Mallam Muhammad Adamu Unik (1945 – 2020)
My father, Mallam Muhammadu Adamu Unik, died on a day like this exactly a year ago at the age of 75 years. I consider this moment of sober reflection as the most befitting to pay glowing tributes to the man who had the most impactful and unique influences in my life.
Mallam, a descendant of a clan of warriors was the first to be enrolled in western education from his entire lineage, surrounding villages and adjoining communities.
He was the son of Adamu Sarki, first grandchild of the Bulama of Unik Gana, Ali. Bulama Ali was himself the son of Sarkin Rafi Umaru who was martyred alongside thousands including the then Emir of Hadejia Muhammadu Maishahada during the British invasion of Hadeja on the 25th of April, 1906. Sarkin Rafi Umaru was the son of Sarkin Rafi Amadu. Sarkin Rafi Amadu was the son of Sarkin Rafi Adam, a warrior/merchant who settled in Hadeja in the early 1800s. The then Emir of Hadeja gave him the rather difficult mission to establish his own settlement towards the river south of town. Sarkin Rafi Adamu was credited with fearlessly cross cutting the thick hyena infested forest that is the entire neighbourhoods of Anku, Karofi and Kuburu in present day Hadeja.
Mallam’s education enabled him document this robust ancestry right upto the sixth generation. He had his grandfather, a couple of great uncles, and one particularly prolific great grand aunt in Hadeja, Baba Ta Yak’i, to thank for this important work. As her name suggested, Ta Yak’i was born during a war and had witnessed many herself.
His matrineal lineage was no less remarkable either. Baba Mai Manda, his paternal grandmother was from a family of distinguished Islamic Scholars and as is reflected in her name was an entrepreneur of note in her own right. Her father was the chief Imam of Jahun, in Jigawa State during his lifetime; and is the patriach of an uninterrupted chain of Imams in the town. Dr Hamza Umar, the current chief Imam and Sarkin Malamai of Jahun is Mallam’s second cousin.
He was enrolled in Auyo Elementary School in the mid 50s under the directive and guardianship of the then Auyo District Head, the late D’an Iya of Hadejia, Alhaji Abdulk’adir Madugu of blessed memory (who was also the maternal grandfather of His Royal Higness the present Emir of Hadejia). Mallam later stayed with the family of Alhaji Abbas Haruna – the new district head of Auyo, and later the Chiroma of Hadeja – when the D’an Iya left Auyo to his next post.
It was the late D’an Iya (himself an educated technocrat) who insisted that the young Mallam be delivered to him at his palace in Auyo dead or alive when he saw right through the pranks Mallam’s grandfather, the Bulama of Unik Gana was playing for over two years. Bulama Ali hated the idea of enrolling his favourite grandchild in to the much dreaded “makarantar boko”. He interpreted that as the continuation of the war by the British that had killed his father in Hadeja decades earlier.
Education in Northern Nigeria was then almost exclusively an establishment privilege. The district heads gave Mallam the rare privilege of living with their immediate families as a family member himself. He grew up with the children of Maigirma late D’an Iya, notably the late Mai Babban D’aki (of blessed memory) and the present D’an Iya of Hadejia, Dr Usman Abdulk’adir Maidugu. He was also like the first child to the senior wife of the late Chiroma of Hadeja Alhaji Abbas Haruna, Hajiya Yata. Hajiya Yata travelled all the way from Hadejia to visit Mallam in his last days at the hospital in Kano.
Mallam finished his primary studies successfully and proceeded to the Teachers College in Wudil where he demonstrated that he was not only academically brilliant but athletic too. He played hockey and was also a long distance running champion. In addition, he joined the debating society, and was among the pioneers who started the students’ moot court in the College after he successfully defended himself before the entire school when a white geography teacher accused him of a misdemeanour out of racial mischief. Again, in his senior years he served as a leader to the entire students from Hadeja L.G.A (today’s eight LGAs of Jigawa North East Senatorial Zone) in Wudil.
Muhammad Unik was appointed a headmaster few months after he obtained his grade 2 teaching certificate in 1969. He was sent to the newly established Primary School in Unikgana, the village himself and his father were born. Significantly, the new school itself was sighted in an old colonial transit camp in Unik Gana where the Britons camped on their north bound journey to Hadeja from Katagum.
Mallam fondly recalled how two of his former Headmasters (both respected educationists) plot the conspiracy for his unusually accelerated promotion to the coveted position of a Headmaster. They were Mallam Bilyaminu Usman, who was then the Education Officer in Hadeja LGA, and Muhammadu Maishahada, a senior school inspector. The two were his headmasters at the Hadeja Middle and Auyo Elementary Schools respectively.
He was their shy, modest, obedient and dutiful student whom they anticipated wouldn’t accept both the visility and responsibility of a headmaster so early in his career. So when they summoned him in late 1969 to the education office in Hadeja from Bulangu where he was teaching while awaiting his results, the two already had an ambush on play. They told him he was going to his village to start a new school as it’s headmaster. He obediently accepted but pleaded to go back to Bulangu and pack his luggage. The two laughed out loud and told him your stuff are already here in an official truck that is to convey you to your new duty post. They had preempted him, he had wanted to use the excuse to disappear. Muhammad Unik didn’t want to be a headmaster that early!
Seven years later, the two accompanied Governor Sani Bello of the old Kano State to visit Mallam in 1976 when he was a Headmaster at his second post in Auyakayi Primary School. Mallam Bilyaminu Usman was by then the Commissioner of Education in Kano, while Muhammadu Maishahada had become the Galadima of Hadeja. Others in the entourage were the D’an Iya and D’an Buran of Hadejia, Mallam Garba Shitu and Alhaji Bello Ibrahim Auyo. Bilyaminu Usman would later become the Minister of State for Education of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Those were the times when education was still top in the public agenda. Our public schools had teachers who were not only very professional in their training and passionate with their jobs, but were also revered and favoured by the society. There were also leaders like the Sani Bellos, D’an Iyas and Bilyaminu Usmans who had the conviction that education may perhaps be the hard way to grow people but is the only way possible. They enforced school enrolment, prioritized the funding of education, routinely visited schools to motivate the system and had both the patriotism and discipline to not politicise it. Mallam’s trajectory in life and by direct extension mine and that of countless others would have been much less remarkable without their foresight, diligence and forthrightness.
Mallam wasn’t only a father or a teacher to me but also my most remarkable life influence as well. I would say I was the luckiest of all my other siblings having passed my impressionable formative years under his overbearing shadows at a time he probably was at the peak of his charisma, fame and even prosperity. This perhaps explains my fascination with his photograph in academic regalia in one of the pictures accompanying this post. The potrait was shot when Mallam attended a diploma course at the University of Lagos early in the 80s. He returned with volumes of books, infact a couple of gunny sacks full of high quality books and study materials. If I don’t appear to have much difficulties with reading today is probably because I, at a tender age, attempted reading all book in those sacks. It didn’t matter to me that many didn’t make much meaning to me while I did.
I was your typical first born child that cries and wails whenever daddy goes to work in the morning. So rather than leave me at home Mallam decided to take me along to school inspite of my young age. In such schools with no early years or nursery, the headmaster’s office became one for me. When I learnt how to handle pencils and began to disfigure some of the materials in his office, Mallam directed that I should be enrolled in primary one. That was how I started school ahead of all my peers. A striking characteristic that continues to define my life up until now; most of the people I may refer to as colleagues are actually older than me.
Mallam would later teach me how to write the simplest version of my name, Nura. Then he taught me English, Arithmetic, and finally Social Studies. When I encounter new english words, Mallam would sit with me and explain the meaning with a characteristic ease, patience and presence. He would draw in the sand to illustrate Arithmetic at home before he made a special provision for a blackboard at the headmaster’s residence. I would pick any random line in the news, books or anywhere possible, then demand explanations from him, and Mallam would gladly oblige.
Going to school with the headmaster (and Mallam for that matter) meant arriving probably before anyone else. I learnt punctuality, respect, order and routine too. I could recall when Mallam had a leg injury while in Auyo Central Primary School sometimes in 1982. The staff and the pupils formed a single row of about a kilometre and walked down to the headmaster’s quarters. The essence was just for each student to meet Mallam, kneel, greet him and leave in another ordely procession back to the school. If I have any obsession with punctuality, order, discipline and respect, then I need not to look further than these overwhelming early life experiences and training.
Mallam was humble yet principled, very modest but quite firm, and compassionate but thoroughly disciplined. Those of us closest to him have memorised all the invisible lines around him that he will never cross. It was also in our best interest to not dare cross them either! He was soft spoken, mild mannered and genial until one breaches his fiercely guarded principles; whoever it was. He took so many bullets on my behalf while I was in office as a Minister and carried the symbolic wounds upto his grave. To him, public office is the highest form of public trust, and he wasn’t going to be a party to putting any undue social or material demands on me. Alot of people close to him, including some family members can neither understand nor forgive that principled stand.
He was a progressive thinker also. His intellectual tradition helped groom some of us quite early in the necessary but extremely difficult skills of critical thinking, rational inquiry, openness and willingness to accomadate new ideas, including the dangers of settled dogmas and group thinking. He brought me up to be broad minded and cosmopolitan in outlook in ways that helped ease my engagement with people of diverse background, interest and disposition. He gave me the laverage to grow without the inhibitions of settled cultural dogmas. The only settled culture in Mallam’s eyes was the rational one.
His life philosophy was that of moderation, minimalism and firm believe in destiny. All his life, he strived to live a pious existence in ways that he would occasionally try to enact the symbolic simplicity, kindness and even the generosity of the Holy Prophet PBUH and his companions. If Mallam wasn’t attempting to take the load off some random old woman, then he was probably sharing the little food in his store with the needy. I remember one particular occasion when Mallam returned from the mosque to inform us that he intended to partition the family house to give half of it for a proposed Islamic school. Those of us who thought he had crossed the line mobilised quitely to rest the case. He had wanted to copy the exemplary sacrifices of the sahabas by sacrificing half of his house for Allah’s cause and he meant it! He was the secretary of the welfare committee in the local mosque, and taking care of the orphans was the favourite of his roles in that capacity.
He was also my reference point in loyalty, sacrifice and honesty. There was this particular day in 2014 when Mallam called and demanded that I should quit government if for any reason I am required to take side in the difficult politics of those day. When I told him that he didn’t have to call but should have trusted me instead; he said he did trust me, but his call was only for emphasis. I got the message; any ’emphasis’ from Mallam was a subtle warning and clear directive. He was that modest even with his children. Though he could be uncomfortably frank if that is what was needed to get the job done
Similarly, I cannot forget easily when Mallam gave me his entire salary to enable me go back to school. And in one particularly humbling instance he gave me his shoes when that was needed urgently to proceed with my journey to school while he walked back home barefooted! Such was his passion for education. It is to his eternal credit that he was able to train alot of us upto the university and other higher institutions. Remarkably, four of us out of the lot are doctors today!
Mallam had quite a handful of true friends who had wanted him to pursue higher education quite early in his career. He would later openly regret not heeding to such advises and bow to inshaAllah support us break the ceiling. Those among his friends who eventually found themselves in high places were on his heels to change cadre especially in the early eighties when the standards of the teaching profession and the welfare of the teachers began a steep decline. I could recollect some of them coming in their fancy vehicles from as far away as Kano to talk ‘sense’ into their friend who had remained consistent that he wouldn’t abandon the teaching profession. Mallam, the most contented and honest person I have ever known would say; “The teaching job isn’t only his first love but about the only profession today that guaranteed one the greatest peace of mind and the easiest to account for in the hereafter.”
I have nothing more to ask for in a father. What Mallam had in character, values and philosophy he had given me in total abundance. That which he regretted not having in higher education he had supported me to acquire the highest possible in my chosen field. The two, character and comptence, would give you everything else, he had repeated to us all his life.
Rest in Aljannat Firdaus Mallam
Dr Nuruddeen Muhammad MBBS, MWACP, FMCPsych
Former Minister of State Foreign Affairs
Former Supervising Minister Federal Ministry of Information
Founder Unik Impact Foundation
Facebook: Unik Impact Foundation
