By Yakubu Musa
The year was 1983. My mum was close to her radio, listening, with rapt attention, to the results of the Kano State House of Assembly’s elections being reeled out. It was not just the result of mere elections that just took place. There was so much at stake. The suspense was palpable and could be cut with a machete.
This was indeed an election that she was going to be both the victor and the vanquished. Just try to imagine going through the feeling of being certain to be on the side of both the winner and the loser in the same electoral exercise. Yet as I sat next to her– too young and too naïve to read her body language– I was only praying for one result: a triumph for my dad, Alhaji Musa Idris, popularly known as Musan Gedu. Thus it was not difficult for me to take a side. If a coin was tossed it would be the head or the tail for me. I was waiting for the elation or the gloom.
The result was eventually announced after what looked like an eternity for mum and me. A sigh of relief came in the exclamation. “Alhamudlilah” meaning, all thanks to Allah. Ironically no triumphant jubilation followed. She was not oblivious of the loss despite winning.
Her father, Alhaji Adamu Kaleh, won, defeating her beloved husband. Perhaps only she, could explain the experience of the bittersweet moment.
When my dad returned home, he congratulated her on the victory of her father. He was so philosophical about his defeat that he told us that he saw it coming in his dream.
A few days later another remarkable event followed. Alaaji (that’s what we called him) decided to give one of his houses to the two grandchildren of the man that just recently defeated him in an election.
My maternal uncle, Malam Muhammad Sani Zorro, then a journalist with Triumph Newspapers paid a visit, and my dad seized the opportunity to ask him to draft the evidence of the gift, which he signed.
I still have the vivid memory of the day I accompanied him to the building of Kano State’s House of Assembly (now Asiya Bayero Pediatric Hospital) to hand over the document to my granddad. “You are the people in power, it’s, therefore, easier for you to handle the change of ownership formalities,” he told my visibly elated grandfather.
This sums up how these great men viewed politics. My father lost the election twice, with the first defeat in 1979. But it was almost impossible to win against any People’s Redemption Party (PRP) candidate at that time. Kano was under the spell of the champion of the masses, Malam Aminu Kano. My father despite having friends from both sides since the First Republic was a businessman who was naturally inclined to the right. He found himself in the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). Yet my grandfather was with Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), and in 1979 he turned down a request to contest against my dad on the PRP’s platform, the luxury of choice that he didn’t have in 1983 as the man representing the constituency, Malam Nuhu Hausawa, had dumped PRP to pitch camp with Limamin Chanji in Zik’s Nigerian People’s Party (NPP). The PRP caucus believed that the best chance they had against my dad was his father-in-law. It worked. Yet the campaign was mainly done cautiously through proxies and spokespersons. It was devoid of any rancour and disputatious polemics of our politics. It was, no doubt, one of the cleanest political campaigns in history.
If there was any person that was overzealous during that time it was certainly me. Throughout that period, I erroneously viewed my grandfather as an arch opponent of my dad. I openly shunned him to the extent of often declining foods in his house because “they are PRP”. I think, my granddad understood how foolish I was. Shame, it was very much later that I realized how much he loved me and tolerated my imprudence.
On the whole, there are many lessons from the life of these great men, but their principled politics of tolerance and decorum is, no doubt, of one the standouts. In hindsight, I now see both my granddad and dad as joint winners of that election. If there’s any event that showcases the connotation of the aphorism, no victor no vanquished, it’s the way they handled their 1983 contest.
It’s an interesting coincidence therefore when major political campaigns for 2023 were kick-started on the anniversary of my late father’s demise, who died on September 28, 2003.
May Almighty Allah continue to shower his mercies upon the souls of these beautiful men of honour. Ameen!
