ADAMU YUSUF BBC, SILENT WOODCUTTER: THREE YEARS ON

On Wednesday, August 3, 2007  I received with terrifying heart the sudden untimely death of my mentor,  my allice. He was Alhaji Adamu Yusuf, the famous BBC correspondent based at Kaduna.

Wanting to write about the late legend  quickly reminded me of two  influential persons who made names and history in the last preceding millennium. It was the great Mahatma Gandhi of India and Albert Einstein from Britain, who reigned the supreme. It is the application of  knowledge in practical life in accordance with prevailing circumstances that made them to be the greatest men ever living in the last 1,000 years, after the messengers of God and great Ulamas following the prophetic times. By the time Mahatma Gandhi took an oath to devote his life and time for the upliftment of the poor and his nation in general, he did away with all bodily desires. And from thence he never had any affair with women even, including his wife. He therefore needed no wife. He lived this life of celebity for the rest of his life( I am not praising him because he went against marriage which was ordained by the Prophet S.A.W., I sited him as an example because he lived on particular course or action in accordance with the norms and cultures of his society and people, not in other Islamic societies. And a Hero can be so in every ramification of life not only in Islam). There was, and is still so much perfection in his conduct that you can easily see that he has lived far above his bodily existence(Bodily existence has finished since he died, but he is still existing because his disciples, teachings and duties are carrying foreword the movement he started). He vowed to catafault India, his nation into higher levels and his dreams were realized.

On the other hand, for 1,000 years no single individual human being has influenced  the world more then Albert Einstein in the preceding millennium. He was man of the moment, man of the year, man of the century and man of the millennium. Although he built on Sir Isaac Newton who brought about the theory of Atomic bombs, it was Albert who practicalised the idea of atomic bomb that war can be fought at a very far  distant place and at any time.

In Africa today, one of the renounced men of the era is perhaps Adamu, one of the Africa’s famous journalists and reporters who has vowed to follow the great men’s foot-steps. Those who denounced him at the early stage of his carrier renounced him later and announced to the world. Those who disown him later praise him to the skies due to his philanthropic and plenipotentiary abilities. The greatest people we have in Africa should be people of sought or well coordinated ideology, philosophy or any other term of action. My article aims at portraying the good image of late Adamu’s real picture because he had something to push him to act as a result of which he was to leave a trial of new ethics or new societal polity or character, new groupings. By the time (any thinker or philosopher) Adamu leave he lived behind a new society of people, new ethics or belief. The concept of norms changed because people of his era saw him as a messiah, a mentor, an upright and honest man who embraced everybody, befriend everybody irrespective of age and like. So that people would feel the presence of Alhaji Adamu in their domain.

I met late Adamu in December 1997, that’s were our relationship began, and in March 1998 he enticed me to write his biography. Initially I rejected. But later, I came to realize  that our society has a lot of pressures as a result of which we do not produce sufficient number of people with stable minds, those who are not in hurry, those who are not sluggish, those with middle-course action. I also came to know that Adamu was born brave, pious and exceptionally intelligent gentleman who was interested in creating a better societal status within his domain and outside world not thinking on his personal or material world. I then began to count Adamu as one of the rare great men of this century and decided to write a book on him.

What depedalled  Adamu’s aspirations and dreams were numerous. The impact of our knowledge is minimal in our society. Money is the easiest way to attract influence not education, not talent or creativity, not hardworking, not honesty, not intelligence and not uniqueness. We find our knowledge or education very difficult to apply in practical life. Average minds in this society have no particular policy. Adamu was fully aware of that, and he believed that was what killed our society. Adamu’s  education, talent, creativity, hardworking,  honesty,  intelligence and uniqueness earned him popularity which opted him to worn the confidence of his people. I personally liked Adamu from afar.

 The late BBC reporter was gentle, pious, simple, humble, reliable, dependable, responsible, considerate, consistent, unassuming and conscientious, honest and incorruptible. In fact Adamu was born great and had achieved greatness in every sphere or wide spectrum of institutions; political, societal engagement, education, journalism or media reporting, business, and above all his philenipotentiary attitudes.

Once I asked late Alhaji Garba Dan Shagamu why he was a close associate to the late BBC corr., he replied: ‘Adamu is a youthful adolescent with brave and matured heart who is hardly matched even with over-aged people’. Another fellow whom we worked together with at Kaduna Polytechnic( name I had forgotten) lamented, when he saw people malingering and wondering in Adamu’s house: ‘ for over 40 years in Kaduna since at Sardauna’s times he had never seen anybody gathering people in his house except two people, Sardauna himself and Adamu Yusuf.

One might ask why Adamu is a success story? Psychologists have said that our success of today or for that matter our failure is very much rooted in our yester years. Going through his narrative story on his earlier childhood days and in school days and the doggedness with which he confronted the obstacles that attempted to come between him and his western education one is hardly surprised at the tenacity with which he tackled problems and difficulties  in his adult life.

Let the new generations and his likes learn from the epitomes of Adamu Yusuf. Let us emulate his simplicity, his honesty, his straightforwardness, his integrity, his reliability, his dependability, his sense of responsibility, his nationalism, his patriotism, his selfless service to humanity and above all his willingness to forgive and intermingle with different type of people regardless of their statues.

Nineteen days before his death  Adamu called me and handed over to me the biography of his life, written by me as I claimed earlier, after going through the book and had some minor editings, meaning that the book was completed before he died. Me and him planned to get the book presented to the public, to really know who Adamu was. The book was tilled: Adamu Yusuf BBC: Zakaran Gwajin Dafi.  Alongside, there was my contemporary,  Badamasi Shu’aibu Burji, who also started writing same in English version.