The good one is gone
So the ME sat in my office for the next two hours, a very unusual thing for such a busy man. We discussed a very wide range of subjects including his days in Lagos when he used to source newsprint for Media Trust and the lengths he went to make transport savings by finding trucks […]
So the ME sat in my office for the next two hours, a very unusual thing for such a busy man. We discussed a very wide range of subjects including his days in Lagos when he used to source newsprint for Media Trust and the lengths he went to make transport savings by finding trucks that were returning to the North empty after dropping off goods in Lagos. When Suleiman rose to leave at 4pm, I subconsciously reached for my Lumia phone and snapped his picture. He turned round, looked at it and said, “When did you take this picture?” In typical Nigerian answer-a-question-with-a-question I said, “What do you mean when did I snap it? Is it not the same cloth you are wearing?” Suleiman laughed aloud, packed his papers and left. Exactly 19 hours later, he passed away.
As I drove to his hometown, Keffi on Thursday afternoon with Ibrahim Auduson, Prof Okello Oculi and Alhaji Murtala Opoola and still later as we stood at the cemetery watching Suleiman being lowered into his grave, I thought about this man that I first knew in Kaduna about 20 years ago. However, we began to work very closely together after he was transferred from Lagos to Abuja in 2008 to become the managing editor. The post that Suleiman took over was the one I vacated in 2007 when I was reposted. Under him, the ME’s duties transformed beyond recognition.
It is a strongly held African tradition that you do not speak ill of the dead. In the case of Suleiman, there are no ills to speak of even if you wanted to. Suleiman was a very good man, very hardworking, totally devoted to his duties, always cheerful, very religious, never angry over anything and who got on very well with everybody. The most tedious of his duties was the monthly performance management assessment for editorial staff. Every month, all of Media Trust’s nearly 200 reporters and desk editors filled forms detailing their published works in the past month. Suleiman then sat down and painstakingly allotted points to each story according to an approved formula. He was hunched on his computer for days on end doing that work. He was also in charge of general editorial administration. He received new reporters coming to the department, coordinated their training and posting, coordinated the supply of working tools and the repair of damaged equipment. Suleiman coordinated the state and regional offices on behalf of the Editor in Chief. The field officers speak to the editors in the matter of stories but it was the ME they spoke to with respect to administrative matters such as acquiring and equipping offices, staff shortage, leave, training, refund of monies spent on assignments etc.
In addition, Suleiman was the secretary of the weekly Editorial Conference. He prepared the agenda and circulated the minutes, organised the food supply and took notes. He also contributed with a very sharp old reporter and news editor’s eye during the review of past editions and the generation of new story ideas. Besides, he coordinated the weekly and monthly awards at that meeting. Suleiman always came up with a shortlist for story of the week, feature of the month, cartoon and picture of the month etc from which the winner is picked.
Besides the Tuesday conference, Suleiman was also the secretary of the Editorial Board, which meets every Thursday. He prepared the topics for discussion, which he printed and circulated at the meeting. At the Editorial Board meetings, Suleiman was the best voice for common sense and moderation. A very religious man who made regular trips to the mosque every day, his positions at the board were nevertheless strictly liberal. This was no small asset when you consider that an editorial board is full of grammar-blowing academics, some right-wing clerics, some natural-born extremists, a few lapsed Communists and not a few conspiracy theorists. Suleiman unfailingly wrote his assigned editorials, which is more than you can say for many Board members. In addition, Suleiman coordinated the payment of monthly allowances to editorial board members, two dozen columnists in all the titles as well as freelance reporters, IT students and youth corpers.
Then also, Suleiman received majority of the visitors to Media Trust. There is a constant stream of visitors to a newspaper house and the Editor in Chief can only receive a handful of them. Suleiman received all the rest, which required the patience of Job. Sometimes I helped him to host the ones I fancy, such as a medical team that recently visited from communist Cuba.
In her tribute to him last Saturday, our former General Editor, current columnist and on-and-off Editorial Board member Hajia Aisha Umar Yusuf described Suleiman’s death as “the chief mourner goes home.” There was no exaggeration there. Suleiman led delegations to condole with every staffer of the Editorial Department who is bereaved. He had been to dozens of homes all over the country for this difficult deed. As a combined result of all these duties, Suleiman had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Editorial Department. He knew everyone, every issue and every problem intimately.
Through all of that, Suleiman found the time for deep religious worship. He was also passionate about his family. Every now and then when talk at the office turned to family matters, he told stories about his mother, his children including the kids he inherited from his deceased elder brother, his wife’s medicine store, and the house he built at Keffi brick by brick. He described it in such fine detail that I could see the house in my mind’s eye. And to think that Suleiman was a man who struggled throughout his life. He once told stories about how, when he was a student at Kaduna Polytechnic, he used to go every weekend to the riverside, remove his clothes and join the labourers in making bricks. At sunset he will collect his pay, dive into the river for a wash and then return to school with money in his pocket.
This very good man who commuted nearly every day between Keffi and Abuja was thorough about everything. Everything maybe, except his health. Although he looked extremely okay to us and never complained of his health, it turned out that he slumped twice in the week before his death. He recovered and went about his duties as if nothing happened. When he again slumped at the gates of the bank last Thursday, it was to be the last one. May Allah grant eternal mercy and Aljannat Firdaus to Suleiman Mohammed, one of the most peaceful, most hardworking, most cheerful and most pious men I have known since I came to Abuja 7 years ago.