Opinion

Wande Abimbola @91: How an àbíkú decided to live (1)

Published

1 year ago

January 5, 2024

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Tunde Odesola

Wande Abimbola @91: How an àbíkú decided to live (1)

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, January 5, 2024)

At 14, Ogunwande left his father’s house for the clinic of a renowned olóòlà, the penis stylist in Akeetan, his Oyo hometown, and declared his mission to have the foreskin of his manhood surgically removed. “Mo fe da’ko,” he told the baba of his intention to be circumcised.

The baba shot him a knowing look, fetched his surgical tools and intoned some words to himself. As directed, a bare Ogunwande lay spread-eagled, wrapping his arms around a giant gourd that passes for a surgical table while the olóòlà set to work. With a dexterity that belonged to the ages, the olóòlà peeled off the foreskin as though he was unwrapping a candy.

Blood gushed, pain panged but Ogunwande did not flinch. His face was deadpan, like still water at night. He got up, put on his clothes and headed back home as if he had only visited a tailor who had taken his measurements for an agbádá. He walked with the swagger of a youngster returning home from watching Alapinni, the father of all the egúngún (masqueraders) in Oyo.

Every why has a reason, says William Shakespeare. A newborn should be circumcised at birth or within the first few days of life if the parents believe in religious or traditional beliefs. Why then was Ogunwande, begotten by religious and traditional parents, not circumcised at birth? Why was it his call to decide when to be circumcised? Why did he not wince or cry when he was circumcised?

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Well, Ogunwande was born an àbíkú. His mother, Sangodayo Awele, had knelt four separate times before the midwife, bearing four children, one after the other, but she lost each at infancy. However, Ogunwande’s parents already had two children, Ogunyoyin and Ogundiya, before abiku visited them four times in succession.

An article, “Grief and Bereavement in Fathers After the Death of a Child: A Systematic Review,” published in April 2021 by the American Academy of Pediatrics says fathers and mothers react to the loss of a child differently. The article written by Michael J. McNeil and four others, emphasises that, “Fathers often avoided discussing their grief with others, returned to work earlier, and used goal-oriented tasks as coping strategies. Intense grief reactions and posttraumatic psychological sequelae diminished over time in mothers yet persisted in fathers.”

But another article, “Bereavement Experiences After the Death of a Child,” written by Grace H. Christ, et al, and published by the world’s largest medical library – the National Library of Medicine – owned by the US government, says, “Women typically grieve more intensely and for longer periods of time than do their spouses.”

The loss of her four babies scorched the heart of Sangodayo like the leaping tongues of fire crackling dry twigs. Because it was a period when husbands were lords, Sangodayo knelt before her husband, Iroko Abimbola, and pleaded that they both go to Babalawo Ajao in Ahoro Iseke, Oyo, to protect the newborn against returning to the netherworld.

When mother and father got to Oluwo Ajao’s place, the priest gave them his object of divination to say their hearts’ desires to. The parents did not divulge what brought them to the babalawo but after speaking to the object of divination, and Ajao consulted Ifa, ‘Eji Ogbe’ (good omen) was the revelation the babalawo got, and he said in Yoruba, “Sangodayo, you’re pregnant. You do not want the baby to die like the others that died before it.”

Shocked, Sangodayo confirmed she was pregnant even as her husband recalled the loss of their four babies. “This baby will live,” Oluwo Ajao predicted, adding, “If you will obey these three taboos.” “What are they,” Sangodayo asked eagerly; “We will do them,” Iroko assured.

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The babalawo cleared his throat, “One, the child must never be beaten. Two, he must not have tribal marks. Three, he must not be circumcised unless he willingly volunteers to do so himself.” “We shall adhere strictly to the taboos,” the husband reassured the babalawo. And the couple departed.

After some moons, the abiku crept up from the underworld realm of ageless wandering and knocked on the door of life, hoping to make father and mother cry a river the fifth time. Little did it know that a trap had been set for the whale in the depth of the deep so that no one would wail no more.

Iroko and Sangodayo welcomed their bittersweet baby with hope and trepidation. They named him Ogunwande, which means ‘Ogun has come to dwell with me’, in recognition of the family’s ultimate belief in the Ogun godhead.

Ogunwande was never beaten, circumcised or given tribal marks. And he lived as predicted by Oluwo Ajao. Iroko consecrated his son to the gods. So, Ogunwande learnt Ifa, ijala, and the worshipping of Ogun, Sango, eegun etc, knowing the panegyrics of various deities. He also learned farming and hunting as a youngster in the family’s farmstead located away from their Akeetan home. The family lived on the farmstead, occasionally coming home during Ogun, Sango, and Egungun festivals.

Ogunwande said, “The farmstead was remote and threadbare when compared with the amenities in Akeetan where the family house is located. We lived more on the farmstead and occasionally came home to Akeetan. Whenever we came back home from the farmstead, we would be super excited to see even the omolanke (cart). The farmstead was considered a bush.

“We had come home to celebrate one of the festivals, and I passed by Native Authority Town School near our house. I saw some children wearing the same uniform, playing on the field. I was surprised.”

A curious Ogunwande sauntered onto the school field and asked a student, “What are you boys and girls doing here?” The shocked student retorted, “What are we doing here? We are learning, of course!” Ogunwande got more confused, “Learning? What is learning?” The student laughed out loudly, “Ara oko (bushman), you don’t know what learning is?” “I don’t know,” Ogunwande said, crestfallen. “What’s your name?,” the impudent student asked in Yoruba. Ogunwande told him and watched as the student used a twig to write O-g-u-n-w-a-n-d-e on the ground. “That’s your name, ara oko,” the cheeky student said.

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Ogunwande followed the student to his class, where he was shown what a classroom looks like. “You better tell your father that you want to school and stop chasing rats and rabbits about,” the student admonished.

School was love at first sight for ’Wande, who ran home to tell his father of his newfound desire. “I prostrated before my father; nobody in the family talked to him standing, my mother kneels to talk to him, I also prostrate to talk to my two older siblings, Ogunyoyin and Ogundiya, whom my parents had before the four abikus,” Ogunwande said. But his father wouldn’t have his son go to school. “Sukuru or what did you call it? Is that not the place where they write meaningless little things in books? Is that what you want to do with your life? Is that a job? You’re lazy! My son will never be lazy! So, you can’t go into the forest and kill buffalo, leopards and snakes? It’s writing small, small nonsense on paper that you want to be doing in your life. Is that a job? You won’t do that in my family?”

Ogunwande, subsequently, went on a hunger strike for three days, eating nothing, and he became very weak. His mother, Sangodayo, begged and wept but Iroko was unperturbed. Sangodayo, “My lord, please, remember the prediction of Baba Ajao, who said when Ogunwande comes of age, he would want to choose a peculiar job; remember, my lord, that the Baba said we should not stop him!”

But Iroko won’t budge. “So, Sangodayo ran to my father’s younger brother, Ogunyemi Ojo Olaluwoye, to come and prevail over my father,” Ogunwande recalled. Ojo spoke to my father while prostrating and pleaded my case, saying, “My lord, you’ve been to Lagos and the Second World War. Western education is the future of the world. Let Ogunwande go to school. My son, Ige, would also be joining them, too. Both of them can go together.”

“My father kept quiet for a long time after Ojo made his plea,” and he said, “You too are very lazy, Ojo! That’s why you’re supporting young boys, who should be displaying valour, to go and waste their time writing small small nonsense! It’s ok, he can go and ruin his life!”

Ogunwande survived on broth for the days his father was adamant and he became so gaunt, earning himself the nickname Olómí tóóró.

But ’Wande didn’t abandon Ifa and the worship of the deities. The knowledge of Ifa came in handy for him one day when a snake bit a student in school.

* To be continued.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

Opinion

Nasir El-Rufai’s scorched-earth one-man opposition, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

12 hours ago

March 15, 2025

Trends Admin

Farooq Kperogi

Nasir El-Rufai’s scorched-earth one-man opposition, By Farooq Kperogi

Like a stranded mariner gasping on the shores of irrelevance, former Kaduna State governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai writhes in the uneasy throes of power’s withdrawal. His disquiet, however, is less the quiet lament of a fallen statesman and more the tempestuous fury of a Shakespearean woman scorned.

He has become fiery, irascible, indignant, and unrelenting in his public expressions of rage towards his former friends in power who have isolated him. He is throwing the kitchen sink at the power structures in Kaduna and Abuja in an all-out effort to extract vengeance and to ward off potential ensnarement.

The former cushy, self-satisfied, and illiberal denizen of power who was the scourge of dissenters railing against tyranny, now finds himself wielding the very defiance he once crushed with arrogance and malevolent glee. He has become an accidental insurgent (a la “accidental public servant”) forged in the crucible of his own contradictions.

There is a part of me that loves this new insurrectionary, rebellious, activist, and intensely irate one-man band opposition that El-Rufai has opportunistically transmogrified into.

For one, he is providing the first real opposition to the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration. Every democracy needs the well-aimed slings and well-informed counsel of a sharp-witted opposition to keep its leaders from sinking into the depths of self-satisfaction and insouciance.

Say what you will about El-Rufai, but his intellect, erudition, and rhetorical dexterity are top-notch and undeniable. Imagine if figures of his political stature, institutional access, and strategic acumen had chosen to be thorns in the current corridors of power. Perhaps, the Tinubu administration would have thought twice before treating Nigerians with the cavalier disregard that has become its trademark in the last two years.

For another, he has an opportunity to experience what his critics went through when he was a governor for eight years. He abducted critics, caused opponents to be tortured, bragged about reducing politicians he has displaced to mere “bloggers,” instrumentalized the courts to squelch dissent, etc.

Now, he posts social media updates about his former commissioners being “abducted,” about the judiciary being weaponized against his supporters and his past administration, about the “misuse of federal security agencies in the persecution of opposition leaders,” etc.

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Not only has El-Rufai become a “blogger,” once his favorite pejorative for social-media-active politicians he has dislocated in Kaduna, he has now plunged deeper into a lowly “content creator.” With the launch of a TikTok account, he’s gone from being a mere “blogger” to a digital hustler, complete with the undignified ritual of soliciting Nigerians to subscribe to his channel.

Yet, I am delighted that El-Rufai has joined our ranks. Professional “wailing wailers” like me (to use former presidential spokesman Femi Adesina’s agonizingly asinine and illiterate insult for government critics) welcome him to the club.

Nonetheless, my joy that he is inadvertently rendering a democratic service by the constancy and stridency of his strictures against the government has not blunted the acuteness of my awareness that he is an unbearably devious, self-seeking, hateful scoundrel who is only on a mission to avenge what he perceives as a personal affront to him.

As most people have already observed, had El-Rufai secured the minister of power position he was promised, his current antagonism toward the government would be as unimaginable as a cat lobbying for the rights of rats.

Not only would he have been a staunch defender of every government action, but he would have also directed his trademark vitriol at ordinary Nigerians suffocating under economic hardship. He would dismiss their grievances with characteristic scorn and cruelty.

Indeed, the same northern establishment he now courts and seeks to mobilize as a political cudgel would have been his favorite punching bag—just as it was in 2023, when he enthusiastically championed Bola Tinubu’s candidacy.

It takes an unnatural degree of slow-wittedness not to see that El-Rufai’s newfound disillusionment with the governments in Kaduna and Abuja reeks less of principle and more of a bruised ego nursing its wounds.

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In my July 27, 2019, column titled, “How Political Power Damages the Brain—and How to Reverse it,” I called attention to (temporarily) politically displaced whores of power like El-Rufai who pretend to identify with ordinary people in their moments of political trauma.

“Also look at previously arrogant, narcissistic, power-drunk prigs who have been kicked out of the orbit of power for any number of reasons. You’ll discover that they are suddenly normal again.

“They share our pains, make pious noises, condemn abuse of power, and identify with popular causes. The legendary amnesia of Nigerians causes the past misdeeds of these previous monsters of power to be explained away, lessened, forgiven, and ultimately forgotten. But when they get back to power again, they become the same insensitive beasts of power that they once were.”

Get El-Rufai back into power now or in 2017, he would be the same villainous backstabber he has always been. He would be the same annihilator of the homes of poor people. He would be the same horrid tormentor of critics.

In a September 20, 2019, article, I described him as “straight-up Nigeria’s most bigoted and most dangerous public official alive.”

El-Rufai’s latest political metamorphosis is less a transformation than a temporary realignment born of personal grievance rather than ideological conviction. His brand-new zeal for opposition, while inadvertently serving the democratic process, is unmistakably fueled by wounded pride and thwarted ambition.

The same man who once ruled with an iron fist, silencing critics with impunity, now fashions himself as the voice of the oppressed, railing against the very structures of power he once upheld with ruthless enthusiasm. His current posture as an anti-establishment crusader is not the product of principle but of exclusion, making his activism less an act of courage than an elaborate act of self-preservation.

Yet, even as he momentarily aligns with the forces of resistance, history warns against mistaking his opportunistic dissent for genuine reform. Should fortune return him to the corridors of power, El-Rufai would waste no time reverting to the autocratic instincts that have long defined him. He would crush opposition, weaponize state institutions, and wield power with the same reckless abandon that now makes him a pariah.

Today’s dissenter is often tomorrow’s despot. To embrace him uncritically is to risk aiding yet another cycle of tyranny dressed in the fleeting garb of rebellion.

Nasir El-Rufai’s scorched-earth one-man opposition, By Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based Professor of journalism.

Opinion

Natahsha’s apoti is not godswill for Apkabio

Published

2 days ago

March 14, 2025

Trends Admin

Tunde Odesola

Natahsha’s apoti is not godswill for Apkabio

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, March 14, 2025)

The darkness was so heavy you could touch it. ’Twas so thick it could stain. Sinister and choking, the darkness screened off the sky and its moonlight. Without thunderclap nor lightning daze, rain poured down on the night of long knives.

Suddenly, a violent wind arose amid the footfalls of fleeing bandits, who slung huge sacks of stuffed ballot boxes over their shoulders like Father Christmas slings his sack of gifts.

“Ole! Ole! Ole! Thief! Thief! Thief! The pursuing citizens shouted. The vote robbers neither stopped nor looked back en route to their chamber, deriving inspiration from the proverb of perseverance that says, “When the egúngún is in pursuit, the pursued is advised not to stop because as fleeing humans tire out, so is the pursuing egúngún tiring out.”

One after the other, the bandits jumped into their fortress through the doors, windows and ceiling, slamming the doors, windows and attic shut before the masses could close in. Ruthless and rapacious, the bandits caught their breath like lions do after an arduous kill. Wow! That was a close shave!

Once the robbers ran into their Abuja fortress, the pursuers stopped and backed off, knowing full well the fortress was guarded by gunmen and the Constitution.

The rain continued to pour down in torrents. No owls hooted, no crickets chirped, no dogs barked, only darkness loomed. The Official Manservant of the bandits is called Mr Clerk. He pressed a button on his table, and the whole chamber came alive in full red colour.

Now, everyone is seated in their respective seat; their faces shone with sweat, rain and blood stains, each beaming with smiles and a sense of accomplishment. Handshakes, backslaps and bear hugs with cackles of laughter shook the chamber.

Apkabio is the leader of the hunting pack. He banged his gavel for attention and said in his peculiar accent, “Distinguished ladies and yentlemen, I, hereby, grant Mr Clerk the permiyon to address and pray for us. Please, let’s pay attenyon because it is my intenyon for our victory celebrayon to progress till the morning hours. We deserve to party and enjoy ourselves, ladies and yentlemen.”

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Clerk: Let us pray. We’re grateful that it pleases the Lord Almighty to give our returning members sweet victory in their respective elections. Though the election battle was snatch and bolt, rip and run, the Lord gives victory to whom He loves…(Speaks in tongues: El shsasba prokorotori matayakata!). Father Lord, we pray that you be the guide and guard of Your children as they embark on their four-year legislative duties to their fatherland in Jesus’ mighty name!

Chorus: Amen!!!

An imam, whose tasbih (rosary) was longer than the intestines of a cow, was also on hand to pray for the brood of vipers. His turban was bigger than a parachute.

Apkabio: (Continuing in his funny accent) Mbon mmi, my own election was war! I didn’t participate in my party’s primaries, but I grabbed the ticket after I stuffed Supreme judges’ wigs, gowns and mouths with dollars. Okuk atan iko – money speaking. Money na water.

Fellow bandits hail Apkabio: After God na you!

Apkabio: No! No! No oooo! Make una no put me for wahala o. Yagaban na my oka (oga) o. I no near Yagaban a-roll a-roll (at all, at all) o.

Bandits: Hahahahahahahha. Na you, biko!

Apkabio: Where’s Honourable Natahsha? I can see a few honourables didn’t jump in through the doors and windows. Mr Clerk, please, tell Honourable Natahsha to see me in my private residence asap; there’s an urgent national assignment for her in my bedroom.

Clerk: Sir, Honourable Natahsha dropped a petition about the arrangement of the chamber.

Apkabio: Tell her I’ll do anything she wants, whenever and wherever she’s ready to tickle my fancy. She can have anything in this chamber, including my humble self. Who am I but a mere servant, ready to sow and reap in lush vineyards? Uwem enem – life’s sweet o.

The gang bursts out laughing.

Clerk: I’ll let her know, Your Honour, sir.

The gang partied late into the night, blasting Olu Maintain’s hit, Yahoozee; Kelly Hansome’s Maga Don Pay, and Living Things by 9ice, among other crematorium songs.

(Inside Apkabio house, domestic staff engage in gossip)

Gardener: (Singing African China song) …Mr President, lead us well; If you bi governor, govern us well; If you bi senator, senate am well; If you bi police, police well well, no dey take bribe…

Maid: Akpan, if oga or madam hear di song you dey sing, just know say your work for dis house don finish. Both of dem dey para now o.

Cook: Ekaette, wetin you mean? Why dem dey para nah?

Maid: Udoh and Akpan! Una no hear wetin dey happen!? Di yellow canary wey oga tink say im catch with im bowler hat for inside chamber, by the time oga put im hand inside the hat, oga no grab canary o, na shit oga grab! And the bird don dey sing to fellow Nigerians since!

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Gardener: Ha, Ekaette, na wa o. E bi like say dem take women swear for oga. Which kain insult oga never see on top woman matter? Dem don tear oga singlet, beat am, spit on am.. Haba! Shey na di route wey oga follow come dis world im wan follow go ni?

Driver: No bi today nah. You sabi how many earrings and nails wey I don pack while cleaning oga limousines? I no go tell una other extracurricular items wey I don sweep comot from inside oga limousines. Shey una see dat oga head wey bi like Abiku head, na only women and how to thief money full am.

Cook: You mean say oga dey do on motion?

Driver: Oga na ‘Everywhere You Go Turaya’, e dey active on land, air and sea. But dis Apoti wey oga go siddon on top don burn oga yansh, oga no fit siddon again. Apoti na wetin Yoruba dey call small wooden seat. Igbo people dey call am ‘obere oche’. Hausa dey call am ‘keremin kujira’. Dis apoti hot pass furnace.

(Vehicle horns blare. People talk outside the gates, raining curses on Natahsha and singing the praise of Apkabio)

Maid: Protesters don come collect money – human rights activists, police, students, labour, journalists, traders, lawyers, town unions, etc. Oga don spend real money on top dis skirt and blouse matter o.

Cook: Hey, look! See oga’s chief of staff don dey come downstairs; make e no meet us here o. O ya, o ya, make everybody disappear. Me, I never obtain Yankee visa, I dey waka go boys’ quarters o.

(Domestic staff disperse quickly)

The next day, Apkabio locked himself inside his room. He was greatly disturbed because the Yellow Canary wouldn’t stop singing. In fact, she has taken her song beyond the compromised courts in the land, to an international tribunal, where she’s singing on the top of her voice. Sweat broke on Apkabio brow.

He looked at himself in the mirror and shook his head. He opened his mouth, but no word came out. He cleared his throat and tried again to talk, yet there was no word. He slumped on his bed and wept.

Apkabio drifted into a dream. In the dream, Apoti pummels and drags him to the edge of a cliff and pushes him off, he shouts and jerks awake, panting, sweating and cursing.

Outside the room, Mrs Apkabio hears her husband’s shout. She rushes in. “Ha, my lord, why are you shouting and sweating like this?” she asked. “It’s that witch o, that ashewo girl. She pushed me from a cliff, but Mama Bourdillon grabbed me before I nack head for wall,” he replied.

“Blood of Jesus! This will pass, my husband. I’ve mobilised serving and retired female and male crooks, and they’ve been singing your praise. I recruited Itu Iya Ita in Calabar and a former Lagos Minister who has fallen on bad times. I also recruited a member of a family reputed for betraying,” she said. “Thank you,” Apkabio replied.

Mrs Apkabio: But you sef, why you no dey take eye see anything in skirt?

Apkabio: Na my enemies use women curse me, I swear.

Mrs Apkabio: See your mouth, he-goat! Abeg, I’m going downstairs to pay some leaders of Niger Delta militants who have been helping us threaten to cause wahala if you’re removed.

Apkabio: Thank you. I’ll never chase anything in a skirt again.

Mrs Apkabio: What if she no wear skirt?

(Both burst out laughing as the wife exits)

All alone, Apkabio goes back to the mirror and looks at himself; a one-horn, one-eyed principality stares back at him. Then, his inner mind spoke: “Apkabio, you’re a disgrace! You stole your way into the House. But instead of repenting from your old ways, you refused. What legacy do you intend to bequeath? A professor who rigged an election for you was jailed. You head a House of criminals, some of whose members are wanted for international crimes in the US and Europe. A current member of the hound is still in prison abroad. Apkabio, look at your life!

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

Natahsha’s apoti is not godswill for Apkabio

Opinion

Farooq Kperogi: New insights into “Badamasi,” “Gbadamosi,” and IBB’s paternal heritage

Published

1 week ago

March 8, 2025

Trends Admin

Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi: New insights into “Badamasi,” “Gbadamosi,” and IBB’s paternal heritage

Former President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida’s autobiography triggered questions about the onomastic etymology of “Badamasi,” his former last name, which appears to share historical and semantic kinship with the Yoruba “Gbadamosi.” It also activated interest in his paternal heritage about which he has been strategically coy, which I captured in my last column.

Because I know that the best system of inquiry for facts is necessarily question-oriented, self-critical, and cumulative, I shared a perspective I had heard about the provenance of Badamasi but expressed doubts about its reliability and historical accuracy and invited further reflections from others.

Saturday Tribune editor Lasisi Olagunju took up the challenge and, relying on insights from the late Sheikh Adam Abdullah El-Ilory, proposed that Badamasi originated from Ghadames (sometimes spelled Ghadamis), a historic Berber town in what is now Libya.

The town’s citizens are called Ghadamisi. It’s in line with the Middle Eastern practice of adding “i” to the end of the names of villages, towns, cities, and countries to form demonyms. Bukhari (which we domesticated as Buhari in Nigeria), for instance, means a native of the town of Bukhara, now in Uzbekistan, a West Asian nation that used to be a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Olagunju also referenced a fawningly Anglophilic, pro-colonial autobiography written in Arabic by a certain Abd Allah el-Ghadamisi, who arrived in Kano in 1903, titled, “Your Humble Servant: The Memoirs of Abd Allah Al-Ghadamisi.” He wondered whether this might be the book IBB mentioned as his grandfather’s favorite and that inspired him to name his son after its author.

He then suggested that the Yoruba Gbadamosi is more faithful to what he thinks is the original form of the name than the Hausa Badamasi since the voiced labial-velar plosive “gb” found in many Niger Congo languages, including Yoruba, is closer to the voiced uvular fricative “gh” in Arabic.

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Well, Olagunju’s proposition appears to suffer a factual collapse when it is burdened with the weight of historical, chronological, and even sociolinguistic evidence.

First, anyone who reads Professor Razaq ʿDeremi Abubakre’s 2017 book chapter titled “Stefan Reichmuth’s Wanderings in Arabicized and Islamized Yorubaland” will come across an Ilorin Muslim scholar and poet by the name of Badamasi “from Ile Saura, Agbaji, Balogun Ajikobi Ward, who was one of the first people to produce Yoruba poetry in Arabic script (p.373).” He died around 1891.

This suggests that even Yoruba Muslims have borne the name Badamasi since at least the 1800s, years before Abd Allah el-Ghadamisi appeared in Kano.

Second, it is unlikely that Abd Allah el-Ghadamisi’s autobiography is the book IBB’s grandfather was fond of and that students of Arabic in Hausaland read for pedagogical and spiritual nourishment because the commentary on the book by Muhammad S. Umar and John O. Hunwick, which Olagunju references, describes the book as betraying “imperfect knowledge of written Arabic” and full of “simple errors of Arabic grammar.”

Such a book can’t be a model that Islamic scholars venerate and teach. In any case, it wasn’t a piece of Islamic scholarship. The memoirs, Umar and Hunwick point out, “construct a discourse that portrays colonialism positively through a particularly laudatory proclamation of the good deeds of colonial authorities….”

Third, Olagunju’s claim that “Because, sometimes an author gets more famous than his work, al-Ghadamisi’s name appears to have overwhelmed the book’s title” doesn’t seem to be true. Only one copy of Abd Allah el-Ghadamisi’s book has survived, according to Umar and Hunwick.

Fourth, although traders and Islamic scholars from Ghadames have lived in Hausa land since at least the 16th century, sociolinguistic evidence suggests that it is implausible for Hausa speakers to domesticate the Arabic phoneme “gh” to “b.”

When Hausa speakers borrow Arabic words with the phoneme “gh,” which doesn’t occur naturally in Hausa, they adapt it to “g” (and occasionally to “k”) but never “b.” So, it’s socio-linguistically improbable that Ghadamisi would ever become Badamasi to Hausa speakers. It would most likely be Gadamisi.

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Now, what might be the root of Badamasi? Someone on Facebook by the name of M.Y. Kabara (I wonder if he is a progeny of the famous Nasiru Kabara family in Kano who died in my final year at Bayero University) pointed me to Arabic sources that seem to definitively show that the name Badamasi owes its presence in (northern) Nigerian Muslim onomastic universe to an Egyptian poet by the name of Muhammad bin Ahmed bin Ismail bin Ahmed Al-Sharaf Al-Badmasi Al-Masri. (Miṣr is the Arabic name for Egypt).

He was born in 1808 AH (equivalent to around 1405) in the small village of Badamas and died in Mecca at the age of 40. He was famous for a book of Arabic poetry he wrote in praise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) titled “al-Qasīdatul Mukhmasah,” which is very popular with Sufi Muslims and Arabic students in (northern) Nigeria.

I am certain that it’s the book IBB’s grandfather loved so much that he named his son after it—like many people in the North did and still do.

Kabara pointed out to me that because “every quintet in Arabic poetry can be called ‘mukhmasah,’” the book of poetry has come to be known by the name of its author to differentiate it from similar works.

According to Dr. Ihab El-Sherbini, author of the book “Stories of Mansoura’s Streets,” Badamas, the poet’s hometown, used to be called “Potamos,” which means “river,” but that Copts (descendants of ancient Egyptians who are now mostly Christians that are associated with the Coptic Church) called it Badamos. After the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7th century, Badamos evolved to Badamas.

Over time, the Badamas village ceased to be territorially independent. It’s now a neighborhood of the Egyptian city of Mansoura.

Based on this new knowledge, I am prepared to suggest that Gbadamosi and Badamasi are mere onomatological false friends, that is, they are names that sound alike but that are actually different and descended from different sources.

I suspect that the Yoruba Gbadamosi traces descent from Ghadamisi, most probably from Abdallāh b. Abī Bakr al-Ghadāmisī, a 17th-century Arabic poet and Islamic scholar born in Timbuktu who wrote the famous Manāhij al-Sālikīn fī Manāfiʿ al-Qurʾān al-Karīm (“Paths of the Seekers to the Benefits of the Noble Qur’an”) that is popular with West African Sufis.

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Curiously, the resolution of the etymology of IBB’s middle name coextends with new hints I’ve encountered about the probable ethnic identity of his paternal ancestry.

The village of Kumurya in Kano where IBB told a biographer his paternal roots are located was founded by the Agalawa, a historical trading community in Hausaland, originally of Tuareg (Berber) stock who migrated into the Kano region in the 18th century.

Though now fully assimilated as a sub-group of the Hausa people, the Agalawa trace their ancestry to nomadic Tuareg origins in the southern Sahara. I owe this insight to Rabiu Isah Hassan who first pointed it out to me on Facebook and provoked me to read further.

In his 2005 book titled “Ecology and Ethnography of Muslim Trade in West Africa,” Paul E. Lovejoy points out that early Agalawa immigrants in Hausaland occupied a lowly social status because “Most had been enslaved from Sudanese populations (p. 16).” They were derisively called “Bugaje” (is the famous Dr. Usman Bugaje of Agalawa origins?) as a collective plural and “Buzu” as a singular form.

Over time, they acculturated, dominated commerce, became prominent in Islamic scholarship, and have now become indistinguishable from the native Hausa population, except that they tend to have a lighter complexion than Hausa people, which causes many people to mistake them for Fulani.

Is IBB aware of this history of his paternal ancestry but chose to conceal it for fear of exoticizing and alienating himself, especially in the eyes of southerners who tend to delegitimize people’s Nigerian origins when they find out that the ancestral origins of (mostly northerners) people can be traced to spaces outside what is now Nigeria?

No northerner would question the legitimacy of anyone’s “Nigerianness” because of the accident of the location of their distant ancestral roots. It’s a consequence of the originary syncretism of modern northern identity. We are all mixed with all sorts of stemma from a vast array of places because we were never an insular, landlocked people.

Many of Kano’s prominent merchant dynasties, for example, have Agalawa roots, a famous example being the family of Alhaji Alhassan Dantata, who was West Africa’s richest man in the early 20th century. Since Aliko Dangote’s mother is from the Dantata family, it means he is at least half Agalawa. He himself might even be ancestrally Agalawa.

What’s there to conceal about this, especially because our heritage—ethnicity, linguistic group, even religious traditions—is merely incidental to us. We didn’t choose it, so there is no basis to be proud or ashamed of it.

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of journalism.