Bye bye brother Sikiru

Friday (ranar Jumaa in Hausa) is supposed to be the holiest of holies and the most blessed of all the blessed days for all believers in the Muslim faith. But last Friday 10th of November has given us cause to rethink this belief. For members of my family and me it has become a day of infamy. Instead of being a day of strengthening faith it is a day during which our faith in Allah was tested and some of us may have momentarily failed. It was the day we were robbed of one of the more gregarious siblings in our family of 10 brothers and 8 sisters from four mothers. Our dad passed away at a very mature age of 90 in 2000 but my mum, the youngest of the four wives from whom all 18 of us came died very young, at less than 60 years old when she died in 1997. We thought then and still do now that death was most cruel taking my mum at such a young age, in a life that was full of sacrifice for all her surviving 9 children. I said surviving because we could have been 12 (to the best of my knowledge). The girl before me died before she was one month old and at least twice when I was old enough to know what was happening my mum had lost one baby through still birth at full term and another child at slightly more than one year, a brother, Suleiman, after whom our last born boy, Sule, was later renamed. It is possible my mum had more than the 12 I could recollect but never bothered to tell me, her first surviving child because these things are not talked about both culturally and religiously.

However if my mother had been alive the death of my second brother, Sikiru (popularly known as Parrot) last Friday, would have killed her instantly. And I am not sure I could cope with losing both of them at the same time given how rotten I still feel 9 years since my mum passed away and how bad I am feeling at the moment for Sikiru’s death. Even though my mum had many children and had been luckier than all the other wives(most of us survived and made her a posthumous 50 % stakeholder in my Dad’s estate, her children being exactly 50% of all surviving children of my Dad) . Other wives always believed that we survived in that huge numbers because the Old man loved our mum most as the youngest wife but really my educated guess is that we survived because both the material situation of the family and access to medical facilities when my Mum joined the Harem was much better than when the older siblings were born, many of whom died when they were under 3 years old. Sikiru was her favorite. It is difficult for mothers to choose between their children but emotionally they tend to be more attached to the weaker ones. Sikiru was a very sickly child as a toddler. I could recollect his having concussions almost every week and my mum screaming to the whole neighborhood and everyone bringing one concoction or the other to ‘wake him up’. The hawkish eyes of a loving mother became so focused on this sickly boy and remained so throughout my mother’s life, something that Sikiru got accustomed to and used to good effect in all kinds of sibling rivalries as we grew up. As the first child my tasks and obligations were cut out for me. I had to be the responsible one and look after all those who followed me. . Between Sikiru and I there was a special bond because he looked like me and together with Amina , our last born, the number 9 for my mum and the 18th of the whole family, the three of us were the ones who looked most alike. When he came to Kampala for the 7th PAC he caused so many breaches of protocol and security as many (including our Chairman then Colonel Kahinda Otafiiremi and our then Chief of Staff one young Lt. Mayombo) misstook him for me! Through choices that he made consciously and those made for him by accident of birth by being my brother Sikiru became like a clone to his older brother following in my footsteps to go and study Political science at Bayero University Kano after secondary education at the notoriously harsh, seniority-obsessed Rimi College in Kaduna and A levels at Kwara State College of Technology, Ilorin. It was in Ilorin that the mustard seeds for his Student Union activism and political activism were planted and came to gregarious fruition at BUK where he was elected Publicity Secretary of the Student Union. By this time I had left home for further studies in the UK and had become a political exile against successive military dictatorships in Nigeria from Buhari/Idiagnon dual autocracy through IBB’s corrupt patrimony and Abacha’s sadistic regime. Sikiru was vocal, very eloquent and gifted writer who had no problem committing his views to paper. I have always thought he could have been a more successful journalist than anything else but he was too energetic and spread himself in different directions as though he had foreboding that he would not live long. He packed many things into his restless life: politics, PR, education, entrepreneurship, sponsorship of sports, promotion of theatre, Cinema, music promotion, journalism and more. And he did all of them with gusto. If God had a fixed address Sikiru would have found him and He would be impressed. But no sooner HE makes his acquaintance Sikiru will disappear! He would have moved on to other hobbies and challenges. When my mum passed away in 1997 he was in Funtua managing a private secondary school. It was on his advice and persuasion that we bought out the previous owners of the School and renamed it after our late MUM: Hauwa Community College. It was through his creativity, diligence and ways and means that we were able to buy the school change the name and he nurtured it to become the first ever private College to have been given full College Status and registration for both NECO and WAEC in Katsina state. He was a trail blazer but a restless spirit.

We were to later fall out on his management of the College leading to his exit. Unfortunately this is what everyone will remember. Whatever our disagreements though I never stopped loving him as a brother. I was very happy that he bounced back (yet again , as anyone who knew Sikiru knows, ba kasawa, i.e. no surrender) in one of his abiding loves, journalism, representing first , The Independent Group of Newspapers as Katsina State Correspondent and later till he died THE VANGUARD. . I followed his progress on the net but we never met or talked much in the past two years. I regret this because now it is too late for us to make any amends. But we are thankful to Allah that he is survived by Three Children from two wives. May Allah rest his soul, forgive his sins and bless the children to continue the good works that he had started. I would have wished to hold him, shake his hands and tell him how sorry I am about what happened between us but it is too late now. If you have any member of your family or friend with whom you may have fallen out please make amends because there is no guarantee that you or them will be here later today or tomorrow.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org