• Sulaiman Umar
• 26 Dec, 2023
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After two years he enrolled in Ahmadu Bello University for postgraduate studies. His potential was recognişed by Professor Abdullahi Smith who offered him a teaching appointment in the History department, where he earned his Ph.D. in History in 1974 at the age of 29. From 1972 until his death in 2005 he was a full-time teacher and researcher in the History Departmnent, only taking two years off from 1980 to 1982, to serve as the Secretary to the radical PRP Government of Kaduna State under Governor Balarabe Musa.

In his teacking and writing, Bala’s approach to the study of history challenged the idea that history was about heroic figures of “tribal groups” in constant conflict with each other. His approach has been described as follows:

“For Bala Usman the study of history was not an idle or for that matter, idyllic intellectual pursuit or pastime. For him, “a perception of historical development, a conception of how humanity and society have come to be what they are now is something that every person must have.”

Underlying his long

Career as a history teacher and researcher was a strong conviction that “we are not just teaching history in order that somebody can say he has studied history but so that he can consciously relate in a positive way to the forces favouring the independence and unity of this country and this continent.” If there is one fundamental thread running through Bala Usman’s historical thaught and writings it is that History is not fairy tales. Thus, in the more than thirty years of historical research, teaching and writing, Bala insisted and showed in his work that the primary burden of the historian in the particular circumstances of Nigeria in the late 20th and early 21st centuries was to consistently question the

various misconceptions that continue to colour the way Nigerian and indeed African history and current realities are portrayed. For him, serious historical studies, required not only the meticulous recovery of all possible forms of sources but, more importantly, the

recognition of the historicity of all sources and necessity for rigorous and critical assessment of each and every source before it is used.” (From Editors’ Note to Second Edition of Beyond Fairy Tales (2006) viii.

It is important to realize that Bala came to this position through his close examination of the evidence, not by imposing any pre-conceived notion or theoretical framework or external schema. For Bala, history must be empirical, and the approach to it, organic.

From the initial years of his work in the Department of History he made an impact with his ideas and new perspective.

His first major departure from the previously °dominant approach was his criticism of M. G. Smiths focus on ethnic categories in the study of history. His own research in Katsina for his Ph.D., supervised by Professor Abdullahi Smith, showed that the conceptualizations of M. G. Smith and similar historians were not based in fact. His own research findings, resulting from visits to hundreds of comnunities all over the Katsina region, interviewing residents, collecting oral traditions, sourcing manuscripts, and other evidence had brought out the important role of migration, the mingling of peoples and the development of new social, political and economic relations in the evolution of Katsina as a political conmmunity.

His published writings spanned a long period, and covered a wide range of issues, from, ‘For the Liberation of Nigeria in 1979’, Nigeria Against the IMF: The Home Market Strategy (1986),’ to ‘The Manipulation of Religion in Nigeria 1977-1987 (1987)’. He edited important studies of Borno and the Sokoto Caliphate, Studies in the History of the Sokoto Caliphate, (Third Press International, New York, 1979), and co-edited with Nur Alkali, Studies in the History of Pre-Colonial Borno (N.N.P.C, Zaria, 1983) He also co-edited with Abdullahi Augie an edition of Nigeria Magazine dealing with the history of urban areas of Nigeria, Cities of the Savannah (Nigeria Magazine, Lagos, 1979). He also published a large number of books and pamphlets dealing with current political issues, such as, The Nigerian Economic Crisis: Causes and Solutions (ASUU, Zaria, 1985) with Alkasum Abba and others; Tarihin Gwagwarmayar N.E.P.U. da P.R.P. (The History of the Struggles of the N.E.P. U. and the P.R.P.), written by Mallam Lawan Danbazau (Zaria, 1981); Who is Responsible? The Nigerian Workers and the Current Economic Crisis (Zaria, 1982); Political Repression in Nigeria, 1979-1981: A Selection of Documents: I, (Zaria, 1982) as well as many others.

His contribution to the development of history and historical studies can be seen in the development of the History Department at ABU, his participation in Arewa House Centre for Historical Research, his role as a member of the Presidential Panel on Nigeria Since Independence Project, where he co-edited with Femi Kayode, The Economic and Socia! Development of Nigeria (Panel on Nigeria Since Independence, Ibadan, 1986). And perhaps most importantly, as the convener of the Inside Nigerian History Project, where he organized the workshop that brought together scholars and politicians to discuss their roles in the history of Nigeria and that led to the publication of Inside Nigerian History, a collection of first-hand narratives by political figures detailing their roles at important moments of Nigerian history.

His contributions to the study of history were recognised by historians and other scholars, both within Nigeria and abroad. His scholarship influenced and was also influenced by the work of his students and teachers (Abdullahi Smith) and colleagues, not just in ABU; such as Mahmood Mamdani and others. He provided a platform to critique and raise ideas. While serving in the History Department, he supervised 13 Ph.D. theses, either solely or jointly with others. These included those of Garba Nadama, Mahmud Modibbo Tukur, George Kwanashie, Saleh Abubakar, Abdullahi Augie, Sule Bello, Yaro Gella, Joseph Ukwedeh, Ojong Echun Tangban, Alkasum Abba, Jimada Shaba, Usman Ladan and Mailafiva Filaba. But he also influenced many others not directly under his supervision such as Nur Alkali, Kyari Tijani, John Nengel, Monday Mangvwat, Abdullahi Mahadi, Tesemchi Makar, V.G Okwu, Bello Alkaii, and Mahdi Adamu, among others. In addition, he supervised numerous M.A. theses and undergraduate projects, and was always open to discuss ideas with any student who sought his advice.

 His extremely detailed and lengthy notes and comments on proposed research topics was legendary, and usually ran to many more pages than the eventual product, as he completely immersed himself in the discussion of the issues involved. His approach to teaching and research and his extensive influence led to wide-spread claims that he created the A.B.U. School of History, although he himself disapproved of the idea.

Bala benefitted from working with foreign scholars who came into contact with him while working from a base in Zaria and was also an important influence on many of them. For instance, Mike Watts, Bill Freund, Robert Shenton, Tom Forrest all acknowledged his influence.

In the Acknowledgements to his book Silent Violence, Watts said ”.. In Northern Nigeria, and in Zaria in particular, I was forced to confront the shallowness of my agenda. This took the form of reading the extraordinary historical and political writings of Yusufu Bala Usman....”

Bill Freund dedicated tris important work on Capital and Labour in the Nigerian Tin Mines, “For George (Kwanashie), Yusufu (Bala Usman) and my other students and comrades at ABU, 1974-1978”, and further mentioned in his Acknowledgements “My . . . debt is to my Nigerian colleagues in the Department of History, Ahmadu Bello University, from whom I learnt the most about Nigeria, especially George Kwanashie and Yusuf Bala Usman.

In his Acknowledgements to his work on The Development of Capitalism in Northern Nigeria, Robert Shenton notes that:  “Constant inspiration came from Dr. Y. B Usman and George Kwanashie.”

Scholars outside of Nigeria also acknowledged Usman’s influence. Mahmood Mamdani, in Uganda, in particular cites Usman’s efforts to critically deconstruct colonial history and forge an alternative African historiography. His first intervention was to problemetise the related questions of historical sources aid authorial objectivity. As Usman argued, if oral sources needed to be approached with a certain element of circumspect, the same critical attitude was called for in reading “the written records of European travellers, traders, missionaries, companies, governments and their agents”. His second notable intervention was to critique the deployment within history of the discourse of tradition. This notion of tradition, amongst other things, served to normalise the prejudice that African societies were stagnant or unchanging prior to external intervention... Through his study of the history of Katsina from the fourteenth century he assembled enough evidence to prove that ethnic groups did not constitute the natural and/or basic units of society in pre-colonial Africa as most historians tended to think.

Renown British historian Professor-Thomas Hodgkin said, in his review of ‘For the Liberation of Nigeria’:

I wish I knew Yusufu Bala Usman better. His stuff is so good; the best kind of lucid, outspoken, demystifying, vigorous, witty, radical, writing. Whom among radical pamphleteers does he remind me of? Tom Paine? William Morris? Jamal Al-Din Al Afghani? Ho Chi Minh? Franz Fanon? Something of all of them. He certainly belonged to that honourable and honest tradition. When I first met him, several years ago at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, I was impressed by the depth and range of his historical understanding (he corrected some of my errors in regard to the history of Katsina, helpfully and politely). I did not then sufficiently realise that he was also a perceptive and critical Marxist, a splendid deflater of academic pomposities, a courageous opponent and analyst of the neo-colonial Nigerian state and its ruling class.

Aside from his responsibilities in the Department of History and his other academic commitments, Usman was also an active member of progressive political movements like the PRP and others, whether during military or civilian regimes.

He published many writings on issues of governance and politics for the purpose of public enlightenment. He was also a key player in Nigeria’s support for liberation movements in Southern Africa, visiting Mozambique to document the activities of FRELIMO through articles which he published in the New Nigerian Newspaper in 1975. Along witin his colleagues, he also mobilised the university

community and the wider society to engage in activities to support the liberation movements.

Despite his renown among historians and other academicians, in fact, Usman was more widely known

throughout Nigeria for his fearless and consistent engagement with major public discourses of the time, and his struggle for freedom and justice, as demonstrated in many public lectures, newspaper articles, and interviews with Nigerian and overseas media houses. For Bala, teaching and research as well as engagement with public discourse was part of the intellectuals’ responsibility to society.

This write up was culled from the book ‘The Historian and society’ published by Yusufu Bala Usman institute .2023.