The Nigerian scholarly community has last week lost one of its intellectual giants in person of Prof Abdullahi Mahadi. He was a colossal historian whose doctoral thesis titled The State and Society: The Sarauta System and its Role in Shaping the Society and Economy of Kano with Particular Reference to Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries is a locus classicus, which is constantly quoted by scholars, researchers and students, especially those who write on the pre-colonial history of Northern Nigeria. Mahadi carved for himself a spacious and enviable niche as a good person, a meticulous scholar, an excellent administrator and patriotic/detribalized Nigerian. He trained thousands of students who became great scholars in their own right. Considering his academic and administrative feats, he deserved to be mourned, celebrated and immortalized in order to relay his good legacy for posterity to witness and build on.
While we are still mourning and grieving over his death, the Directorate of Research and Development in collaboration with the Department of History, Gombe State University (GSU) released what they tagged as a “Call for Tributes in Honor of the Late Professor Abdullahi Mahadi: Professor of History” inviting people to submit eulogies, tributes, obituaries and in memoriam in his honor. When I saw the flier, I became highly excited because people who knew and worked with him are going to share their memory of the late historian.
It is important to note that tributes are written on the account of the need to provide comforts to the surviving family members, friends, colleagues, well-wishers and the entire community that lost its beloved member. To mourn someone taken away from you by the cold hands of death is penetratingly painful and grieving because you have lost him/her forever. According to Jacque Derrida in his book The Work of Mourning, “in mourning we find ourselves at a loss, no longer ourselves, as if the singular shock of what we must bear had altered the very medium in which it was to be registered. But even if the death of a friend appears unthinkable, unspeakable, we are nonetheless called upon to speak, to break the silence, to participate in the codes and rites of mourning”.
The two collaborating units have, therefore, called upon friends, colleagues, students, disciples, mentees, admirers and family members of Mahadi to break their silence and share with the general public, and indeed the posterity, their good memory about his highly fulfilled and accomplished life.
To my dismay, however, the organizers of this supposedly noble project, instead of celebrating him, they ended up doing a disservice to his memory. What I found troubling and befuddling is the paltry amount of N3,000 that prospective contributors are requested to pay as “publication fees”. For me, this is a commercialization of the tributes and desecration of the memories of the deceased. To the best of knowledge, this is the first time people are asked to pay fees to celebrate someone they revere, benefited from, admire and love in Nigerian academia. The pertinent question here is: why must people pay money as a prerequisite before they write and publish good things about Mahadi? I personally feel that GSU should show more gratitude to its pioneer Vice Chancellor by shouldering the responsibility/expenses of collating and publishing tributes in his honour without allowing its staff to collect a single dime from those who intend to immortalize his memory. To say the least, this is a desecration and profanation of the memory of Mahadi. I hope and pray that the great Ahamdu Bello University, Zaria will unconditionally celebrate its illustrious son and former Vice Chancellor if GSU fails to right what I sincerely perceive to be wrong. May Allah have mercy on the soul of Prof Abdullahi Mahadi.
