By Muhammed Adamu
“Do not seek death. Death will find you” – Dag Hammarskjöld.

AFTER their burial, I did a tribute titled ‘Iyawo: Requiem for the Kuje ‘mother of two’ (Nov/3/2015) in honour of late Mrs. Adebayo (Iyawo or Mama Dolapo) who was tragically cut down along with two children in the Kuje bomb blast of October, 2 2015. I missed an opportunity last October, 2016 to do a remembrance piece on them –even though I had promised myself I would. But even as I rued that, a pleasant Facebook event happened which now requires a revisit of that tribute’: Vanguard’s Photo-Journalist Adeshida Yomi recently on his Facebook wall posted a material reminiscing on the Abuja ‘Fleet-Street’ of old –a bed-and-office media block of sixteen flats- in Area 3, and which reminiscing evoked not only fond memories of the good old cob  reporting days in the nation’s capital, but also brought sad recollections of the tragic and the not so tragic fates of some fringe, non-journalist personalities that made life tick at that famed hub of Abuja Correspondents –Fleet-Street- where no journalist was worth the name unless he lived at or daily came to pick his bearing.

The late ‘mother of two’ (Iyawo) was one of those non-journalists without whom life at ‘Fleet-Street’ would have been ‘nasty’, ‘brutish’ -even if not necessarily ‘short’. They provided sumptuous food, cold drinks and hot pepper soup to journalists who were either fatigued from the field of battle or fresh as they prepared to draw on to new assails. And soon these non-journalist-families became one with us, en famile.

El-Rufai it was who got the ‘credit’ for the balkanization of Fleet Street; and with it the dislocation of these fringe-family-friends of ours: namely Mama Dolapo (Iyawo), Mama Itohan, Mama Chukwudi and Mama Bobo. And as one nostalgic backslap greeted another over Adeshida Yomi’s initial post, many colleagues were eager to know the whereabouts and the lot of these families -particularly Iyawo’s surviving husband, Mr. Adebayo (Papa Dolapo); and especially that once-vivacious, street-wise Edo woman Mama Itohan. A two-man delegation of Adeshida Yomi and Yours Sincerely was only too happy to comb and bring these now-famished families to our humanitarian radar -for the assistance of Diaspora Fleet-Street members. And as we sheathe the pen –for once- to do so that which we have always called on others to do, namely charity, allow me to serve you this week, the tribute I once wrote on the tragedy that befell the Adebayos:

‘IYAWO: REQUIEM FOR THE KUJE ‘MOTHER OF TWO’

The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, at his deathbed rhetorically asked

“How do peasants die?” The answer is simple: ‘alone and unsung’. Without pomp and without pageantry. And their ‘names’ thereafter live in everlasting oblivion. Because the graves of the poor, like Turkish mutes, are not marked by ‘waxen epitaph’. It must be about the lot of the poor that Shakespeare, in the tragic play ‘Julius Caesar’ said “life is but a walking shadow; a poor player that struts and frets its hour upon the stage and then is heard no more”. And maybe the reason that the ‘epics’ had no peasants as ‘tragic characters’. Only nobles suffered ‘tragic ends’. And only they were subjects of ‘tragic stories’. Thus when mighty potentates die –especially in non-natural, ‘untimely’ manner- it is ‘tragic’. But when peasants suffer the same fate it is a ‘disaster’. Reason also Shakespeare said “When beggars die there are no comets seen”; but that “the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes”. I was in Minna when the most recent signature bomb of Boko Haram went off in Kuje on the 2nd of October 2015. And the bloodied fields of that Prison-town that is notorious for its ‘princely inmates’ were soon littered, ironically, with the un-princely bodies of the poor. Neither ‘comets’ were seen nor did ‘the heavens blaze forth’ the death of these peasants. In fact, for them -and especially for that poor ‘mother’ widely reported to have died alongside two of her children- life had simply strutted and fretted ‘its hour upon the stage’ and was to be ‘heard no more’. And because these were poor ‘victims’ of a ‘disaster’ and not ‘heroes’ of  a ‘tragedy’, even the media reported them merely as ‘numbers’:

‘MOTHER, TWO CHILDREN PERISH IN KUJE BLAST –GRANDSON SURVIVES WITHOUT TOES’!

Plus they said she was ‘survived by a critically-wounded daughter still lying at the National Hospital, and a son and a husband. Even the poor, un-princely identities of these victims were not of interest to the media.

If they were I would’ve known immediately that the poor ‘mother of two’ was after all my improvised property agent, 40-year old Mrs. Adebayo –who lived with us on ‘Fleet-Street’ in Garki Area 3. If the media had reported ‘names’ and not ‘numbers’, it should not have taken five days before I would know that the two kids who perished with her were 10-year-old Seun and his 24-year-old sister Christy who was combining motherhood with polytechnic education at Nasarawa. I should’ve known also that the other survivor reportedly lying critically wounded at the National Hospital was 22-year-old Esther, -more chip-off-the-old-block than her older survivor-brother, Dolapo who was the foot soldier between mom and I whenever there were documents to be passed in the one business of property agency that had taken my relationship with the Adebayos beyond mere neighbourliness.

Mama Dolapo or Iyawo –as few of us who knew her bridal days called her- did anything legit on the fringes to support her junior-staff Commerce Ministry husband. From selling ‘food and drink’ to hawking ‘chin-chin and doughnuts’. And when her husband was retired, this poor un-lettered mother added property agency to the list of her side hunts -even though all she did was run errands for principals to make some extra bucks. Sunrise to sunset, Iyawo was on the move; rushing back  home at night to serve food and drinks. Occasionally she queued all day at AEGIS to file documents or at the bank to make payments for her gratuitous Principals who, beyond assisting her to make some extra bucks, also benefitted from her modest charges. Long before the family moved to Kuje, Iyawo had been there thrice -through thick bushes and muddy gullies, to trace a land allocated to me by El-Rufai.

And as life got even tougher, destiny beckoned the Adebayos to relocate to Kuje where the cold, stealthy hand of death was waiting to claim three of its members. Yet the move to Kuje was deftly strategic -to cushion the effects of the hard times. As indigent and unlettered as the Adebayos were they never lacked the mental clear-headedness to make the right decisions either in preempting hard times or in tackling present challenges. Over a decade ago the sale of Federal Government houses under El-Rufai was one in many of such trying times deftly handled by this meek and humble family from the State of Osun .

Many civil servants failed to utilize the ‘right of first refusal’ to buy their houses -and had to sell the chance to others. But Mr. Adebayo, legitimately was determined to do all that it took to own his. And although his measly salary was rejected as candidate account for mortgage, because it could not withstand the vagaries of monthly deductions, he accepted a mortgage offer from a private bank with a rate that was a virtual stranglehold; especially for such indigent family. It became even worse after Mr. Adebayo went into retirement.

The family had either to come up with something fast or lose the house. And so they decided to rent it out on condition that they ploughed back most of that rent sum in renovating it for the new tenant. Which they did, and moved to Kuje  to square up the little balance between renting some make-shift house and paying for some far-flung garden for Iyawo to continue her food business. Mr. Adebayo got a job at a local bed-and-breakfast in Garki Village –which, although it kept him round the clock, yet from it he could send some ‘chop money’ to the family before his off day when he visited them.

Since business was new and slow in Kuje, any little sum from Garki was ‘manna from Heaven’. And so it was on that fateful day of the blast.

‘Manna came, but it had to be micro-managed. So at the close of the food business that day, Iyawo the family must walk the distance back home. Esther who didn’t like the idea –especially because she had the double jeopardy of shouldering her elder sister’s little baby- sulked as she trailed behind them. Ironically this was to make the difference between ‘life and death’. Because as fate would have it, by the time the procession of Iyawo, Christy and Seun entered the lethal blast zone -where they breathed their last- Esther and the little baby survived. One in a comma, the other with two missing toes.

Epilogue

I managed to make it to Abuja from Minna in time for the burial of Christy and Seun on the 16th of October 2015 at the Lugbe Cemetery.

Regrettably, I missed Iyawo’s which took place five days after. We drove from the Morgue of the National Hospital, through to the famed Karmajiji village, where, ironically, an ‘only-military-heroes’ cemetery abides. And although Shakespeare may be right, that “the heavens” only “blaze forth the death of princes”, yet it cannot be wrong to say ‘To everyone, their ‘prince’ and to everyone, their ‘princes’. Iyawo and her children may not have been blue-blooded when they walked this earth; but to us they were no less princely. They may not have been rich or powerful, but their deaths to us were no less ‘tragic’. After all, we said to them what is said to all who die: ‘May your Souls Rest in Peace’.

Re: Beware the One-sided Media

+2348140067198 – “Mr. Mohammed Adamu, your article, ‘Beware the One-sided Media’, page 17 of Vanguard of 12/01/17 refers. I am disturbed that you are unable to see the error in a man of Alhaji Yarima’s age marrying a 13-year old child. It’s equally surprising that you could compare Ese’s abduction by Yunusa with the kidnap of three matured school girls by fun-seeking miscreants. The abduction of Ese by Yunusa that resulted in the pregnancy of the 12-year old child is a permanent distortion of her life’s ambition. I am sure you will not like that  done to your 12-year old daughter. It’s also a surprise to me that you expect the Christian community in Nigeria to keep quiet when their members are being killed in Southern Kaduna. If some people are saying that Nigeria is being Islamised, have you asked them why they are saying so? Ask them. You’ll be better informed.

Regards. Engr. E. Ozabor, B/C”

+2347066950311 – “That your piece of today (12/01/17) was published in a Southern Paper shows that Southerners are a century ahead of the Muslim North in tolerance, because no paper owned by a Muslim from the North would have published anything so scathing against Northerners or Islam” –R.H. Maduku, Ughelli, Delta State

+2348086535518 – “Mr. Columnist your write up wasn’t craving for a better Nigeria. I am sorry this is not what we need. Let your piece on a ‘daily’ like this unite the people of Nigeria not minding our diversities. From persons like you we need unifying messages not hate and religious sentiments. Be the change you want to see”

+2348033111666 – Salam, your Thursday column was a masterpiece. You have said it all. But please I will like you to do the same for the Southern Kaduna killings and Plateau. People from the Southern part of Nigeria don’t know what’s going on here. Blaming Fulanis as the aggressors but actually everyone knows an ordinary Fulani man is always in the bush with his cattle minding his business. He doesn’t vie for any elective post nor vote on election days. So when you follow him inside the bush, kill him, steal his cattle, what do you expect? Retaliation and self defense. But the Southern Kaduna people and those from the southern part of Nigeria always make it look like the Fulanis are after Christians to kill. They need to be educated.

Thank you.

+2347064869167 – “My brother, as a Nigerian let us outgrow all the

passionate sentiments and for once speak the truth. How many times

have Christians in the South attacked Muslims for doing something or

saying anything against the Bible or Jesus?”