Dr. Ibrahim Tahir, who died in Cairo on December 8th 2009, was a versatile man of affairs.  A scholar, a politician, a teacher, a traditional leader and a student: he was always willing to learn even in his advanced years.  In his younger days Ibrahim Tahir was an exceptional student.  He passed all his exams with such ease and felicity that suggested nothing was beyond him. As a broadcaster with BBC he excelled and delighted millions of Hausa listeners across the African continent.

In order not to dissipate his considerable gifts and energies, his superiors advised him to acquire further education. He went up to Cambridge University where he read sociology at Bachelor level and wrote a masterpiece doctoral thesis.  Naturally and inevitably he gravitated to the University community.  Eventually he became Head of Department of Sociology at Ahmadu Bello University.

Much has been said and written in the last two weeks about the polemical and philosophical debates which raged in ABU between, to put it loosely, the conservatives and the radicals with Dr. Tahir leading the traditionalists.  But one suspected that academia was just a stepping stone to other, wider pursuits.  If he had remained as a University teacher he might have ended as a Professor at ABU, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or even Al-Azhar, such was his mastery of classical Arabic.  In his lectures, at Seminars and public discourses he proved to be a man of prodigious erudition and outstanding ability to communicate.

ABU prepared him well for his next career.  He took to politics like a duck to water.  His zeal and gregarious nature were well suited to the political hurly-burly.  The period after the civil war was one of considerable flux, as the country was dazed and looking for direction after the tragedy of the civil war.  There was an intellectual core of young Northerners who influenced the direction of the country’s policy.  These people were drawn from all disciplines.  Here’s richness:  Adamu Fika, Adamu Ciroma, Iya Abubakar, Gidado Idris, Mahmud Tukur, Umaru Dikko, Tunji Oyinloye, Salihi Ilyasu, Datti Ahmad, Jibril Aminu, Mike Angulu, Ibrahim Tahir himself, Rilwan Lukman, Suleiman Kumo, Yaya Abubakar, Abubakar Koko, Baba Gana Kingibe, Paul Belabo – men who  were passionate  about their country and contributed to the betterment of their region and their country. Alas, half of them are no longer with us.  Ibrahim naturally blended into this group which for many developed into life-long friendships.  Without them goodness knows what would have happened to the country.

 It was under these circumstances, then, that Ibrahim Tahir took a headlong dive into politics where he found his widest expression.  He was closely associated with the formation of NPN and dearly desired to be the party’s first Secretary.  As the saying goes he put his heart and soul into politics.  On frequent occasions a meeting will start at 8pm and go on till adjournment at 4 or 5am.  Everyone will be bleary-eyed and exhausted except Ibrahim Tahir who would act as impromptu Secretary and would accurately record the minutes from 5am when everyone involved would try to catch some sleep before resumption in the morning.  By the time the meeting re-convened at 9am, Ibrahim Tahir would have managed to get a clerk to type the minutes and cyclostyle enough copies for all members!  During the day, he would be engaged in other meetings, discussions and other arrangements.  He could keep this up for 3 or 4 days and then he would fall asleep for 17 or 18 hours.  Even Ibrahim Tahir has to rest sometimes!  His stamina and capacity for work were phenomenal.

One weekend in 1974, both Ibrahim Tahir and then Col. Shehu Yar’adua were staying with me.  After dinner and prayers, I excused myself and went to bed – I had been in the office at New Nigerian from 7am until 7pm.  Shehu and Ibrahim were in the sitting room talking mainly about problems of Nigeria till 5am.  Shehu was so impressed with Ibrahim’s quality that later in life, when he became Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters, he appointed Ibrahim to a Committee to recommend re-organization of Nigerian Railways.  The Committee produced a practical and workable report recommending an upgrading of the country’s railways to standard-gauge.  Alas, the succeeding Shagari administration threw the report into the dustbin.  Nigerian railways have gone gradually downhill.  Now the railways have all but ground to a halt.  Such discontinuities occasioned by frequent changes in government have exasperated people like Ibrahim Tahir who would have been happiest if the country’s developmental projects were divorced from party politics or clash of personalities.  But Ibrahim was undaunted: he stuck in taking the rough with the smooth and ended up in a short stint as Minister of Internal Affairs.

But what was Ibrahim like, as a man?  I found him to be very human and very humane.  He passionately desired to help others and would frequently empty his pockets to help those in need.  His generosity was acknowledged by all who knew him.  He listened to other people’s problems and forgot about his own.  He was kind to children and to the lowly. Physically he was remarkable:  tall, large with broad-shoulders and piercing eyes.  In point of fact he bore a passing resemblance to the Sardauna of Sokoto, his - and everyone else’s - hero and model.  If he had worn a beard and side whiskers not a few people would have flutters in their hearts.  A good conversationalist with a keen sense of humour, he laughed heartily and uproariously.  Once he was driving the two of us from Kano to Kaduna.  I sensed and told him he was going too fast.  I had scarcely closed my mouth when a villager suddenly ran across the road right in front of us.  Ibrahim very narrowly managed to avoid the man and after regaining direction and composure he turned to me and said “Don’t worry; I have the reaction of a mongoose.”  

He had a huge capacity to make friends.  Once on a trip to the UK I made a point of going up to Cambridge to see him and also to tell him that there was some worry among his friends that writing his thesis was taking too long and that he should wind up and return home.  I stayed a couple of days and he took me round his College, Kings College and the town.  He knew virtually everyone there, the Porters, the Janitors, the tutors, the students.  He also took me to several restaurants.  To my astonishment he knew the chefs, the waiters, the proprietors – and some of the patrons.  He had his yaji made in Kano or Bauchi kept in every restaurant he patronized.  Ibrahim was in fact a gourmet.  He was at home with a sumptuous meal in the court of the Emir of Bauchi or the Emir of Kano where he was frequently a guest; or Afternoon Tea with cucumber sandwiches at Kings College, Cambridge.  But being a good mixer and a politician he was not above sharing a basic dish with a village yokel.

Though he was ill with swollen legs and painful chest necessitating his travel to Cairo the end came rather suddenly.  His wife, the estimable Yelwa related that though he had checked into the hospital and was awaiting tests he had breakfast in the morning and even talked on the mobile to some of his children back home, he suddenly became ill and died soon afterwards.  He was reciting the words of shahada when he died.  May Allah accept his words, his works and his worship, amin.

Malam Mamman Daura, a former editor of New Nigerian and MD of the publishing company, wrote from Kaduna.