BY ABUBAKAR A. BUKAR, OCTOBER 12, 2024 | 05:25 AM
The class was Magazine Production. An old man that seemed to be in his sixties, wearing what seemed to be like a suppressed smile, sauntered in, holding an open laptop, his eyes roving on the entire class as if he was looking for someone in particular. He was surveying us, perhaps to form a preliminary opinion. When he began speaking, he sounded too measured in his choice of words. Sometimes hesitant, and even stuttered. But every inch perceptive and critical. This, we were latter told, was an old editor of Abiola's Concord. And was at Democrat and New Nigerian in the early '90s. This was the quintessential Baba Gausu. Ever cheerful, humble, harmless, but principled.
Towards the end of the class, a bombshell statement was dropped - that the class was to produce a quality magazine that would serve as the entire continuous assessment for the course. Owing to a previous experience, I had beforehand warned all those classmates close to me never to harbour even thoughts of nominating me again as their editor-in-chief. I didn't want to suffer more sleepless nights transcribing interviews and scouting for sources during the day while most of the stakeholders were at home enjoying their in-between-semesters' break. Competitive, I was also mindful of my CGPA, which such engagements was capable of jeopardising. So I resisted with vehemence. Insistent, they latter reported me to the course lecturer. And I was afterwards summoned by this Dattijo.
"Kai ne Bukar din da suka ce....", He began when I announced my presence. "Okay, sit there". After a brief background checks on me, he diverted to an entirely different but interesting topic so much so that I almost forgot what brought me to his office. It was, if I have not forgotten, about how MKO Abiola with a characteristic boisterousness would enter into the premise of the Concord newspaper criticising a certain government policy or personality, which was a calculated hint to the editors as to where to peg their editorial that week. A sort of anecdotal lecture on media ownership and control. After making me relaxed, he latter sent me to buy food for him from a particular restaurant at Coke Village - BUK's community market (I was to become the regular errand boy for the chore). Upon returning that day, he asked me to pocket the remaining balance, admonishing me not to further stick to my guns regarding the leadership. "Don't be surprised that potential employers may be interested in stuff like this than even your class of degree", he concluded to seal my fate thus. Prophetic. When I was looking for a part time job at the then Atiku Abubakar College of Legal & Islamic Studies, these publications were part of the tender that encouraged them to give me a full time job in lieu.
Mallam Gausu's office became a rendezvous where I would keenly listen to him and Dr. Abubakar Alhassan talking about Hamid Mowlana, Majid Tehranian, Edward Said and other similar figures; where Mallam Maikaba would drag me to settle a discord on the knotty areas in my juvenile undergraduate project. Juvenile? Yes, Maikaba would say, "Bukar tun kafin ka tafasa kana nema ka kone" whenever I argued my case in disagreement to his take. "Mu je wurin Mal. Gausu", in deference, since the subject was on Media and Islam. That encounter also revealed something uncommonly told about late Prof Maikaba's character. I honestly felt at a time he would take my intermittent arguments with him personal rather than the juvenile intellectual bravura exuding from an academically-inclined youngster. Hence it would affect my grading in that 6 credit unit course. I was proven wrong. Maikaba gave me an 'A' despite.
Towards the end of my studies, I would regularly enter to hand over a photocopy of my articles freshly published by the resuscitated Daily Triumph or New Nigerian to Baba Gausu. And he would pray and encourage me to pick a regular column particularly in the former, recounting the advantages from personal experiences. But my ultimate dream then was to be published by Daily Trust before anything else. Laughs This was only to come to fruition a year or two post-graduation. About this time also, Mal Gausu invited me to join an MSc student, Ashir T Inuwa (now Dr. Ashiru), as his research assistant for his then ongoing PhD work. Recollecting the frustration of one academic over this PhD palaver in one of such meetings, I remember him saying something like "Kai, mutane ji suke in suka baka PhDn nan kamar sun baka wata aljannace". I was to latter realise the depth of what he meant.
At ABU, our path also crossed albeit informally. He was on sabbatical leave there. And equally coincidentally met me in another dilemma as to where my MSc thesis was headed. When I briefed him in one book-cluttered office he occupied adjacent HoD's, he gave me his insight and even called one Professor of Islamic Studies in the same Samaru campus to book an appointment with him for me. But the latter told him he was out of town meanwhile. Few days after Dr Gwandu was to called me to pass over information on related research area and grants available there as a message from Baba Gausu. The level of concern? Father figure as a teacher.
At ABU's postgraduate seminars, he would flatter the then steaming, young academics as reincarnation of ABU's critical tradition, but would equally shrewdly encourage them to offer alternatives to all observed shortcomings in students' theses. Upon this observation, I wrote the following as part of acknowledgments in my MSc thesis "...whenever a student is caught in-between the anvil and hammer of fierce criticism, Dr. Gausu would always insist on construction after deconstruction, that the bathwater should not be thrown along with the child. He is such a balm, a rare gem in the terrain. Age in addition to reading Sage can surely turn one into a sage. He’s been fatherly from BUK to ABU; any citation from Franklin’s (ed.) Pulling Newspaper Apart… and Richardson’s Analysing Newspapers… is due to him".
As Allah would have it. ABU became home, courtesy of Prof. Shamsuddeen and co. And Baba Gausu was to teasingly introduce me to Dr Ibrahim Siraj as one of their products snatched by ABU during ACCE conference sometimes in 2021. As you retire as a full Professor, ours is a resounding prayer: Allah Ya ma abinda ka yiwa dinbin bayinsa!
A. A. Bukar is a lecturer and doctoral researcher at ABU, Zaria
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