25-2-2025.

I had no intention of revisiting this ugly chapter in my life, but my immediate past write up attracted mixed reactions, with some respondents saying that it is wrong of me to publicly expose to the public what is clearly a family affair, while others think the subject of the article did not do justice to yours sincerely.

Among the former category are those who blamed me for “bringing it to the public domain”.

One of them said that, “I am not happy with what's happening between you and your brother, and I told him my mind concerning your misunderstanding, that he is at fault. That he should treat you as a father, that we are not happy with him, nonetheless you shouldn't have committed the issue writing and bringing it to the public domain”.

I replied thus, “You mean I should allow him to continue using me to make money for himself, while my name and personality are being tarnished? He replied to me saying, “No I don't mean that. What i mean is that there is a problem between you and your brother. It should have remained within the family while efforts are being made to resolve it. He concluded by praying for an end to the problem.

Another respondent said the following, “I must be very frank and honest with you Sir. I am not happy with your write up against your brother. ARE YOU NOT FROM THE SAME MOTHER AND THE SAME FATHER? Why washing your dirty linens in public? Sir, blood is thicker than water. Please for God's sake do not continue with the fight. And if the fight must continue, it should not be in public, please.

I similarly replied as I did the other person telling him that, “Someone else thinks along the same line as you. My response to him is the question, whether “I should allow him to continue using me and tarnishing my name and image to satisfy his selfish ends’. I am not ready for that, since he keeps coming after me despite the public forgiveness I have offered to whoever offended me deliberately or unknowingly”.

His next words on the matter are, “But what is your brother after? Doesn't he know that by destroying your wife, he is destroying you too? How I wish I could put some sense in his skull. He came to me when I lost my mother in November on a condolence. But even then he was spitting fire against your wife that she puts you in your present predicament. I told him that this could not be true because that would mean she wants her children to be orphans. But he will not listen. Even at that I implore you to stop the fight publicly. Allah ya shirya a tsakaninku. Any opportunity that arises, I will still lecture him on the need to respect you and your family. You and madam are one and the same thing as she is your half now”.

But those who sympathised with me on what I suffered in the hands of the sibling far outnumbered the ones that were not pleased. So it is unnecessary to mention some of such responses.

The replies to those who took exception to my taking to the social media to make “family affair” known to the public, were made before I came across an authentic Hadith of the Messenger of Allah, Muhammadu (SAW), where he said that God was totally displeased with the person who hides someone from the law because of a personal relationship with the offender.

By the way, uncountable times he would promise to bring me “something substantial”, as he was expecting from “my boy”, or a former colleague, or a former classmate, or a former roommate, former schoolmate, or a friend, a big contract, or some money, or something big to sell and realise a lot of money. But NOTHING ever came to pass, as far as I knew. 

The disappointment that nothing ever came to pass made me to one day advise him against referring anyone who has left him behind in life, “as my former this, my former that, until they on their own refer to you as their former this or that”. I told him majority of people who have attained a worldly elevation had the habit of making new friends with their new equals, or those above them.

Although he kept on pretending to have never received anything from them, he still rejected my unsolicited advice to him. He continued referring to them as his so and so, despite the fact that they refused to give him “ANYTHING”, as he claimed. His former this and that, include Ambassador Nura Abba.

Unknown to me however, he had been getting huge amounts and spending them on himself, without giving one Naira to me, or spending much on his wife. He was once given N5 million by a former Secretary to the Nasarawa state government, who happened to be a retired federal permanent secretary before he became a permanent commissioner at the FCSC. I only came to know about it NOW. But at the time my brother alleged that the man did not fulfil the promise he had made to him.

Instead, he would lie and tell his wife and his Abuja male friends that I was forcing him to borrow, or extort money from some contractors. That was why when his close friend (a lawyer) came to inform me of my brother’s ARREST by the Maitama Police, he CATEGORICALLY accused me of being responsible for the arrest and subsequent detention in the Maitama Police cell. 

But I knew nothing about it. I was manipulated into believing that his chairman at the Federal Civil Service Commission was responsible for my younger brother’s ordeal. Whenever he deceitfully got money from some contractors of the FCSC, (my sibling was the procurement officer), he would lie and tell ME that he was put to it by the chairman, who allegedly needed some money urgently to send to his people in Maiduguri.

Because of his habitual selfishness, he has cunningly roped me into making enemies of people who did not even know I existed. There were many of them, including his former (now late) chairman at the Federal Civil Service Commission, and a former staffer at the presidency.

My younger brother was also in the habit of lying to his wife that his parents and siblings were the reason why he was always  broke, because he was the sole provider of all their needs. 

I had sacrificed my time, resources and comfort to ensure that he gained his (undeserved) freedom from harassment by the security agencies in the country. And his thanks was to constantly call me “idiot, fool, useless, and stupid” behind my back. These abuses and insults were severally reported to me, but my response was to always forgive him. Not once did I ever mention to him my awareness of them.

I pray to God that this would be the last time I would write or speak on the matter. This should however serve as CAVEAT EMPTOR, as the lawyers would say, about entertaining any request from me for FINANCIAL assistance. Whoever may come or bring the request is definitely NOT from ME.

May God prevent us from living on the proceeds of deceit, deception and duplicity. They are very bad and destructive habits that some people have turned into their stock-in-trade way of existence.

Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.