By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.
30-1-2025.
Hajiya Jummai of Unguwar Yari Quaters in Katsina, died on Tuesday, 27th, 2025, but I was none the wiser, because for five days we had no electricity in our street. It was only brought back at 12.00 am, last night after it went off at 6.00 am on Friday last week. The people on the street were somewhat left, literally, in the dark regarding happenings in the outside world .
By the way, I am a very black looking black man, which is why many of my maternal grandmothers, and some of their children, call me ‘Danbaki’ (Blackie). Grandma Hajiya Jummai of Unguwar Yari in Katsia town was one of them. She called me ‘Danbaki’, because not only am I very dark in appearance, I also owned and drove to her place, a one-in-town black Honda Accord. It was easily identified as my car.
But long before her, the immediate younger sister, Kakale (now late) of my father (who died much earlier), was in the habit of calling me ‘Bature’ (While Skinned), referring to Tuesday, the day of my birth. She could not call me by my given name at birth (AbdulBasir), because her husband’s name was AbdulLahi.
But her marriage mate, a very light skinned Fulani woman, who went by the nomenclature of ‘Hajiya Yarja’ would smirk and playfully question my aunt, “how can you call such a black boy ‘Bature’? ‘Danbaki’ is the more appropriate name he should be called”.
One day, my aunt told me “Do not to mind her”, assuring that “one day you would go to England and marry a white woman, whiter than herself”. Well, I did not marry a “white woman”, but the trip to Nigeria’s former colonial master, came to pass as she predicted. It was like she looked into her crystal glass and saw the trip.
I went to the white person’s country and made some money that could have settled me for life, if yours sincerely was the hoarding type. Fortunately I was, and still is, NOT the type.
I remember that one day, I went to a very expensive supermarket and asked one of the many white sales ladies, to tell me what present she would most like for her birthday from someone who loved her. To my utter surprise and disbelief, she said she would prefer a ROSE flower. A rose flower? I asked her in bewilderment, and she replied in the affirmative
I then asked for her next preference, to which she answered, “A very nice perfume, or a good looking lady’s wristwatch”. Those things I easily understood, which were actually what I expected to hear the first time I asked her. Well, the conclusion is as good as the reader decides to make it.
Anyway, in the looks department, yours sincerely is not exactly an oil painting, or anything near it. I am very dark for a black man, very bereft of resources, and age is not on my side, meaning that I am not exactly the youngest person in the neighbourhood. Besides, one is not very healthy, to boot. Nothing for the ladies to die for.
On account of my looks (let me leave it that way), my Form (Class) one Hausa Language teacher (not a native Hausa man, by the way) coined a nickname for me that even today I am not happy with (do not expect me to mention the hated nickname). But my classmates absolutely loved it, and realising that I did not cherish being called with it, they drove immense pleasure in calling me with the nome de guarre.
Well, it is hoped that the voluntary confession would give some food for thought to those who erroneously believe that because human beings are not capable of reading the other’s heart or mind, they can do anything they so wish without the next person being the wiser. Although that may be so, God is however, the Wiser for EVERYTHING we think and do, and ever did. He is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and never sleeps or forgets.
Therefore, although some of us may relax in the knowledge that our indiscretions, deliberate or by mistake, with or without our knowledge, are forgiven, there are many others who may not be so forgiving for the wrongs done to them. They are the unforgiving type who always insist for their own pound of flesh, otherwise they will leave everything to God, to avenge for them.
Since God Has made unjust conduct illegal for Himself, He promised to ensure that every misdemeanour done to someone by somebody will have to be paid before Him in the hereafter. This is the reason why yours sincerely is always asking for forgiveness for offences I committed knowingly or unknowingly to one and all, over the world.
May we be free of all indebtedness, whatever kind they may be, before our death. And may the Final Arbiter, God, shower us with His mercies in the next world,
Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.
