ma’ruf wan nahy anil munkar’ (enjoining good and forbidding evil). One day he came to our area at the time of Zuhr, but the muezzin was nowhere to be found. Shehu promptly went up and called the Azan! I also once sneezed in his presence but forgot to say ‘alhamdulillah’; he instantly and sternly corrected me. From that day I never forgot!
IBRAHIM IDRIS BELLO, colleague of Shehu’s at The Pen/Alkalami ([email protected]): As one literary figure puts it, the living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them. The story of Shehu, my one and only editor, is a story of a humane heart given to helping others. I cut the teeth of my journalism career at his feet at Alhaji Bashir’s Tofa’s The Pen (the best and most famous Islamic newspaper in Nigeria in the 1980s). While Shehu came from The Triumph, I was then fresh from University with a head full of theories of the ‘inverted pyramid’. I cherish the memory of Shehu, whose fragile Fulani physique belied his stamina and resilience!
MUSTAFA IBRAHIM, colleague of Shehu’s at Triumph and Nation ([email protected]): To attempt a tribute to Shehu is painful only because it elicits so much sadness and brings forth long-suppressed pain. If Muzzammil Hanga and Dr. Hamid Bobboi translated my wishful dream to become a journalist, Shehu was the midwife. His departure to the historic editorship of the The Pen provided the vacancy I filled at the Triumph in 1987. As a Consultant three years later, he headhunted me to the editorship of the Abuja-based Nation on Sunday. He was a hard taskmaster devoted to excellence, an excellent reporter, writer and editor.
AISHA UMAR YUSUF, Columnist on this newspaper, Publisher Muslim Worldview – took over the Straight Path column from Shehu at Triumph ([email protected]): Shehu cared for all and on all matters. I was busy one day in the newsroom when a well-dressed young man accosted me and asked to speak to me in private. I told him I was very busy. He asked for another appointment; I noticed his determination and decided to get it over with. I grabbed a chair and offered him another. He said that I came highly recommended and he was there to seek my hand in marriage. My jaw dropped! I nearly died of the shock and was totally speechless. How could anyone propose marriage in the middle of a crowded newsroom? But I was polite, calmly telling him he was a little too late as I was all spoken for. It turned out Shehu had sent him – so concerned was Shehu about my well-being that he actually sent me a ‘husband’!