… tribute to International Men’s Day
By Mikky Attah
THIS year’s International Men’s Day on November 19 was loudly heralded unlike what has obtained previously. Deference to the celebration informs today’s piece which looks at the first man, outside of family, to have made a profound impression on me in life.
I was still a girl when my father took us one day to see his friend at home, and thus we all became family friends .
That man was Dr Yusuf Bala Usman the brilliant and foremost historian of Ahmadu Bello University. We were living close by on Kongi Campus, before we later moved to Aviation Quarters also in Zaria.
The unforgettably tall ( he was over 6 feet !), striking man Dr Bala Usman was hospitable and warm, as most people are wont to be to visiting youngsters. We the children equally jelled with his kids. But it was after we got into the car to go home that the revelation, and thence the fascination, began .
Our father turned to us and said something like; that Dr you just met is not simply Dr Bala Usman. His full name is Dr Yusuf Bala Usman Katsina. He is from the royal family of the Katsina Emirate. He is actually a Prince. But he has shunned all that for a calling into the academic world. He is also struggling for the betterment of the people.
That mini- lecture got me captivated . I was filled with reverence and awe, just like the first time we had encountered the late Hajiya Laila Dogonyaro at Kaduna airport. She too had left a lasting impression on most all who had been at the airport that wonderful day.
For Dr Bala Usman, without even ever hearing of it; somewhere within me I knew that a prince, once he really cared for his people would render tremendous service to them if given a shot at leadership. Maybe that has something to do with my Christian faith. To me, there was just something saintly about Dr Bala Usman. To my mind then, his life seemed similar to the life of Jesus, who, as the son of God, left his heavenly home to live and die for all of mankind on earth, who before then were without a saviour.
Such was my veneration for the erudite scholar. I later began to follow up on everything I could learn about him. His life proved to be very interesting, until his early death in 2005 at the age of sixty.
Dr Yusuf Bala Usman was born into the 19th century Katsina Emirate, under the Caliphate of Sokoto. His father was the son of the Emir of Katsina, Muhammadu Dikko. His mother was the daughter of Abdullahi Bayero- the Emir of Kano. Dr Bala Usman studied History and Political Science at the University of London and at the University of Lancaster. He turned his back on all the lucrative job offers open to him as a Northern Prince. Instead, he went into teaching, starting out at Barewa College, Zaria. Providence was at work, because it was there that he met a mentor in the person of Prof Abdullahi Smith who spotted the brilliance in him.
He encouraged Bala Usman to pursue further studies up to doctorate level and also took him into the university system as a part -time lecturer. Professor Smith was the founder of the ABU History Department as well as its head of department. In a very short while, Dr Bala Usman himself became head of the department up till 1980 when he left to serve as the secretary to the government of the old Kaduna State. He still returned to the University.
He undertook pioneering studies in the history, establishment and evolution of the Katsina Emirate.
More importantly, he was the arrowhead of a new school of thought on the history of Nigeria; which was a marked departure from the teaching of Nigerian history up until the 1960s and 1970s. The spectrum of history before then was constrained to what was perceived and taught by the colonialists, which itself was predicated on the British premise that the sole source of historical material had to be written material. However, Dr Bala Usman and his department subsequently changed the narrative by asserting that archaeological materials and other local materials and sources , including oral tradition are admissible for critical examination, before historical reconstruction.
What today is a given in historical evaluation, or historiography was a practice that was not even contemplated in the colonial presentation.
The influence of his school of thought rapidly spread beyond his, to other universities and institutions, and onto all Nigeria and the rest of Africa. It is said that for this, Dr Bala Usman brought his department and the entire ABU to international prominence.
Notwithstanding, that was just one side of the man. Yusuf Bala Usman was not only an intellectual and scholar, he was also an activist ,freedom fighter and a democrat. He was a Prince, who still confronted the Northern oligarchy . He was a family man and a lover of education. It is a shame that history could ever have been eliminated as a subject of learning in Nigerian schools and it is good to know that the terrible policy has since been reversed.
As a democrat , the historian founded CEDDERT, a centre for democratic research. One of the achievements of the centre was to give robust advocacy for the death of the then proposed 3rd term bid.
Indeed, he vehemently opposed any resource control for the Niger Delta people, which some percentage was later granted them; but it is fitting, and to his credit that his last public outing was a seminar on the EFCC with the then President, Olusegun Obasanjo in attendance. The fearless Dr Bala Usman took the microphone when it was his turn and lambasted the president for his lacklustre anti -corruption fight , as well as his totalitarian style of government!
Last October, the Yusufu Bala Usman Institute was unveiled in his honour. One of its aims is to re-publish some of the late historian’s books. Dr Bala Usman authored several books including Manipulation of Religion in Nigeria, and The Liberation of Nigeria ,among others.
The Institute has a board of directors with Dr Segun Osoba as chair. Some other members of the board are Attahiru Bala Usman and Hadiza Bala Usman. The Institute is committed to contributing to scholarship ,knowledge and freedom. I am certain he would have loved that.
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