By Adamu Muhammad Dodo
Innaalillah Wa Innaa Ilaihirraaji’uun!
The initial report that colonised the web last Friday in Adamawa state and the condolences and tributes accompanying it days after, was the death of a veteran, man of the people journalist, Ibrahim AbdulAzizz, whose popularity was only but posthumously revealed.
Ibrahim was to me, a tripartite in one; he was my student, my colleague and my brother. The professional fraternity was to challenge any form of confrontation. It was also the philosophy that informed the establishment of the Periscope Global Publishers.
AbdulAziz’ service with the international media; VOA Hausa Service, has to a large extent, helped in the packaging of the local and national in outlook, the various online media he served as either co-publisher or co-founder and/or founder.
However the vehicle AbdulAziz boarded, was the same vehicle the Amazon joined for the for the journey to Martyrdom.
AbdulAziz’ uncle who was among the survivors would only reveal to Mohammed Ismail, a budding journalist, former editor with the Leadership newspaper and publisher of the Fact Check online media, that they were involved in a ghastly motor accident resulting from tire explosion, which terminated the journey of AbdulAziz with one woman he would not identify.
Ismail was the closest confidant of AbdulAziz, hence making him the first to receive the shocker he shared via the correspondents’ chapel’s platform. It was the same information given to the VOA correspondent.
Who was the woman, the other casualty?
Ishaya Donald Dedan is the chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalists, Adamawa state chapter. He told me that two corpses were conveyed from Alkaleri General Hospital in Bauchi state where the unfortunate incident occurred, to Yola, when I called him to register my condolence.
Dedan explained that one of the corpses the NUJ facilitated to be brought back to Yola was from the renown Mai family but further finding was ongoing.
I was later to confirm to him that she was a wife of one of the Mai’s family members as I was duly informed.
She was Aishah, addressed by the family as Yelwa, the wife of Ahmad Mai.
The Amazon made her Martyrdom on her way for her PhD programme she was about rounding up at the university of Jos, Plateau state.
She has a daughter based in Bauchi she would pay a visit before proceeding to Jos. Little she and the family members that wished her journey mercy did know that her journey like that of AbdulAziz would be terminating at Alkali, for a divine journey mercy to great beyond.
Aishah the daughter of Islamic scholar in Yola, Malam Hammawa was a lecturer with State Polytechnic Yola, Adamawa state, where I attended, for IJMB programme some decades ago; where the lady that the late AbdulAziz had arranged to pick his fourth wife was lecturing.
It was indeed amazing that the Martyrdom of this rare amazon escaped the press when ideally it should not have been.
The Amazon was with the department of Mathematics where she graduated so numerous to mention ND students.
The academician with accolades was also an administrator who served as SIWES coordinator in the institution.
SIWES means Students’ Industrial Work Experience Scheme. It is an academically pragmatic programme designed to expose and prepare students of universities, polytechnics, colleges of technology, colleges of agriculture and education for industrial work situation they are likely to meet after graduation.
The lecturer was also a principled trade unionist who would conceive bourgeois modernist escapists, the backsliders as but backstabbers in any form of struggle, who would mortgage their conscience and the philosophy of the struggle for a miserable inducement.
The Amazon, until the return to her maker, was the branch executive member of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics ASUP, holding the position of welfare secretary.
Findings revealed that the polytechnic don was diligent and dedicated to every assigned responsibility and carried out same with fairness, efficiency and effectiveness.
Press release would have been issued by the management of the institution that ought to be in mourning, to inform the public of the irreparable loss; a minus to the academia.
Press release equally ought to be issued by the ASUP SPY branch leadership, mourning the death of their member with portfolio.
Condolence messages from the state government, organisations, unions and individuals would have been publicly, also registered, following the press releases.
Mourners would have on Saturday, been duly informed of the time slated for the funeral prayer, which was observed after Asr (afternoon) prayer at the Mai’s Wuro-Hausa family house.
Tributes from the academic environment would have flooded the media as that of the late journalist; teaching is a noble profession. Teachers ought to be honoured.
The quinquagenarian was a devoted wife and a caring mother.
Aishah (Yelwa) Ahmad Mai will indeed be remembered for the knowledge benefitted by many from her.
May Allah SWT forgive her shortcomings and grant her with Jannatul Firdaus.
May Allah SWT bless the family she has left behind and grant them fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.
Adieu sister.