Shehu Musa Maigandu: Tribute to simplicity and integrity

Shehu lived here for more than 56 years and to those of us who are younger and grew up looking at him as a role model, the nearly 50 years that we lived together came and went like a  candlelight snuffed out by the wind. It was to me more like a drama that was […]

Shehu lived here for more than 56 years and to those of us who are younger and grew up looking at him as a role model, the nearly 50 years that we lived together came and went like a  candlelight snuffed out by the wind. It was to me more like a drama that was reviewed in less than a minute.

Death is certainly painful, but as I have always said and believed, the pain of death is in those that live. The agony, anger and helplessness are better imagined than felt when someone dear is lost. We look and feel bewildered because we possess little or nothing, in fact nothing to do when life is about to leave the body.

I have had a harvest of deaths since my younger days. I have lost people who were very close to me; my father, sisters, cousins, nephews, nieces and friends. Each time this happened, the world would become gloomy and I am not quickly reminded about the inevitability of an end to life but importantly the desperate helplessness that the human person is made of.

Right before your very eyes, you see someone you hold dear, leave, and permanently too. No matter how much you desire that life should continue, you are unable to make the difference because you are absolutely powerless. The commonest thing that we do is to resort to our humility and ordinariness.

I am personally touched by this loss because a person I saw and trusted as a role model right when I was a child has passed away. I grew up to know Shehu as the only elder brother I had. I admired and cherished him. My priorities as a young boy were to imitate him and do things the same way he did them.

He provided leadership to me as a young man, listened to me and my worries and attended to them in every way possible. I grew to appreciate Shehu’s perceptions and priorities in life as embodiments of humility and simplicity. It is rare these days to meet people who consider material condiments of life as secondary.

We are living in borrowed times. Material basis of existence define the form, context and realities of relationships today. Honor, candor, integrity and purposefulness are no longer the virtues that make a man and the society; they have since been relegated to the background.

When we come across those who despite the odds have tried to keep a date with destiny, it becomes a religious duty to say it out. I have seen one and he has just vacated the world. Could it be true then that those who are very good are most often not discovered until after their demise?

We may need to as a people redraw the cantors of honor as guiding principles to life if our society is to enjoy the fruits of moral regeneration. It is no news that we are far off track and we know, deliberately too, that we are off track. The tragedy is that we are ill prepared to retrace our steps. Again, it is not an irony that children are afraid of darkness, but the greatest tragedy in life is that adults are afraid of light.

From the middle of the 1960s when I discovered myself with the late Shehu, I knew most of the friends he had made but I never knew who one of his enemies was, if any. Again, this is a mark of simplicity. He is a tolerant personality whose pedigree was lofty and whose integrity was revealing.

He kept good relationship with all around him and ensured that the scramble for material things, which has constituted the major source of conflict amongst friends and people we come across in life never was his priority to the extent that quite a lot of people around thought he was careless. No he wasn’t, he was merely carefree about material things at a time when they are the main determinants of ‘responsibility’.

I agree that we have been told to struggle for this world as if we are remaining forever, but also do agree that we are cautioned that in preparing for the here-after, we should move as if the next second wouldn’t be ours in the world. I think the late Shehu opted for the latter and so he lived a pious and simple life.

His life was a lesson; a great one to those who knew him and others who never knew him. That is one reason behind this piece. We must, if the society is to move in the right direction, remove the primacy we have placed on material wealth and replace same with more serious ingredients of successful life.

We must rid our minds of this very ungodly scenario of wealth at all cost and by all means. That is why there is instability in the polity, immorality in the society and corruption in the economy and the concomitant effect of course is the general systemic failure that we experience as a people and a nation.

While he lived, I was properly guided especially at the beginning of my life, now that he has passed away, I am further guided that that life can be good and honorable at the same time. More so that it is not the life that matters but the courage that one puts into it.

To those living, it is a matter of time. How well we make use of the time is central to not just how we live but importantly too, how we depart. While I share the view that a good life is essential, I differ with our contemporary diction of what it is. To me, it is not the volume of cash or property that we accumulate that makes us stand out, but the measure of good name and integrity we are able to establish as the basis of respect for the rest of humanity.

I am not alone in this loss. We are many. In the life of the Late Shehu Musa Muhammad, I saw a mixture of humility, simplicity and integrity. May the almighty Allah have mercy on the soul of this great mind who came, saw and conquered life at a very critical threshold when love, respect and the integrity of the human person were at the lowest in our society.

He lived well, very well too. Adieu Yaya Shehu, till we meet to part no more.