“Congratulations! I hope you will lead a purposeful life to inspire others.” Jibril.
03rd March 2014
The above quote was a reply to the message I sent to Prof. Jibril Aminu, notifying him of the completion of my Master’s degree from the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, with which I graduated once again with Distinction. Today, that father figure, a role model – like others before him, a la Prof. Gidado Tahir – is no more. Innaa lilLaahi wa innaa ilaihi raaji’uun.
Indeed, Nigeria has once again lost one of its most brilliant minds and impactful, accomplished public servants in its history as a nation. The loss of Prof. Aminu is beyond the loss of a single soul, itself a great tragedy. It signifies the sad end of an era in which true intellectuals shaped public service and politics in a country that has regressed in most aspects of its public life.
There is no doubt that Nigeria has lost one of its finest, most distinguished citizens whose career traversed various sectors and endeavours, at a time when the nation is more endangered and in need of emergency care only men and women of Aminu’s calibre can provide.
The tributes and eulogies coming from all walks of life, nooks and crannies of this country are enough testimony to the kind of life and service this great man had lived and rendered to humanity. It suffices here, for this article, to summarise all of the eulogies that have overtaken the media, viz:
Jibril was a trailblazer, a memorizer of the Qur’an, the best medical student in the history of Nigeria, a globally renowned cardiologist, the pioneer and best Executive Secretary of NUC, Nigeria’s best minister of education and petroleum, the initiator and founder of several public and private organizations, the best Vice-Chancellor ever, a respected diplomat and a Senator and politician of unparalleled consequence.
That is for the average Nigerian whose interaction and experience with the life and soul of Jibril Aminu is limited to his monumental national and global accomplishments.
But for me and millions of my kind, Jibril was more than a professor, a scholar, a politician or a diplomat. The purpose and impact of his life were beyond just another famous, influential Nigerian making waves around the globe. He was not just a builder of institutions, a perfect surgeon or an author.
For us, he was simply the other half of that which made up our lives, the second half being the biological genes that made us living organisms, for, he was the human intercessor in whom God had placed the essence of our lives; the bearer of the very potent mental power that would ignite our aspirations, direct our future and lead us to exalted destinations even kings and princes aspire for – those destinations that bear no price tags nor can they be gifted by a loved one, inherited or stolen. By lightening our social being, he was just at par with, in some cases even better than, our biological parents from whom we inherited our genes.
He made life possible for us, not just as Nigerians, but as human beings deserving of dignity, freedom, and all other fundamental, common rights, privileges, and opportunities that members of the privileged society often overlook. Literacy, education, vocation, and employment, to the top of the social ladder!
How, you may ask? In 1989, while serving as Minister of Education, Prof. Aminu commissioned a strategic team to advise him on the educational requirements necessary to propel Nigeria into its envisaged developmental goals. Led by Nigeria’s foremost education specialists, the project provided astonishing findings based on which policy recommendations were made.
The most critical, urgent need in the education sector at the time – even now – was to provide access to rural and hard-to-reach communities. That entails developing special models of education that could effectively target and reach these communities, defying the barriers that block these communities from accessing mainstream educational facilities. Here comes nomadic education, through the National Commission for Nomadic Education – a policy designed to avert what has inevitably become one of Nigeria’s biggest challenges today.
My brother, a medical doctor, and I, alongside many others in my family, distinguishing ourselves in various human endeavours, were born nomads in small, semi-nomadic hamlets, preoccupied only by herding and animal husbandry. I am writing tonight as a professor, having climbed to the top of the globally respected intellectual ladder at an age below 40, all thanks to Prof. Aminu’s vision and purposeful life. We are an insignificant number compared to the millions of children who attended nomadic schools in the last two decades, even more so when we look at the future generations.
The reverse in the likely pattern and condition of life had Aminu not happened to us is not far-fetched. It is evidenced in the life of our cousins and nieces and nephews who would be found grazing somewhere in the northernmost parts of Yobe, Borno or Bauchi states from July to December and in the dense, thick forests of Jubi in Cameroon from December to June, moving all year-round, constantly navigating human and animal predators.
The goal of their torturous, homeless life of bewilderment is to feed not themselves, get rich or enjoy any of the modern-day “good life”. No. It is to satisfy the hunger and thirst of animals that would ultimately satisfy the greed and hunger of some city dwellers who eventually call the same producers of the very beef that fills their bellies terrorists, seeking to eliminate them on the face of the earth without a just cause. But then, the only difference between myself and those kin of mine is the education Aminu defied all odds to provide to the community in which I was born and bred.
Having lived an accomplished, full circle of life, at 85 years, it is perhaps a ripe time for a mortal to return to his Lord. But men like Aminu, whose entire life was dedicated to humanity, will live on through the people and institutions he helped build. It is depressing to imagine that this great man is no longer on the scene, yet it is inspiring to reimagine his life and take the lead.
Adieu, my beloved Prof. Thank you for all you did for us. May you be in Jannah. Aameen!
Ahmadu Shehu, PhD, is a pioneer nomadic student, Professor, public commentator and administrator.
