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Aminu Kano, Thirty-Two Years After By Abdu Abdullahi
Thirty two years after, I still remember that African Revolutionary, the Gandhi of Nigeria, the champion of the masses whose politics was popularly tagged 'politics of freedom'.
Remembering Aminu Kano entails diverse dimensions, perceptions and lessons drawn from his aged long political tribulations and experiences. We remember Malam who allowed ideological perseverance to pass through him. His stubbornness against the established order was not a hidden agenda. He was neither an opportunist nor arrogant.
Thirty two years after, Nigerians should remember Aminu Kano for his extra ordinary politics which created excitement, imagination and desire for the masses to follow. It stood for the promotion of cohesion and injection of hope and sense of belonging. It was based on innovation and the encouragement of initiatives, stressing that we must produce leaders who will justify their leadership instead of the followers justifying their loyalty to them.
The teeming and energetic youth must remember Malam because he moulded them on developing an ideology that must be based on the desire to eliminate monopolies, priviledges and poverty. He also reiterated that democracy was null and void with the youths lacking adequate living, food, good health, education.
Talakawa en masse should never forget 'the friend of Talakawa' due to the fact that he did not relegate them to the background when he declared that, "I hate the word masses because it is a bit insulting. I prefer people because it involves everybody regardless of position, status, age, ethnicity. Will women ever keep him out of the mind? Of course they have no reason to boycott his remembrance. How can they forget his choice of a woman as his running mate in the 1983 presidential race? Did Aminu not share with women the agony inflicted on them.
What about our contemporary democrats? They have no alternative in the prevailing political trend than extolling and imbibing his laudable political pragmatism of democratic humanism and reducing politics of self complacency to its lowest ebb. As the father of Nigeria's radical politics, they ought to remember, ideolise him and pragmatise his political philosophy with this thematic concern: "in my attempt to practicalise politics, my life style seems to indicate some self denial. I feel that the needs of the body are simple and that devoting time and emotional energies on opulent life style wastes the human spirit thus distracting the self from realising full potentials. So, pleasures of the flesh and self indulgence are unimportant to me. "
It is there in record that Aminu Kano never had romance with political prostitution. He rather preferred ideological stubbornness to uplift his politics to the level of a messianic proportion. If he had embraced political prostitution, he would not have captured our love and would not have warranted our remembering him.
Today, history remembers Malam for his accurate analysis to the effect that in the colonial era, poverty, disease, ignorance and hunger for the vast majority of our people was a cruel fate. Today they have become unnecessary evils that must be eliminated. But tomorrow the maintenance of these evils for the majority of our people will be a crime.
Believe it or not, posterity is remembering Aminu Kano for speaking the whole truth that a nation cannot take delight in pretending to be as rich as America and its people should not speak as if they are New Yorkers while the bulk of the people continue to eat diseased food, drink dirty water and sleep under rain and wind. Indeed, the current situation in Nigeria calls for sober reflections regarding this assertion from Malam. While gross pretension on the part of most of our leaders is the order of the day the vast majority of the people are wallowing in abject poverty.
It was on Sunday 17 April 1983 that death penetrated the abode of Aminu Kano and took him to the great beyond. Earlier on that fateful day, Malam had instructed his young daughter Maryam to sweep the premises of the house for, according to him guests would troop in. After a few hours the guests turned out to be mourners. Rest in perfect peace Malam Aminu Kano! |