He was such a rare man – a rare educationist, and a rare administrator! And what a positive impact he made in the lives of hundreds of thousands of young men and women he taught as students and administered as both students and staff respectively.
What a man! He left his mark, very positive ones, in ABU, Zaria where he became the very first Nigerian professor of education, but couldn’t become VC after coming out tops in all the interviews conducted because the age old and deeply rooted Fulani oligarchy couldn’t stomach a Christian of his standing being the VC of ABU!
Then General Olusegun Obasanjo saw through the bigotry, which has held up Nigeria’s development till date, and brought him to Benin. ABU’s loss, UNIBEN’s gain!
But did it matter to a people who’d rather cut their noses to spite their faces? Has it ever mattered to a bunch of irascible hypocrites and bigots who parrot to their people how bad western education is while their own children schooled in the best schools around the world?
What would it matter to unconscionable hypocrites, many of them pedophilic geriatrics gushing with lusts for infants, while their daughters grew well into adulthood in pursuit of well rounded education?
But I digressed!
After 2 unforgettable terms as UNIBEN VC, and like the golden fish that has no hiding place, he was snapped up by the University of Lesotho! He once told me the government of Lesotho didn’t want him to come back to Nigeria but he insisted on returning home – thinking he could return to his quiet lecture schedules in Zaria. But not with an Adamu Abdullahi, then Governor of Nasarawa State, looking for an extraordinary administrator to midwife his dream State University in his hometown Keffi.
So to Keffi Prof went! And yours sincerely never had to go through protocols to see him! From the office, he took you to his official residence!
My God, anyone who saw this extraordinary man walking you off from house in Zaria to take public transport back to Kaduna would never imagine it all started as a Student-VC affair!
When his initial contract at Nasarawa State University was to expire, Governor Abdullahi persuaded him to help graduate the first set of students.
A very tall and huge man, serious back pains began to take a very serious toll on his ability to move around and do what he was so extravagantly endowed by God to do – touching the lives of ordinary people!
It is to the eternal credit of Nigeria’s jaundiced ethno-religious set up, where misfits and worst players are usually thrown into the field reserved for the very best elsewhere, at the expense of their superiors, that the man never got a mention when searching for credible and competent leaders to salvage this thoroughly betrayed and ravished motherland!
This man surely ran a good race and finished strong, very strong!
Good night Prof, and do have a happy night rest in the bosom of the Lord because that’s actually where you belong!
