By Abba Anwar
Though I read alot of her journalistic work during the defunct Citizen Magazine, my first meeting with the popularly known Bilkisu Yusuf (MNI) was way back in 1998, when herself, Major General Ishola Williams (rtd), Hajiya Zainab Sa’id Kabir, Oby Ezekwesili,
Rev. Father Matthew Hassan Kukah, Hajiya Fati Mu’azu and other notable and respected Nigerians were putting heads together to form a Nigerian Chapter of Transparency International (TI), a global coalition against corruption. Hajiya and some of the founding members of the group were attending an inaugural meeting so to speak, of what they termed Transparency in Nigeria (TIN), at the Afforestation Programme Coordinating Unit (APCU) Conference room, in Kano.
I was just opportune to be there not because I was somewhere near the notable Nigerians mentioned above, from whatever angle you may look at it. I was there representing my boss, Comrade Sani Zorro, the former President of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
That time Zorro floated a vernacular newspaper called Al-Ahram, when he invited me to join the new media outfit. Since then Hajiya moulded my thinking of the Nigerian state, nurtured my too tiny too little professional sojourn, drilled my understanding of commitment for better, re-directed my frontiers of friendship across my faith, region and tribe and above all taught me that service to humanity was paramount.
This piece deliberately refuses to look at Hajiya Bilkisu from the point of view of a veteran journalist. Not because she was not. She was far ahead of that. Does my reader remember that she was the first female Editor in Nigeria? The aspect of her professional excellence is left for those who knew her, professionally speaking, from scratch to stretcher.
Belonging to civil society organizations like TIN during the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, was deadly a risky business and suicidal. It was Hajiya who encouraged me to be first and foremost endorsed for my inclusion to the larger think-tank group. That was the very beginning of my engagement in civil society activism.
With the fiery nature of Abacha’s rule, Hajiya had always encouraged me to maintain the momentum inside me. Stressing that since what we were doing was to better our country I, Abba, must keep my contact with them and remain committed, dogged and steadfast. That has greatly impacted in my life.
From there she made sure that I was coopted alongside with big people like General Williams to start making national paper presentation (from my side of the coin) on Fraud Detection and Anti-Corruption. I was made to present national papers at British Council office in Kaduna and the other one at Hill Station Hotel
, Jos, Plateau state.
She was instrumental to alleviating my fear for paper presentation since during Abacha era. Before those presentations I was supervised by Hajiya Zainab Kabir. While General Williams stood by the side as a Referee to tell me that I must deliver those presentations. All for my own good.
She was a party to recommend for my first training trip abroad on Fraud Prevention and Control, when I was sponsored by British Council, Kano, to go to United Kingdom and attended the programme at Royal Institute of Public Administration (RIPA), London, in 1998. That opened other windows for me to attend similar courses again at different times in the United Kingdom, United States of America and Ghana.
In the year 2000 I was intending to reject a trip to US for a programme on Global Change and Social Innovation, that centred on Appreciate Inquiry (AI), at the Case Western Reserve University, Weatherhead School of Management, Alabama, it was Hajiya Zainab in a collaborative effort with Hajiya Bilkisu who insisted that I must proceed. Just to tell my reader how encouraging, helpful and wicked-free mind she was.
It was my late mentor Hajiya who facilitated my friendship with her son Mashood. She was fond of telling me her son wanted to meet with me and say hello. So also her sister Amina Ali, became my sister too courtesy Mashood’s late mummy. This tells you how humble and morally sound she was.
For over a decade two of us never missed exchanging the Friday text messages. Friday being the most influential day in a week, Muslims developed the habit of exchanging text messages to remind the selves the challenge awaiting us in the next life after death.
The last text message she sent to me reads: “Salaam. Hal Jaza’ulIhsanIllalIhsan. Indeed the reward of goodness is nothing but goodness (Q55:60). May all your good deeds and Ibadah be abundantly rewarded, fortunes, material or otherwise. May the strife and insecurity of recent years become things of the past.
Juma’at Mubarak.”
Allahu Akbar Hajiya Allah rewarded you with utmost goodness. You departed this world as a Martyr. The ultimate reward of your goodness has fruited goodness. We miss you Hajiya. My friend Mashood and his sister Nana called you Aunty and I called you Hajiya. Oh Hajiya, Oh Hajiya we dearly miss you. But Allah loves you the most.
The other part of this memorable text message shows how patriotic Hajiya was. It tells alot of how this issue of insecurity was knocking hard on her mind. She came, she saw, she moulded, she organised, she worked, she prayed, she nurtured, she mentored, she built bridges, she kicked injustice, she helped, she befriended, she visited and she conquered. Alas Hajiya died as a Martyr!
Just last year I had a very serious quarrel with a closest friend of mine in the human rights community, a quarrel that was instigated by avoidable misunderstanding, it was Hajiya who quenched the fire. That was watered down also by Hajiya Halima Ben Umar and another good friend Balarabe Inuwa Dutse. She could give me directive then, but she advised and left it open-ended. “Abba please leave this matter once and for all. Just think of forging ahead,” that were her words. I was certain that she said the same thing to the other party. Too humble, peaceful and very religious.
For over a decade I knew her for being permanently in I’itikaf in the last ten days of a Month of Ramadhan. An art of secluding oneself in a Mosque for totally concentrating on all types of accepted worship to Allah, like recitation of the Holy Qur’an, performing prayers, Salat Alan-Nabiyy, and lots more, at the last ten days of Muslim Fasting period of the Month of Ramadhan. It starts from a day’s worship or three days or seven days or a maximum of ten days. She utilised all the ten days optimally.
One scenario that keeps on reminding me how submissive to the Almighty Allah she was, was some years back when she was invited to deliver a speech at Bayero University, Kano, over ten years now, on the fate of education in Northern Nigeria.
After the lecture which took place at the University Theatre One, Old Campus, when she came out to pick her car it was disgracefully found out that the car was stolen. Wow!!! She wasn’t destabilised. That day I saw real and total submission to Allah’s Will. I followed her to where she parked the car. She had one and only worry. That she had a prepared paper for another presentation the following week outside the country in the handbag that was left in the car. As Allah wished, the bag was sighted dumped on the ground, few metres from where the stolen car was parked.
She asked me to take her to some few places she wanted to visit that day. As I was driving the car Hajiya was too busy reciting the Holy Qur’an offhand. She stopped at a point and said to me “Malam Abba I am glad that this bag was not stolen too. I have a prepared paper for presentation next week outside the country. And I don’t want to disappoint the organisers of that Conference, having communicated to them that the paper was ready. I also didn’t send them a copy yet. “
I was seriously shocked about that, that she didn’t utter a word on the stolen car. When I wanted to discuss the issue of the car she dodged vehemently. She even refused to utter a single castigating word against the hopeless thief. That was Hajiya for you. Before we left the campus in my car, I read from the face of the then Vice Chancellor, Prof Attahiru Jega, how disturbed he was. So was the entire university community.
Another humble scenario that will continue to keep telling me about Hajiya was sometime in 1999 when we were holding a meeting of Transparency in Nigeria at British Council, Kano. During the break we realised that there was a delay in providing our lunch. She suddenly dipped her hand inside her bag and gave me some hundreds of Naira, and sent me to go to the road side and buy us boiled cassava and groundnut. That was what we used as our lunch that day. Because of the respect she was enjoying from all the participants, -big people by all standard- nobody raised an eyebrow.
May your gentle soul rest in perfect peace. And other pilgrims who face similar blessed tragedy. Ameen.
Anwar is based in Kano and can be reached at [email protected]
