Why I want my children to know who that man called ‘Baba Buhari’ was

Shocked at how disrespectful he sounded, I told him, he is “Baba Buhari”.

Do you know who he is? “No, but I see him on TV” he replied.

 

How does one condense 40 years of a man’s work into a few short sentences a child can understand? How does one even begin, when that man is President Muhammadu Buhari? Telling him he was Nigeria’s President wouldn’t be enough; neither would telling him that he was a monument of a man who propelled Nigeria to do great things. I have never been much of a historian, preferring to enjoy the present and dream about the future.

 

Because of that, I’ve been remiss in helping my kids understand where we come from.

I remember the stories my mother told me as a child. About how frightening it was during the Civil War time, when even the babies didn’t cry. When there was no food to eat and rice was a luxury. I recall my mother telling me how the streets then were riddled with panic and how people lived in squatters with no clean water or proper sanitation, when you can’t even put up a lamp light at night.

 

It’s now time to tell these same stories to my kids, so they can have a small measure of, not just Nigeria’s history, but their grandparents’ as well. I marvel at how one man personality is shaping a nation. His values are the ones my generation will hold dear, which we strive to pass on to our kids. Hard work, discipline, integrity, resilience, a can-do spirit, consideration for others, and the most important one for my family – that there are no one-offs in life, no one-trick ponies.

 

I tell my kids that if they start something, they have to keep at it, no giving up. Imagine if President Buhari had given up at the first hurdle or even the 2nd or 3rd. And if they succeed at something, they should strive to maintain that success.

 

Chief among the stories that will now make it to our family’s compendium of memories, is how their “Mama” as they call my mother was truly joyful by Baba Buhari’s success in the 2015 Presidential election.

 

My parent in her 80s, lived through the difficult years of nation-building and since then, when PMB’s was announced as the presidential winner, she’s been contented. My mother rues how she was just across the road when PMB’s procession arrived at the Kaduna township. If her legs were stronger, I’m sure she would have joined the crowd.

In him, my parent saw someone who understood the problems a young Nigeria was going through, who wanted to help, and then do so beyond expectation.

 

They see how far Nigeria has come in 18 months and attribute it to President Buhari’s foresight. I want my kids to know these things too, to hear the old stories, and to understand. So it starts tonight, at bedtime, when we’ll talk about why their grandparents are feeling so delighted and who ‘that’ man called Baba Buhari was.

 

Ahmed Abdulrahman, Kaduna, [email protected]