The ache in my heart stagnated like an unmovable watery gutter flooding in August. The ink of my pen dried and the pen wept in agony like a nursing mother who lost her only infant baby in the eerie hours of her life. Mallam Isa Labaran is a name that echoed the Jimeta (Yola North) vicinity for decades. He is a popular teacher within Jimeta outskirts and a beacon of human development. In the early hours of Friday death connected Mallam Isa with his ancestors as Jimeta still mourns the loss of one of its thousand ribs, our hefty books shrunken and our eyes manufactured ocean of tears. Mallam Isa was among the best teachers Jimeta has ever produced, and taught many of us both directly and indirectly. He was both a scholar of religious studies and western education and knew literature very well like he knew his house.
I have heard about the magnanimity of Mallam Isa before knowing him personally, back then in the year 2020 when SLC Yola was carved out to curtail the menace ravaging reading culture and creativity within Jimeta metropolitan city. I don’t know he’s the popular Mallam Isa Labaran and I personally met him to make a request to use Capital School Jimeta as the SLC venue for the fortnight reading session. He approved the request orally and demanded for an official letter on our request.
He told me to pen the letter and not to type it (which I did) so that we can have a valid evidence to use the venue even if he’s transferred to another school and to shun any confrontation from other people using the school because it’s a busy place as usual. Although, the approval was at the intense period of COVID-19 despite the restrictions on movement, yet he gave us the approval to commence our activities and today SLC is going places.
His enormous contributions cannot be forgotten in the whole success of Sunshine Literary Club. He gave us pieces of advice on several occasions. In addition, when the club joined 13 other literary forums in 13 states to hold Nigerian Poetry Festival (NIPOFEST) in 2021, he provided a scintillating venue coupled with boulevards and blissful evening breeze where the event was held. He paid for the rent of white plastics chairs including transport fare.
Evidently, during a call for donation of books and other educational materials at the verge of commencing the school reading for lower, middle and upper basic schools, he supported the club via donation of various literatures, and oftenly supervise our activities and ask if we have problem(s).
Mallam was a visionary leader, a kind-hearted personality, honest, versatile scholar in both Islamic and western education, a resourceful teacher, an avid reader per excellent who’s always reading in his office, an unforgettable public servant.
On behalf of every in the club, I’ve extend our heartfelt condolence to his family over his demise and pray that Allah will forgive his shortcomings and give us fortitude to bear this irreparable lost, indeed it’s a gargantuan lost to humanity, literature, education and the entire world. SLC will name a prize after him and will honour him posthumously In Sha Allah, we will maintain his name in our Guinness Book of Records.
Aliyu Idris,
Sunshine Literary Club Yola,
Adamawa state
