The life of a Soldier: Kabir Salisu, a Candle in the Wind

I don’t recall when I first met Kabir Salisu. It is very difficult to put dates to when you met people that you encountered when you were a kid. For Kabir Salisu, I could mention any date in the late 80s and it would be true. This is because at the time I was a student of Army Children School, New Cantonment ‘A’, Kabir was in Government Day Secondary School, a school that shared the same land with Army Children School and Command Children School. However, the more definite meeting came later when he was courting the lady that later became his wife. The then Miss Ofuoma Obruche lived at EB 2 Dutse Close, Angwa Shanu, Kaduna, the same house where I and my siblings were raised and which tend to find ample mention in my fiction and nonfiction.

I still recall, like it was yesterday, the group of dashing cadets that hung around the compound waiting to see Miss Obruche—I think a friend of his was at that time also courting another lady in our rather large tenement building.

I also recall that we danced all night when Kabir and Ufoma finally tied the knot in a simple ceremony that rightfully took place in Eb 2 Dutse Close.

So celebrated was the love the 2 couple shared that even when many of us moved away from Kaduna as life happened, we still kept in touch, still looked out for news of births, of marriages and… deaths.

With the coming of gsm and social media, keeping in touch became easier and one by one we all somehow reconnected on Facebook. Of the several success stories that this rekindling of contacts highlighted, Kabir’s growth as an army officer was the least surprising. A man whose humility and intelligence was obvious as first glance, his high flying career was no fluke.

I recall communicating with Kabir on Facebook when he was serving in Sudan and jokingly requesting for a Janjaweed scarf and him laughing and telling me: “ok, if that’s what you want, you will get it”. I recall him sending me his phone number when he returned to Nigeria, without my asking, and asking that I come and see him. It is to my eternal regret that I never took up that invitation, that I stayed away, luxuriating in the semi-closeness that is social media connectivity.

I can’t claim to be close to Kabir Salisu—his wife, family, colleagues and a host of others rightfully holds that distinction—but I knew him and followed his career keenly and fully expected him to reach the pinnacle of his profession.

I believed him to be one of the bright lights in a nation fighting to beat the encroaching dark. It is this light that has now been extinguished.

The much I know about him tells me that this humble man was a patriot and if we had more like him in Nigeria, we will do better as a country.

Kabir Salisu was killed fighting for his country on Monday, April 7 2014. He was a Colonel in the Nigerian Army. The last post under his name on Facebook was on the same day he died, it read: ‘The life of a soldier’.

Danfo Chronicles: When masquerades go to church and gays become criminals

It was a few years ago, at the time citizen news reportage was gaining traction across the nation, that news of masquerades meting out corporal punishment on miniskirt and trouser wearing young ladies somewhere in the Nsukka  axis reached social media.

As usual, the Nigerian social media reacted true to type with that outpouring of anger that occurs whenever vestiges of the ‘devilish’ past of our ancestors appear to be in conflict with the sacred untouchable manifestations of the new religion.

Caught up in outrage, most of us missed the big story, which was not that masquerades enforced a dress code, but that this dress code stemmed originally from the Christian church.

Old Van in a New Bus

Most people who use the danfo or any other yellow bus to commute through the mad dash that is the average Lagos route are not unaware of the fact that the cars served as a goods conveyance van in Europe, this hardly registers. 

However, even if they don’t know what for sure, they know the tokunbo cars must have served another purpose in their previous incarnation, especially when they contemplate the dress-ripping makeshift seats and rough-hewn windows that just about serve the purpose they were meant for. They know that the iron-rimmed seats are not standard issue, at least from whence the car came, and that the chance of bodily injury if an accident occurs was amplified by their addition. They know the drivers are largely reckless—early morning shot of paraga and Igbo reckless—and the buses disasters waiting to happen. They know this, but throw their lives into the arms of in-time-of-trouble-and-need-gods as they clamper aboard the buses every morning, afternoon and night. The need to transit overshadowing fear, caution, and whatever sense of impropriety they might feel.

The other war we are not talking about

Photo from punchng.com

Back in the university, I was a politician; and like all politicians I had to form alliances—another way of saying I manoeuvred to be on the good side of other student politicians or popular students—to improve my chances at the polls.

I never had enough money to go beyond contesting—and winning (thank you very much) my Departmental Presidency—but after contesting for this and that, I knew most of the movers and shakers in my school—Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka. One guy I knew was Obiadada—a nickname, coined from his first name, Obi, and adada, Igbo for ‘one who does not fall’. Obi was the Director of transport when we were in third year.

It's my birthday!

he calender on my wall says it is my birthday, but I doubt if this day share much with the day I first tasted this earth's air. If indeed it shares anything, it must be the memory of the date I dropped gills for lungs. 

My siblings and I grew up without birthday celebrations and I can't remember me or my siblings marking our various dates or telling each other happy birthday--well, my younger siblings, because they grew up in a different age, should be exempt here . This is not to say that we did not look with longing at birthday celebrations and wished that it was us behind the cake, pressing a knife through yummy softness and smirking at the camera man through the flickering flames of candles marking our years on earth.

We yearned for ours but only ever came close to realising this dream by sharing those of others. I can still see clearly the colour fotos from a time past. I can still place people in the rows and replace babyish faces with adult faces here and there. Though many names have since faded with time, a lot of names still come easily to the tongue. EB 2 Dutse Close looms in my mind and names of the lucky few whose birthdays, usually the 1st birthday , form on my lips. Lips that draw into sad lines as I recall names that can only now be stated in the past, names of people now in the world removed from this one.

I did get my chance to celebrate a birthday. Then I was already in the university and the fun muted as the mind had bigger fishes to fry.

Perhaps the fact that I thought little of birthdays, mine or other's, had something to do with the lack of birthday celebrations in my house. Still, I forget even my own and can't readily without thinking hard tell that of most of my siblings. I have to key in a reminder a week or more before so that I don't forget my wife's. lol. I don't remember dates well at all.

Well Facebook have changed that. Now friends ensure I don't forget the joy of birthdays and I have a party in my head knowing many people took the time to say 'Happy Birthday'.

The calendar on my wall says it is my birthday . My chi says you are born, you live, and then you die, a straight forward life marked by days and nights and the changing seasons . My chi also says I am no longer a man alone, so birthdays have been added to those must-remember dates, for my daughter, for my wife, for my crazy sister who tells me not to be 'too old school joor'.

Today, another circle is complete and we are officially older. Much thanks for everyone who sent a shout-out, may you be remembered too.