Chapter Five

Alhaji Modu Khalifa knew he would win the forthcoming elections only months away. His party—the National Advanced People’s Party, NAPP, had decided no one should challenge him at the primaries based on his pedigree. He did not need to bribe anyone to get his or her loyalty. He was a Harvard trained business man, had held several political appointments in the past including serving as the Secretary to the State Government in the previous administration that was ousted by a military coup and, in-spite of his enormous wealth, he was considered a mutum kirki by all who came in contact with him; he was well behaved, generous, almost to a fault and was not covetous of other people’s wives or daughters. He feared Allah and prayed five times a day. He never missed a day of fasting during the Ramadan season and was selfless when dealing with others. As was his custom, Khalifa worshipped at the Maiduguri Central Mosque every Friday afternoon after which he doled out cash to the several al majiri who thronged around him showering him with encomiums and prayers. They drummed and sang while accompanying him to his Jeep guarded by several security men with several escort vehicles behind them. The mosque was shaped like the Dutse Central Mosque except that it was larger and easily dwarfed its Dutse counterpart in splendour. The suicide bomber sent to snuff life out of Khalifa, found it easy mixing with the al majiri. He was dressed in a flowing gown popularly referred to as babariga making it easy for the bomb to be concealed around his waist securely held in place by a belt. He even swayed briefly to the drum beat of the al majiri before getting closer to the politician. As soon as he was close enough, he suddenly clutched him in an embrace and instantly detonated the bomb. Seventy other persons including the bomber and the popular politician lost their lives in the ensuing explosion. Over a hundred others were hospitalized for one injury or the other. At the other side, Seidu Hassan—the suicide bomber was received by the dwarfs.

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KANO, 1972

Ayisha’s son—Suleman, was handed over to Malam Zakzaky when he was seven years old by his grand-father—Yakubu. Malam Zakzaky’s school is noted for producing great Islamic scholars—radicals in their practice of the Muslim faith. Yakubu felt his grandson would be in good hands. The resource to train the young Suleman was not just available. The ten cows and ten pounds Alhaji Idris gave had long been consumed and all attempts to get more from him have failed. Alhaji Idris had almost asked him to be pushed out of his compound the last time Yakubu went to demand his involvement in the upbringing of the young lad and common sense told him not to return there again. Zakzaky had a large hall where the scholars also known as al majirai were kept. They begged during the day to earn a living. All their proceeds were later handed over to Zakzaky who, in turn, ensured they were given two miserable meals a day—one in the morning and another at night. A few hours were dedicated to learning the Koran, usually by reciting it, on a daily basis.

It was raining heavily the day Yakubu and his grandson arrived to see Zakzaky. Their discussion was short and straight to the point. Suleman could not understand why he would not be returning home with his grandfather. He cried and cried only keeping quiet when the Malam asked him to be whipped by one of his aides. Twelve hot strokes of the whip also known as koboko did the magic. Suleman kept mute all through that day and as the days went by, he learnt to accept his fate. He went out with other children—some older and some younger than himself, to beg for alms. Their best days were usually on Fridays when, wearing the most presentable of their rags, without any shoes, they went to the central mosque to beg the several Alhajis and wealthy malams that attended for alms. Suleman knew his mother would never consent to a thing as leaving him in a place like this and he had no explanation for it. Indeed, Ayisha had wept profusely when her father returned that fateful day without her son but she knew it was the only option since they were too poor to fend for him. “He would grow up to be as great as Sheikh Uthman Dan Fodio,” her grandfather predicted managing to smile. It was a pained smile in a lame effort to justify his action. He knew, but for poverty, he would not have sent his grandson to such a school. Western education was preferable but where was the money going to come from to pay for it? It was totally out of the reach of the common folks. He attended a Koranic school himself but he never went beyond reciting the Koran, praying five times a day and managing to live a pious life as best as he could but he had no skill outside cattle rearing to earn a better living. Since his own father left him no cows, he could only manage to cater for those of others and this only afforded him the ability to keep body and soul together without any savings. None of his seven children went to school. The male among them followed him sometimes to feed the cattle of his master so as to learn the business. At a mere eleven years of age, Ayisha was the oldest of the lot. Family planning was alien to most folks in the North. Children were considered gifts from Allah and were to be accepted joyfully whenever they chose to come to the earth. Ayisha never married despite her beauty. No man was willing to marry a woman with vesico vaginal fistula. It was all she could do to keep from stinking as urine trickled out of her on its own volition from time to time. She helped her mother by hawking fura da nono— the local delicacy, on a daily basis earning a few shillings for her family.

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It took only a few days for Malam Zakzaky to realize Suleman would go places from his school. He hardly played with the other children preferring to keep to himself and observe events and was quick to memorize the Koranic verses he was taught daily. Whenever he went out to beg for alms with the other children, he usually returned with a larger sum of money than the others and never hid some away. This was a rare feat among al majiri scholars. Occasionally, when fight broke out among the lads, Suleman was always the last man standing. He fought with passion and dexterity.

As the years passed, he started to travel with Zakzaky whom he called Baba, to other states of the Northern Region and later to other African countries like Niger Republic, Chad, Mali, Libya, Somalia and Sudan. Later, countries like Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria were also visited. Suleman soon learnt that Malam Zakzaky secretly kept an army of jihadists who were willing to die in the propagation of the Islamic faith, among other reasons. They hated western education with a passion. To them, it was an instrument for extending colonial rule and saw democracy as an appendage of it. These people took the name Boko Haram, which translates to “western education is sin.” The Boko Haram sect were secretly involved in determining who won elections at every level in the Northern Nigerian states usually preferring the candidate they felt would most likely replace western education with its Islamic counterpart and institute the Sharia legal system in place of the existing one. In later years, however, these considerations changed as financial inducement became a major determinant of who the group supported to win elections. The group occasionally clashed with the security agencies but Zakzaky was unrelenting in ensuring it grew to other states and later, to the neighbouring countries. When Suleman became twenty five years old, Zakzaky gave him one of his daughters—Mariam, for a wife. The wedding ceremony was elaborate as Zakzaky spared no expenses in ensuring this. The high point of the event was when several able bodied men gathered with sticks to test Suleman’s masculinity by flogging him mercilessly on his bare back as the custom demanded. Suleman did not flinch. Mariam’s beauty was all the encouragement he needed. Not a few men had lost their brides’ respect for showing pain or out rightly taking to their heels. Zakzaky nodded his head proudly at the feat.