Reminiscences: I Regret Quitting Lecturing Job – Mohammed

Alhaji Adamu Mohammed is the Sarkin Nunku, a second-class traditional ruler in Akwanga local government area of Nasarawa State. He is also a retired director in the Federal Civil Service. In this interview with DANJUMA JOSEPH, he recounts his life experiences and how he would still love to influence the lives of the younger generation through lecturing

Let’s meet you sir.

I am Alhaji Adamu Mohammed, the son of Mohammed Abubakar, from the line of royalty in Mada land, which is the line of Mondah, the younger brother of Nzoh-njah. From that line we were able to produce Mondah, then Abubakar and myself, out of the line of about 12, the rest were from Nzoh-njah’s sons.

My father, Mohammed Abubakar, was an area court judge, who married my mother in Lafia, in the Emir’s Palace, where he was Dan-doka (police guard) in 1950.

I was born in Barkin Abdullahi (B.A.D) on February 22, 1952. At that time, Yamusa was on exile after some infractions with the colonial administrator. He was removed from power and sent on exile to B.A.D. I started my education from the Quranic School in B.A.D; my junior primary school in Nunku, in 1959, six months later, I was moved to Andaha. At that time my father was what they called schools organizer. In 1961, we moved to Wamba where I enrolled in Primary 2, that was in 1963.

When I was billed for Class 4, my parents brought me back to Birnin Kebbi, in the present day Kebbi State in Gwandu Native Authority Primary School, where I started Primary 4, with the likes of so many top names in that division. Then while in Primary 5, my uncle who took me there, Haruna Zakari, was chosen to undergo a course at the Institute of Administration, Zaria, so we came to Zaria.

While at Birnin Kebbi, my name was among the selected ones to seat for the First School Leaving Certificate; that was in Class 5, because they said I could probably make it, but unfortunately I had to move to Zaria where I spent about two months out of school.

One day I took myself to school and met a friend who happened to be in the same primary school in Birnin Kebbi, his father was Mr. Sani, a famous educationist, who was a northern Nigeria chief inspector of education and I was in the same class with his son, Elijah Sani.

I started looking for Elijah in Zaria and I bumped into him in Wusasa, then I entered his class and Sister Jennifer Wune looked at me and asked, “what is your name?” I said I am Danjuma, and she said oh, Friday? I said yes and it became my name in that school and I spent only six months at the end of which we came back to Birnin Kebbi.

I sat for my Common Entrance Examination in Primary six in 1966. The coup happened in January 1966 and it destabilised everything, including the school’s calendar. Three months later, the crises between Igbos and the north started and disrupted education for almost one year.

Later on, I went to Federal Government College, Sokoto and later on, states were created, with quota system, everybody had to stay where they came from, then my uncle who brought me to Sokoto had departed to Kano and I had to go back to Birnin Kebbi, where I was staying and stayed alone for good one year, feeding from friends and later moved back to Sokoto, where I did a lot of odd jobs to survive and one day, Mr. Keward, a Briton, saw me beside the cinema in Sokoto, he took me to his house, fed me well and gave me soap to wash my clothes.

He took me to, the then, North Western Ministry of Education and called on the chief inspector of education, Mallam Adamu Gulma, who instantly recognised me and asked what I was doing in Sokoto instead of being with my contemporaries in college.

So, the then, commissioner of Education, North-western State, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, signed a personal letter and gave me to go to Government Secondary School, Gusau, which was then in its temporary site in Kutakushi, a town with famous mountains and natural arts. That was how I started my secondary school education.

When exactly did you start work?

I started working in August 1978 or there about with the Plateau State Civil Service and I rose to the rank of senior assistant executive before I went to National Institute for Policy and Strategic Study (NIPSS). First, they said it was on secondment but I was later asked to either take a fresh appointment or leave, which was most unusual because I suspected there were people behind it.

What were your memorable days in service?

My most memorable days were in NIPSS, when I faced my most difficult time with Prof. Nura Alkali of blessed memory. Having worked in NIPSS before his appointment, everybody used to see me as an oracle, because I knew how to use the name of the institution to get things going, and who to get in touch with to be able to get things moving for NIPSS. The participants who passed through the institute, lived up to expectation of their alma-mata and they made things very easy for some of us who were in touch with them. So, I thought that was an asset, I didn’t know that some of these chief executives and directors-general were threatened by such influence.

For the first time, we got a northern professor, a civilian, and I felt that I was going to get a lot of a good time. We went to Maiduguri after collecting his appointment letter in Abuja, we sat in his office and I gave him ideas of how to run NIPSS, he was so happy. When he came in, there was a riot against the military chief executive of NIPSS, who was dragging his feet, not wanting to leave or hand over, and so everybody thought I should be able to douse the rampaging staff union and calm things down, but the maladministration of the DG then made it impossible for some of us in the management cadre to have any effective control over the union. I was left alone running from pillar to post, trying to put things together so that people would calm down so that the outgoing DG would be able to hand over to the new one.

Within that short period, my detractors found a way to say Adamu was too influential in NIPSS, so they set me up with the new DG who had confidence in me, and I stayed during the whole of his tenure only reading newspapers in my office, doing nothing, that was when I started seeking job with the Federal Civil Service and by the grace of God, I got it.

When did you marry?

I got married in 1979, the marriage was blessed with four children, but my first wife is late now. My second wife, also gave birth to four children. I lost my first child from the first wife and I also lost my second child from my second wife, so also my third wife, the first child died so now, I have a total of seven children from three wives, three females and four males and all are very intelligent.

How did you meet your first wife?

It was an arranged marriage, my first wife was born virtually on my lap, we were from the same family. Her father was the junior brother to my father who brought me up in Birnin Kebbi, who took me round northern Nigeria and when she was born my uncle said that girl will be the wife of Danjuma and that was how it happened. He called me to the hospital when he had a pancreas problem; he reminded me he asked me to marry Aishatu Azumi. I took it as a joke but my father remembered after I graduated, got a job, a car and house, and all the time having my good time. I got admission to go to the United States for my Masters but my father refused and reminded me my late uncle asked me to marry his daughter that was how we got married.

Do you have any regret in life?

You see during the NYSC I was posted to the University of Maiduguri, then it was just taking off and I became a research assistant, Dahiru Bobo, was then the registrar and he said, you these small boys that are coming out of the university have short ages to your life, then I was just 24 or 25 years.

Bobo said the university wanted to build a pool of academicians from scratch and from northern universities and I really wanted to be a lecturer.

Some of my students one of them who was doing his prelim then, the onetime famous minister of Justice, Aondoka, from Benue State, was in my class. I didn’t know him then until I was posted to the Ministry of Justice and we met in the lift and he said Communist Adamu. They used to call us radicals, communist socialists. l asked him where he knew me and he told me I taught him in Maiduguri. He took me to his office and asked why I left lecturing, the rest is now history.

I worked under late Nicky Tobi, of blessed memory, who was then the head of Faculty of Law in the University of Maiduguri. Then Justice Tobi was a member of the Constituent Assembly, then myself and Lawal Ribadu, senior brother to Nuhu Ribadu, he was also a lecturer there.

So, Lawal Ribadu and one Yoruba guy from Ilorin, and I, were very, very radical, almost every week they would call us to the university VC’s office to warn us of going about castigating the 1979 constitution. We felt it was our right to say what was in our minds.

So, I regretted leaving lecturing in the University, up till this moment if given the opportunity, I would love to go back to the university as a lecturer to impact the younger ones.

Before you became Sarkin Nunku, how has life been after retirement?

This Sarkin Nunku thing was the same thing like I was put into. I never thought I was going to be Sarkin Nunku. I am from the royal lineage, but if people say they don’t want me Adamu, to rule over them, how do I force myself on them?  Empires have come and gone.

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I remember, my father told me I was going to take over as the ruler one day. It was like a prophecy, because whenever I had my salary, I would take some and give to my father to pay my siblings fees and instead of paying their fees, he would go and get a lawyer to continue with the case during the royal battle in the court. If I said I give you money to eat, why are you wasting it, my father would always say, you would take this load one day.

After I retired, I had a large farm, a good one in the village. I started doing some farming and farming chicken. I wanted to live a very quiet life. I remember one day; I went to the farm I found my relatives and his family in the middle of the farm harvesting cassava and he said they were dying of hunger and I said you are not hungry, but you are stealing. Just one day like that, the Dakachin Nunku then came and said nobody was doing this thing on behalf of Nunku people and you called yourself educated a part of the royal family, we have included your name as one of those who would be in the fore-front for Nunku people in the court to challenge government’s decision. That was how I started going to court with my uncles. I discovered that they did not even know what they were doing. That was how I took over the case and along the line, I did not know my people around me were being used as espionage agent against even their own cause and it turned out to be a fight within Nunku people.

How has life been with you since you become Sarkin Nunku?

Honestly, it is now I am beginning to feel that I am on a different turf. It is now that I am trying to extricate myself from that personality of uprightness; seeing what it is and how it is without feeling for the consequences. That kind of statement you can make without looking back or over your shoulders cannot continue anymore.

One has to learn to be diplomatic, choose your words carefully, be mindful of the consequences of your statement and also at the same time try as much as possible to project the right of your people.

What is your advice to the younger generation?

My advice to the younger ones is, let them put their whole might in the pursuit of knowledge that is what our forefathers introduced to us. Up till today, I wake up by 12 midnight and find something to read and I enjoy it. When we used to read with lantern and gas lamp, that was how we went to secondary school and that is what the Nunku boys and girls are doing.

I advise that let all Mada, including Mada in Nunku, Boher Rinze, Ningo and others, let us put one thing as our top priority the pursuit of knowledge, let them forget about their number, that they are in the majority. The majority that is uneducated doesn’t move further.

The democratic dispensation that is moving now is blowing a lot of changes along with it that will wipe out majority principle of governance based on tribe, ethnicity and religion. Nigeria is going to move in the direction where even the quota system will sound funny and federal character will be phased out. What we need to be doing is knowledge and professionalization, skills acquisition and above all, we must come back to the land and farm.

Your Royal Highness, what are your hobbies?

I play squash

Source: Leadership news