Ten years without Danzaria

It is exactly ten years today since the departure of Mohammed Idris Koko, better known as Danzaria, whom we called DZ for short. I have written many painful tributes in the last fifteen years to fallen family members, friends and colleagues but Danzaria’s death was one of the most shocking that I ever experienced. I needed a long time to recover from it. His death was quite sudden. We spoke on the phone at midnight on November 19, 2006 and three hours later I saw a call from his line. When I answered, it was his wife and she was crying uncontrollably. She kept saying, “We lost him!” I thought it was an asthma attack, which Danzaria suffered from for years, but the doctor later said it was a heart attack.

 

I first met Danzaria in 1968, while we were playing football on a small pitch at Lodge Road, Sokoto. He came running into the pitch as we played and those who knew him began to chant, “We want Danzaria on our side!” Even at that age Danzaria had spectacles but he turned out to be a good footballer and an even better goalkeeper. We were soon communicating with him regularly on the analogue telephones of those days. In those days you must dial the P&T operator and tell him the number you wanted. Our house’s phone number was 79 and the phone number of Danzaria’s father Alhaji Idris Koko’s house was 65. We were also together at the Islamic Education Vacation Course organised by the Islamic Education Trust at the College of Arts and Arabic Studies, Sokoto in 1970. 

 

In January 1973 we found ourselves together at Government College, Sokoto and were in the same Waziri Compound. DZ had health challenges then. He had regular asthma attacks, was swallowing Franol tablets and had a Ventolin inhaler in his hand. Though he was excused from sweeping duties in the compound, Danzaria was very active on the football field. This annoyed the school prefects who used to say, “You cannot stand the dust of sweeping but you can withstand that of the football pitch?”

 

In 1977 DZ went to work for NTA Sokoto, which subsequently sponsored him to study first at the Beverly Hills University, Los Angeles and then at the Central Academy of Film, Arts and Drama, London. We again became very close in 1983 when we both returned from NYSC. DZ had become politically radicalised in Britain. During the Lancaster House Conference on Zimbabwe in 1979, he joined demonstrators at the gate to cheer Robert Mugabe and to sneer at Ian Smith. 

 

DZ loved his television work and soon excelled at it. He was a Transmission Controller [TC] at the NTA in 1984 and one day the Hausa evening newscaster overshot his allotted time. DZ cut off the news and hooked to the NTA Network Service, which was showing a live football match. For that he was removed as TC and made a program producer. That turned out to be for the better because in the next few years, DZ produced dozens of television dramas. Sometimes he was the script writer, producer and director at the same time. He was all over the old Sokoto State filming local musicians. As a result, local musicians were always looking for DZ. One day as we rode in his car, one local artiste came up and loudly complained that DZ was not featuring him on television. DZ said, “Look, if you want me to put you on television you must produce a hit. Otherwise viewers will just be angry with you!” 

 

In 1987 when NTA organised its first film festival called Telefest, DZ produced and directed the entry Kidivision 101, which won awards for best children’s program and best overall entry. A year later, NTA expanded the festival’s scope into NAFETEP. That year DZ produced and directed Lost and Found, which won the award for best children’s drama. In 1989 DZ co-wrote script and directed Abba Gee Show, with his boss Malam Abba Gana as the comedian. It won the award for best variety program at TELEFEST. That year, he also produced and directed Kidiland, which bagged the award for best children’s drama. As a result, from 1988, NTA Network adopted Kidivision as a weekly program with sponsorship from Cadbury and DZ was commissioned to produce and direct it. In the next four years until he left NTA in 1991, he produced 79 episodes of Kidivision. 

 

Between 1983 and 1990 when I lived in Sokoto, we were together with DZ for several hours almost every night. I soon realised that watching television with a Hollywood-trained director like DZ was not pleasant. He will be saying, “Oh, God, that’s a poor shot! He should take a close shot! That camera angle is not right! The lighting is very poor! He should have used special effects!” Outside the studios, DZ loved meat, particularly roasted mutton which he bought nearly everyday at Sokoto’s Eastern Bye-pass Junction.

 

DZ was an ardent football fan. He had no particular club but he loved Brazil very much. During the 1986 World Cup finals, DZ was so afraid of power failure in Nigeria that Hassan Bello and him drove to Niger Republic in order to watch the quarter final match between Brazil and France. Hassan supported France while DZ supported Brazil; when France defeated Brazil, they were not on speaking terms during the drive back home. Apart from football, DZ also loved music. He brought from America a huge pile of music albums and kept enriching it every month in the 1980s.  

 

DZ was also devoted to his many sisters and after he got married in 1995, he transferred this devotion to his wife. Whenever he came to Kaduna or Abuja he would phone her wherever he stopped. Our friends used to frown at that, saying that DZ was setting a standard that could land the rest of us in matrimonial trouble. DZ resigned from NTA in 1991 and set up Excellence Communications, with which in the following years he produced a lot of documentaries and jingles. In 1997 he also produced a full length Hausa feature film titled Zaben Tumun Dare, which he did with pneumatic systems, high quality mikes and special photographic bulbs. For about 10 months in 1998-99 DZ served the Military Administrator of Kebbi State, the late Colonel Samaila Bature Chama, as press secretary.

 

His life was cut short at 46 years of age. May Allah forgive Danzaria and continue to console his father, Madawakin Gwandu Alhaji Idris Koko; his brothers, sisters and his five beautiful children.