Any important lesson I learned in my journey through life and feel may serve as a lesson to the younger generation, I write it down here with the hope that when I am opportune to write my autobiography, it would be easy to retrieve and put in a book form to serve as a lesson for the younger generation.
There are many such lessons I learnt in my life including one that happened to my friend, Aliyu Ado Kurawa Kano, a colleague of mine in the former Habib Nigeria Bank, Post Office Road, Kano. Kurawa is dead.
Fresh from the university as young bank staff, three of us, Ahmed Isa Abba, late Kurawa and I took staff vehicle loans in 1992 and purchased personal cars. Ahmed bought a Toyota Corolla Dohc, late Kurawa bought a Mitsubishi Tredia and I bought a Honda Accord 1981 model. We were all bachelors and in our mid 20s in Kano.
Late Kurawa lived with his patents at Kurawa quarters near the Emir’s palace in Kano city. Ahmed lived at Gyadi Gyadi with his Aunty, while I lived alone at Aminu Dantata Estate on Matan Fada Street near the Kano School of Management Studies behind Magwan Hotel at Nasarawa GRA. My house was a meeting ‘joint’ for my friends.
One afternoon late Kurawa drove his car recklessly on Hadejia Road and hit a commercial bus as he told me. After settling the bus driver he had no money left to repair his own car. So he towed the car to the mechanics where it was kept until month end when we received salaries.
When he went home from work in a taxi that evening, late Kurawa told me that he met his friends seated by the road side chatting. Not opportune to buy a car themselves, on seeing him on foot, they asked sarcastically in unison “Aliyu yau ina mota?” Meaning Aliyu where is your car today? As they appeared to be happy, as he told me, he vowed not to return home from work without a car, as the expression in their faces and tone of their voices suggested that they were happy he had no car again.
That night, he came to my house in a taxi apparently disturbed. Kurawa told me that he will never return home without a car and he slept in my house.
We didn’t have enough money to fix his car immediately. So he pleaded with me that he would be dropping me in my house anytime we closed from work and go home with my car until he repaired his own car. As he put it to me, it was shameful the way his friends stared at him the day he dropped from a taxi at the bus stop near his house. I obliged him the use of my car each day, and he dropped me in my house from work until he repaired his car.
The next day after closing, he dropped me in my house as we arranged, and went home with my car. On seeing him with another car, his friends again asked “Aliyu an yi amarya ne?” Oh Aliyu you bought a new car?” He kept going home with my car until he retrieved his own that they stopped asking him, with disdain and sarcasm, where his car was.
A similar incident happened to me twice. One incident in Fufore while the second happened to me in Yola town.
The first incident happened before I built my first house in Fufore which I built in 1999.
When I was growing up, like most young people, I had slept in the houses of many of my friends just as others had slept in my house too. Because my family house was at Dasin (6 klm from Fufore) though my father had a house at Bundangre in Fufore that was rented to tenants, I was putting up with Alh. Bello A. Bello Maigari, a friend of mine in Margire, Fufore.
Alhaji Bello A. Bello Maigari was a businessman whose mother was then married to my eldest brother and who used to put up in my house anytime he was at Kano where he frequented for his businesses. In turn he was my regular host in Fufore anytime I came from Kano.
Earlier when I was in Kaduna before I was transferred to Kano, I used to go to Fufore from Kaduna in my car since my young age. And later from Kano when I was a staff of Habib Bank, I also went home with my car. One day for a reason I cannot recall now, I went to Fufore in a commercial vehicle. I dropped along the road at a place called ‘Dou Kona’, at Margire, Fufore. I carried my travelling bag from the trunk of the bus and trekked to Alh. Bello’s house where I kept the bag and proceeded to Dasin also in a commercial vehicle.
When I returned to Fufore the next day, Alh. Bello told me that one of our friends (whose name I will not mention here) had informed him that “goddo ma fa be mota lumo o wari”; that is, “your man”, referring to me, “is here in Fufore. But he came in a commercial vehicle.” I wondered whether it was some form of crime for me to go to Fufore in a commercial vehicle.
Alh. Bello then told me that our friend was laughing at the top of his voice and even asked Alh. Bello “min ka, noi kam, goddo ma do kam yeni on na?” Meaning what happened, “is our friend now poor?” I only smiled and changed the topic of discussion when Alh. Bello related the news to me. I still look at the guy with that issue on my mind.
The second incident happened to me in Yola town shortly after I was impeached as Speaker Adamawa State House of Assembly. It was more humiliating.
I remember when I was speaker, I had three cars in my convoy. A Peugeot 406 saloon car with siren in front, my official vehicle (a Toyota Prado jeep), and a Peugeot 607 back-up car. I handed them back to the office when I was impeached.
Of course at that time I had two personal cars in Yola and my wife’s car in Abuja. And I was lucky, my Governor Admiral Muratala Nyako liked me so much. He bought a brand new Toyota Prado jeep for me registered in my name which I kept in Abuja.
As at the time I became speaker, my wife and children were living in Abuja. So I was frequenting the FCT for them. The jeep Gov. Nyako gave me was brand new. So when I was impeached, I immediately brought it to Yola.
My colleagues in the House were shocked when the first day I went to work after my impeachment, I packed a Jeep newer than that of the speaker. But this is not the story.
The real story happened when I went to condole with the family of late Wali Adamawa Alh. Abba Wali who died a few weeks after my impeachment. My then PA Salisu Zubairu Malabu drove me to the late Wali’s house to condole with the family from where I proceeded to Fufore for another condolence.
As I wanted to appear modest at a condolence, I asked my PA to pack the new Jeep at a distance from where I trekked on foot to the front of Wali’s house. From the distance I was coming from, I saw a group of some of my friends, including one of my secondary school classmates (whose children I paid school fees for a week before I was impeached), seated at a corner, talking.
On seeing me trekking towards them, my friends kept their heads down to avoid meeting my eyes. Some of them were laughing. They didn’t know that I was there with a brand new Toyota Prado Jeep with Surulere number plate.
I went past them and went into late Abba Wali’s parlour where older people were receiving condolence. I sat for a little while and after shaking hands with them and offered prayers for the deceased Wali, I came out and sat among those friends of mine that were laughing for the misfortune that befell me.
We exchanged pleasantries. They had false smiles on their faces and wore false sympathetic look as well. I knew it. I immediately told them I would be on my way to Fufore for another condolence.
What they did not know was that before I left the main parlour in late Wali’s house, I had put a call to my PA to bring the new Prado Jeep to where my friends and I were seated. And he did. When they saw a brand new Prado Jeep approaching with headlights on, and I stood up as it approaches, they all stood up. In fact one of them opened the back door for me. I told him I seat in front.
I shook my head, acknowledged greetings from many people there who didn’t give me even a glance when I arrived on foot earlier.
The lesson of this story is that not all your friends would like to see you move up the social ladder. Two, many friends would be happy with your misfortune. They would rather laugh even if they were beneficiaries of school fees paid for their children from your generosity, just like that my classmate.
This is the world we live in. We celebrate when one of us lose position even if we are beneficiaries.
- Dasin is a former House of Representatives member from Adamawa State.
