TRIBUTE TO A DECEASED FRIEND
(A short autobiography written by Anas Ɗansalma In memory of Tahir)
On 10th April, 2020.
(A short autobiography written by Anas Ɗansalma In memory of Tahir)
On 10th April, 2020.
"Whosoever has not been admonished by death will never be admonished by words of mouth."
I grew up in a circle of friends, though very amicable to all, but very choosy in selecting those who I should come close to. Perhaps, it was because of my nerdy and introversive nature. I love to stay quiet and which often times has been making me to stay indoors in order to avoid the cacophonous argumentative topics like the football dispute that usually culminated in uproar and series of blows. The brawl last long until the bone of contention is broken by contrastive defeat. We also gab on most girl-pretty topics. It sounded exciting to look at pretty girls and try to discern which one is prettier than the other or even about the prettiest. To be candid, I do like such discussion, but had little respect for love. Therefore, I barely listened to them and instead, I look for movies to watch. Something that later connected me, somewhat to a neighbour and friend who is called Tahir.
Tahir is brawny while I look rather stocky. His heavy muscle was a huge blessing that many cheered him up in praises with a common cliché “turmi sha daka” which metaphorically referred to his strong-willed intention whenever he intended to do something. However you tried, tiredness is the last thing you could be able to realize with him. This personality earned him a societal recognition so much that he was the only warrior to pick the entire concrete slab up the gutter whenever it came to clearing and cleaning. Moreover, his peaceful heart has made him lovely and likable by almost all the people that knew him.
Our childhood story began with a quest for survival. Something most common to people that grew in Kano metropolis, esp. In Yakasai where most of us have elderly ones who are educated and those who are businessmen. Our elderly ones hardly give you a penny because they prefer advising you to go and look for a source to get the little you can yourself. This sometimes has nothing or little to do with the status of one’s parent. Friends alone can motivate or deter one from choosing what to do. Thanks to our clique which include: Shafi’I (Ɗan taku), Hambali (ashiru kwol), Abba (Tunbas), Baffa (Dutse), Yahaya (biɗɗu) Tahir (Turmi) and my humble self, Anas (Ɗan tafiyar zango). We used to call ourselves with our knicknames. That was when that quest “for survival” began. I could remember it started while we were at primary school and guess what did we do? We used to go to Kwari market and sweep shops and their premises to get paid. It was the most exhilarating thing ever that I wished I could experience, if I were to be a child again. It sounded lowly, but what has greatness got to do with your beginning? Greatness is about how you use your beginning to challenge yourself to achieve your dreams.
We unfailingly woke up at dawn time and proceeded to Kwari market. We would sweep before anyone could come. We also seemed to befriend those market guards who were not at all troubled by our screaming and self-gingering. At 8:00am or mostly around 9:00am we would return home. On our way back, we always branched at a local roadside beanary where everyone of us would buy food of his choice. That was when everyone, including the food seller would laugh over and over again. She once mocked me by saying, "This one has never exceeded 15 naira food. He is too miserly."
Tahir and I attended the same secondary school called K/Nassarawa and it was then I descovered his lack of interest in western education. He seemed to believe contrary to most quoted expression that; "success in life depends on education." I often thought he was wrong and sometimes I would say to him, "Tahir pay attention to your studies," but he would reply me by saying; "Anas boko wahala ce. A bugo kuɗi kawai."
Later, we discovered a local cinema together after we have stopped going to an Islamiyya school called Kulafa'u. I was ahead of him in class, but we were always together. I stopped going going to the school because of an unpaid fee while I had never known his own reason. That cinema was like our second home from 8:00am till 11:00pm every day. We were champions in defeating our friends who thought they knew better and have had watched a lot of movies. I remembered when he was punished at home for roaming about the streets by surrendering him to a mari allo school which funnily was close to our local cinema. At that time, my grandma too, got tired of my aimless stroll and asked a close brother, Saddiƙu, to take me to his tailoring shop and that was when we got separated.
Football which he liked and that he couldn't play very well was another thing we played together. As a team mate, he alone is a defense to us. Players feared him because he doesn't care what it might cost him so far he would get the ball out of our yard. That his knickname "turmi sha daka" came on the spotlight of his career as a defensive footballer. In addition, swimming is another thing that we did together at Gwangwazo (bayan gari) river. It was a fun to write about such experience, but the most saddest part was losing him to untimely death that no one has ever imagined to come so early and to hit us so hard!
Tahir's truancy has made me realized facts about life. In Nigeria, you mustn't go to school to live and have a life you have dreamt. But, this doesn't mean we should all desist from going to school. It would be good if we challenge ourselves on what ability have we been made of. Tahir did succeed in that. He stopped going to school and followed his penchant to accrue money and be self-reliant. It might be that you want to accrue knowledge, fame, power, be emir like Sunusi Lamiɗo or just to even impress others and that doesn't matter so far you can discover which way to become what you want to be. Always remember that becoming a barrister doesn't gurantee success in becoming an activist. It would have been better to be a businessman. You might not succeed to be an engineer, but perhaps you would have been a good journalist while staying in the studio. Just like its not easy to become a professor, remember it takes a great effort to begin a business with 10,000 naira and dream of becoming like Ɗangote. So did he started!
Subsequently, he started from the scratch of his determination as a carpenter, electrician, painter, trader and then businessman till his death. He was good at getting money, but he was also a great philanthropist. He is known in any societal activities like that of aikin gayya, environmental sanitisation and above all, so generous with his money. At home, he was the water-fetcher. Ever since I knew him, Tahir has never failed to wake up at dawn and fill every single bucket in their house so much that his two sisters around, Hafsa and Maimuna had never wished his absence because it might mean to them a huge burden to fill half-number of the containers he could have done with ease. You won't wish to see how they were consumed in tears upon hearing his death. Their hearts were like submerging a piece of paper into an ocean and so was OURS, too.
On the fateful day that he himself could not have forgotten even if asked to choose one thing to forget, came an accident that gave an omen of a falling baobab tree. The police! Yes, police! Nigerian police! It was a dark night as usual, rare do cikin gari guys sleep early. Yakasai is somewhat less busy and noisy as Fagge because whenever 12:00pm clicks, the footsteps seem to be quieter. It was even around 11:00pm while they were sitting at what we might call in Hausa zaman majalisa when some policemen raided the place and everyone took to plight. The question was why did they run? The answer is that they ran to save themselves. Are police harming people? No, but some police frame people in the name of being drug abusers or even as thugs to get bribed by their victims. I must say that this tragically was what made him ran with full speed of a hare because he was carrying 100,000 naira in his pocket and his two smart phones. This is more than enough to make one run away from police in our community. He therefore ran to save his property which the police are meant to do so!
Consequently, he slipped and broke his thigh. He was sitting on the bare ground when one of them was about to grab him when he heard his other fellow colleague saying, "no leave that one. Thank God he has fracture and let's see with what leg is he going to run?" It was when one of them noticed noticed his smart phone and snatched it from his hand. The man said, "let us placate ourselves with this phone." They laughed and vanished into the darkness like sent devils. Leaving him motionless and pining in pain!
Luckily, his friends returned after some few minutes and began to struggle to take him home. I couldn't tell whether he was taken to the hospital that night because of the fear that doctors might not be available or he might not have received a due attention from them. But, he was lastly taken to the local physiotherapist which in Hausa we called mai ɗorin gargajiya. He was returned home with his left-leg tied like a bundle of woods and strapped so tight. He spent more than eight weeks sitting with little or no movement. How pathetic must an agile and indefatigable young man in his twenties look like! If I may use Achebe's book title "A man of the people" positively to describe him, I will tell you he used to be more than that. This made him to always be comforted by the horde number of people that came to pay him their sympathetic courtesy visit to check on him. He was very glad and thankful!
As a fellow comrade, as soon as I returned from Abuja after the closure of schools due to Coronavirus outbreak, I went to pay him a visit. The moment I entered his room, a memory dropped into my mind. It was our movie thing. I remembered when he bought his first laptop and I have been dreaming to have one. I used to go there to watch movies of my choice so much that he gave me a spare key to his room. He would bring to us his food to eat or even leaving it behind while he was out. I remembered sleeping in his room for a couple of days all for movies' sake. He had never grumbled of his bedsheet squeezed nor being fault-finding lad. This single incident has given me gut to enter anywhere including his mother's room and chat with her. It gave me a sense of belonging to another family. Something I really missed. Upon my entry, he said;
"Ya aka yi ne? Ka shigo kenan?"
I replied by saying; "Yes, Shehi Tahir." That was what I used to call him. We chatted for more than thirty minutes. We began with the latest news of my father-in-law's death. Then, with much enthusiasm we talked about my new girlfriend who I was fond of her and willing to initiate further talks on the formal marriage process. He was very happy for me and encouraged me to open door for them to serve as an example that a young man like me has got the maturity to handle a wife. It was the last exciting thing he wanted to talk about and we did. He assured me to send love token money we called "kuɗin aure" as soon as he stood firm on his feet. He told me of having gone far in building his house as a prerequisite of marriage in most Hausaland. It was exceptional the way his beard grew and how fresh was his face. I loved it!
On 7th of April, 2020 around 12:00pm Abdussamad came to their room where I was always staying whenever I am in Kano. He was a bit bewildered as he talked. He told us that Tahir was fainting and was just taken to hospital. Before even reaching hospital he passed away! It was my friend Abdulhadi who broke the news via a phone call, asking me to go and confirm whether it was true that Tahir was dead. I couldn't believe what I did not expect and it is often what you didn't expect that happens to you. It was true with the shrill that blocked my ears and which through it came a voice saying; "Allah kuma ya yi wa Tahir cikawa" Which means he has joined his ancestors by free translation. I felt numb and confused that I couldn't reach their house any longer. It was the saddest news I had received for long!
At 4:00pm people has mobbed the whole place waiting to pay their last homage. He was brought out on makara carriage. I could see sadness engraved on peoples' faces. We prayed salatul janaza and drove to Goron Dutse Cemetery. There we found larger crowd than the one I have seen. You might mistake his death for a governor's or cleric's burial. There was a dead silence throughout the session. The grave, the last most scaring hole dug out of love ironically, was there hungrily and narrowly opened. There was the deeper hole, the shallow one which is meant to support the clay pots placed after putting the corpse inside. He was put and there as I raised my head up did I saw his right-handed friend Yusuf Oga who broke into tears. He cried his eyes out throughout the day and even on the following day. Hambali was quiet as death and sad as a dried leaf while Saifullahi (Mai unguwa) seemed to be like entering the grave!
After he was buried, I looked at the grave and watched a humble, pacific, enduring, dutiful, loving, exuberant and obedient friend sleeping camly. I couldn't go and commiserate with his mom, Hajiya until the following day. I greeted her and deep inside the balls of her eyes I saw a mother whose pain is buried in her thankful smile. I looked at Maimuna who fainted yesterday and have seen Hafsa whose face expressed the lost of a friend. I then wondered what a loss! Their house was filled with what Abubakar Gimba titled his book "Witnesses to Tears."
I remembered the police and got lost in fury of those merciless marauders. Wishing they shall be punished for causing anxiety and probable theft. Wishing they shall be brought to face the book. But, who knows how effective was the broadcast made on Freedom radio? Will the police department continue to look into the ruthlessness even after his death for the human right violation?
At last, I heaped a sigh and said; " rest in peace Tahir. Your memory shall never vanish. It will be as vivid as your friendly smile. We shall remember you with every deep sense of love and honour. Please, as you lie in your paradise, accept this as a tribute of appreciation for how nicely you have treated me and for how so much grateful I am and will always be!"
We doff our hats Turmi sha daka!
