By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi I woke up from my power nap on October 30, 2015 to see a missed call from vetera...
By Farooq A. Kperogi,
Ph.D.
Twitter:@farooqkperogi
I woke up from my power nap on October 30, 2015 to see a
missed call from veteran journalist and syndicated columnist Malam Mohammed
Haruna. It is not often that one gets the privilege to get a call from one of
the fathers and definers of modern journalism in Nigeria.
I wondered what the call was about. Thankfully, unlike most
Nigerians, Malam Mohammed always leaves a voice message, or sends a text, when
I miss his calls. I saw that he left a voice message. I immediately played it.
It turned out that he called to tell me that the Emir of Borgu, Alhaji Haliru
Dantoro, had just died in a German hospital. That wasn’t what I expected to
hear. I was so downcast by the message that I couldn’t return his call.
The death of all good people diminishes our collective
humanity. Alhaji Haliru’s death has diminished not just all of us from Borgu,
but the whole world. He was a passionate bridge builder who had an
extraordinary capacity for forgiveness. President Muhammadu Buhari testified to
this quality in the man in April 2015, nearly six months before the emir’s
death. A statement
signed by Buhari’s media adviser said in spite of detaining him in the
1980s after dislodging the Shagari government in a coup, Alhaji Haliru forgave President
Buhari and went “ahead to establish very strong and cherished personal
relationship with him.”
I can relate to this. My father’s immediate younger brother,
J.B. Kperogi, and Alhaji Haliru were intense political rivals in the then Borgu
Local Government of Kwara State in the Second Republic. This rivalry deepened
after the late Olusola Saraki broke ranks with the National Party of Nigeria
(NPN) and supported Chief C.O. Adebayo of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) for
the governorship of Kwara State— against NPN’s Adamu Attah.
My uncle chose to stick with Saraki while Alhaji Haliru
chose to retain his loyalty to NPN and its governorship candidate. As you would
expect, these divergent political allegiances put them at odds with each other.
So, in the run-up to the 1983 elections,
they routinely denounced each other in stump speeches in their fight for the
hearts and minds of Borgu people. Saraki—and my uncle—prevailed in Kwara State
with the election of UPN’s C.O. Adebayo as governor, but Alhaji Haliru’s
loyalty was rewarded with an appointment as minister of the Federal Capital
Territory.
So when in 1999 or 2000 I was assigned, along with a
colleague of mine in Weekly Trust, to
interview the late Alhaji Haliru in Kaduna for a story I was a little
apprehensive. I thought my last name would evoke memories of the bitter
political fights he had with my uncle and cause him to not talk to us. But,
again, something in me said he would probably not make the association—or that
the passage of time would cause him to even forget that chapter in his life.
After telling his secretary that we were journalists from the
Weekly Trust who wanted to interview
him for a story, we sent our business cards. The secretary initially said
Alhaji Haliru was too busy to grant us an interview. As we made our way out of
the building, someone came to say the man wanted to talk to us. It turned out
the he looked at our business cards, saw my last name, and wondered if I was
from Borgu.
After we were ushered into his expansive, delicately
furnished office, he wasted no time in asking me if I was related to J.B.
Kperogi. My heart sank momentarily. I remembered the impassioned broadsides and
counterblasts that characterized their political rivalry, and wondered what he
would say. I told him JB, as he was popularly known, was my uncle. “Allahu
akbar!” he said. “Where is he now?” He requested his contact details and asked
that I send his greetings to him when next I had a chance to see him again. I
was both relieved and pleasantly surprised by his genuinely conciliatory
disposition.
Cell phones weren’t mainstream at the time, so we didn’t exchange
phone numbers. When he became Emir of Borgu after a bitter struggle, I couldn’t
call to congratulate him, and never had another chance to meet with him. I also
didn’t get a chance to tell my uncle about my encounter with him because my
uncle died few months after.
What struck me about Alhaji Haliru was that he didn’t betray
the slightest bitterness. He was large-hearted, gracious, and obliging. To the
boredom of my colleague from Katsina, he went on and on about the need for
unity in Borgu, especially between western Borgu, which is now in Kwara State,
and northern Borgu, which is now in Niger and parts of Kebbi State. He was a fervent
advocate for the creation of Borgu State and for recapturing the glories of the
ancient pluri-ethnic Borgu Empire, which stretched from what is now northern
and central Benin Republic to parts of Kwara, Niger, and Kebbi states.
Although those of us from western Borgu resent the title
“Emir of Borgu” because it exaggerates the geographic and symbolic bounds of
the influence of the Emir of Bussa and ignores the fact that there are three
loci of political power in the ancient Borgu empire (Nikki in Benin Republic to
which people in Western Borgu owe allegiance, Ilo in Kebbi State, and New
Bussa), if there is one person who truly deserved the title of Emir of Borgu it
was the late Alhaji Haliru Dantoro. More than any Borgu head honcho I know, he
worked hard, within the limits of his capacities, to repair the various fissures
in the region.
May his soul rest in
peace. Amin.
Related Articles:
No comments
Share your thoughts and opinions here. I read and appreciate all comments posted here. But I implore you to be respectful and professional. Trolls will be removed and toxic comments will be deleted.