The Mahmoud Ma’aroof I know

I couldn’t sleep last night as I went down memory lane, recalling all I know about and went through with Mahmoud Ma’aroof. I have seen many people say and write that he was kind and considerate but I know this more than anyone else. We first met as JSS 1 students at Kano Foundation Secondary […]

I couldn’t sleep last night as I went down memory lane, recalling all I know about and went through with Mahmoud Ma’aroof. I have seen many people say and write that he was kind and considerate but I know this more than anyone else.

We first met as JSS 1 students at Kano Foundation Secondary School and spent several hours fathoming what the various components of a “mathematical set” (“mathset”) were meant for. The one that gave us the most difficult time (I still don’t know its name) has two pointed ends. Mahmoud met me excitedly the next day to say that he had discovered it was meant to cut out pieces of circular paper from a sheet. We were amused and cut as many circular papers as we could on that day. He sat a desk ahead of me for the three years of our JSS education at Kano Foundation.

Later, we met at Science Secondary School Dawakin Kudu for our Senior Secondary education. One evening, we fought over a trivial argument. As we walked back to our different hostels, Mahmoud asked me to follow him and collect Paracetamol in case I develop body pains at night, as he said “you took a lot of hits from me”. Remembering that now, I am in tears. So when people say Mahmoud was kind and considerate, I think I know that more than anyone else. 

In our final year at Kano Foundation Secondary in 1992 there was a fire disaster in one of the halls. Students in the affected rooms were asked to move to corresponding rooms in the unaffected hall. This move brought me and Mahmoud closer. 

Back then, I was constantly nauseated by the commonly used powdered milk brands which the school uses in preparing our tea. That meant any day we had tea for breakfast, I either feel nauseated the whole morning or I go hungry. I later realized that large helpings of Bournvita to the tea calmed the nauseating effect. But that also meant my “contraband” Bournvita finishes ahead of everyone else’s. My friend Mahmoud came to the rescue. He claimed he had no much need for Bournvita and so I can supplement with his while I await further stock from home. It was kindness I would never forget, and which typifies his character.

Before the end of our JSS education we were so close that long holidays seem like torture to us because we missed each other’s company during the period. 

And when after SS1 at Science Secondary School Dawakin Kudu Mahmoud couldn’t come back after a holiday due to a sickness he later told me was typhoid fever and appendicitis, I missed him and kept in touch, whenever that was possible. 

He was someone who could dedicate time to understanding details of an issue and planning proactively and diligently. Not many people at that age, or any age, have such skills. Most classmates referred to him as “Saiti” due to his rare orderliness, diligence and foresight.

After secondary school education, Mahmoud and my then-reformed self carried that diligence into first year as undergraduate medical students. In the final year of our pre-clinical training, we were joined by another remarkably honest colleague, Sharfudden Abbas Mashi. We called one another “main man”.  

During the compulsory period of medical internship, we shared the same house and the challenges of transitioning from students to doctors, with the continuing “lysis” and hectic evening calls.

We went our separate ways for the one year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) but destiny brought us together again when we all returned to Community Medicine Department of Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital for our post-graduate residency, and when we went to London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (though some sessions apart) for our MSc degrees.

When I had to leave for London for an MSc, it was usual altruistic Mahmoud that convinced my then very young wife to allow me leave her and our three months old daughter for a whole year. He told her that she should let them (my friends) know when there is any problem. We all parted in tears.

As a parting word, he told me “carry cash always, it is your life line!” I remember vividly a day I got lost in Central London and was having frostbite in the historically cold winter of 2009, and I called Mahmoud who asked “do you have your life line?” He said I should quickly flag down a taxi and give them my postal code of WC1B 5JB. I did, and within seconds I was within the warm confines of a black London cab. The meter started reading at £2.00 and by the time I was home it had amassed £BP16 due to Central London traffic congestion. I paid and was alighting when Mahmoud called to ask “where you able to meet the cost?” and he quickly added “please make sure you don’t insert your hands immediately into hot water due to the risk of Reynaud’s phenomena”. As a doctor I know of Reynaud’s phenomena, but at that confusing moment I could have made the mistake.

I never knew how close people considered us to be till when he wasn’t at home by past 11pm on a particular day due to preparations for a fellowship examination, and his mother called me to ask for his whereabouts. 

Late at night on 13th June 2017, I saw several missed calls from three different mutual acquaintances (Professor “Baba Isa” Sadeeq Abubakar, Dr Usman Bashir and Dr Rayyan Garba) because I had slept off due to exhaustion from a trip and all day fasting on a very hot day. Seeing the missed calls around midnight, I knew I had to call back as I felt that something was certainly wrong. “Have you heard that Mahmoud died in his flat in Texas?” I was informed. I asked “which Mahmoud?” in disbelief, and the caller said “your best friend”. I cannot remember how the conversation ended. That information murdered sleep for the night and triggered this memory of a good friend of almost three decades. 

I pray aljannatul-firdaus to be Mahmoud’s final abode and I extend my condolence to all colleagues, family and friends. We have lost one of the very best, whom I think I know more than most.

Dr Muktar Gadanya, MFR, wrote this from Kano and can be reached at [email protected]