By Mobolaji Sanusi “We live in a society of imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia.”— Angela Yvonne Davis (1944 – present) Sometime last week, news filtered in that the Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji, had passed away. He was a model bureaucrat whose three names begin with the letter ‘A’, hence his media-coined moniker during his heyday and throughout his lifetime as the man with the triple As, or simply Alhaji Alhaji. One of the ‘Alhajis’ in his name was included because, like his father, he was born on Sallah Day. In every sense, he was royalty personified. A true scion of the Sokoto Caliphate and a proud descendant of the Islamic reformer, Uthman Dan Fodio. In an interview he granted in the late 1980s, he said the greatest inconvenience he ever suffered was having to trek home from school one day because his father did not arrive as scheduled. Despite his privileged upbringing, those who follow the socio-political and economic evolution of Nigeria cannot easily forget his hard work and governance exploits. From the 1980s to the mid-1990s, he played a prominent role in the nation’s political, economic and institutional history. His expertise in political economy was honed at Bournemouth College of Commerce and later at the University of Reading in Berkshire, United Kingdom. He also attended the IMF Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands. Unlike many blue-bloods and children of the nouveau riche today who detest hard labour but seek undeserved opportunities to become overnight multi-billionaires, Alhaji Alhaji opted to join the Nigerian Civil Service in 1964. He rose through the ranks in the Federal Ministries of Finance, Trade, and Budget and Planning to become Permanent Secretary. As Principal Assistant Secretary and later Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Trade (1975 to 1978) and subsequently as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, he acquitted himself admirably. To further tap his wealth of experience, successive military governments appointed him to higher responsibilities. He served as Executive Secretary of the FESTAC ’77 International Secretariat, later as Minister of State for Budget and Planning in 1988, and then as Minister of Finance and Economic Development from 1990 to 1991. In 1990, he was turbaned as the Sardauna of Sokoto, succeeding Sir Ahmadu Bello. From 1992, he served as Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, a position he held until his retirement from public service in the mid-1990s. He served Nigeria with all his strength when he had the option of idling away in unearned opulence. In the course of his duties as a technocrat, he became a constant feature in global institutions, including the Interim Committee of the International Monetary Fund, the Advisory Committee of Experts on Third World Debt under the Non-Aligned Movement, the Commonwealth Secretary-General’s Drafting Committee on Third World Debt, the Board of Governors of the OPEC Fund in Vienna, and the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning in Dakar, Senegal, among others. He served without blemish. Some critics might denigrate his achievements by attributing his rise to opportunism, simply because he was a northern prince from the Caliphate. What these critics cannot take away from him is his intentionality and resolute conviction to join and stay put in the civil service, despite its routine and often boring processes, at a time when more enticing options lay before him as a Sokoto prince. The question is: how many of today’s privileged children are willing to endure the boring routine demands of the contemporary civil service? Those who attempt to join today often do so at undeservedly high grade levels and know little or nothing about service rules and procedures. They rise to the pinnacle in barely a decade, unfairly outpacing experienced, tested and brilliant officers, even when they lack the requisite knowledge, training and experience to lead. No wonder the civil service in most states is a shadow of its old self. The toils of the likes of Samuel Manuwa, Simeon Adebo, Allison Ayida, Philip Asiodu, and indeed Abubakar Alhaji have become forgotten ideals rather than standards of service. Shockingly, despite Alhaji Alhaji’s exploits at the highest levels of governance, it is doubtful if most young Nigerians had heard his name before or after his death. That is not entirely their fault. History as a subject, for no sensible reason, was unreasonably banished from classrooms across the country for over two decades by the civilian administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration only recently reintroduced history as a subject in schools. Alhaji Alhaji was a prince with a difference. Born into royalty and having the rare privilege of living within the precincts of B
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