The Marafa I know

By Saidu Mohammed Dansadau

“Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the State”

Nearly everybody in my generation who grew up in the North had heard of Umaru Shinkafi, the Marafan Sokoto. He was the super spook who knew something about everybody.

Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, had just lifted the ban on party politics in 1989 and political associations were being formed. That was when my path first crossed that of Marafa when we formed the Sokoto Organisation (then Zamfara was part of Sokoto State).

I was young and a firebrand.  Little did I know that I made a deep impression on him during our first meeting. After the meeting he sent for me and asked me to see him in Shinkafi. That was the beginning of a close and intimate relationship, a mentoring and close benevolent big brother relationship.

When the military government decreed National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) into being, we joined the NRC whose manifesto we identified with and which we hoped to deepen. Marafa was running to be the presidential candidate of the NRC.

Not being a product of the known political establishment of the time, his aspiration seemed rather audacious. And, as every intelligence operator knows, he had made some powerful political enemies who would go to great lengths to stop him. But they did not reckon with his discipline and solid organizational abilities.

Soon, his campaign took off. He appointed me his Campaign Co-coordinator for Sokoto State. I think he liked how I organized the campaign, for, after six months he pulled me out to Kaduna and promoted me to co-ordinate his Campaign for the whole Northern States.

It was a most tasking and exhaustive campaign. We threw everything into it and came close enough to the more fancied Malam Adamu Ciroma as the winner to demand for a run-off. However, while we waited, Babangida announced the cancellation of the primaries and banned a crop of politicians, including Shinkafi and Malam Adamu.

Babangida said he wanted new-breed politicians and despite the experience, resources, network, relationships built, and the draining mental and physical exertions, Shinkafi took it with equanimity and moved on.  At the NRC convention in Port Harcourt under Option A4, Shinkafi supported the presidential candidature of Bashir Tofa and the National Chairmanship of late Dr. Hameed Kusamotu.  Both won.

When the dust settled, I told him I was returning to Sokoto to continue my life. But he had other plans. He convinced me to stay in Kaduna and bought a house for me.

It’s been 27 years since then and I have found Marafa as constant as a Northern Star: solid, steady, calm and unflappable. He was an extra-ordinarily selfless, admirably humble, gentle, soft-spoken, self-effacing, diligent, circumspect, shrewd and generous man.

But he was also a misunderstood man; he was not given to smiling easily, and people thought that this mien reflected his heart. However, even though he carried a serious mien, Marafa had a keen sense of humour.

A lot of people thought Shinkafi was stupendously wealthy because of his generosity to people. His wealth, however, was not in material possessions but in the generosity of his heart.

Marafa was the source of permanent shelter for so many of his household members, house helps, staff, classmates, neighbours, friends and the under-privileged. I can attest to that. In 2002, even as a Senator, he offered me a house in Kaduna, valued at 30 Million Naira at the time, for the 1.6 million Naira he bought it many years earlier.  There were many of such.

His philanthropy went beyond individuals. He provided basic amenities like schools, medical clinics and such like infrastructure to several communities. He also built so many mosques to cater for the spiritual means of members of communities.

When the Muslim Students Society leader of Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto, came to pay condolence to his family, he said the University authorities had informed them that it was Shinkafi who built, furnished and equipped the Juma’at Mosque in the University, some 30 years ago. This was to the surprise of family members because Marafa had never mentioned it to anyone.

That was Marafa. He gave for Allah and there were many such examples.

Marafa also had the capacity to forgive, to a fault. Even when he knew somebody had cheated him in a business relationship, he would still put up with the person. In the more obvious cases whenever he was advised to end the relationship, his standard answer was always: any person in a position of prominence in any society should know this came with the territory.

Politically, Umaru Shinkafi was, among other things, an apostle of broad political affiliations. He believed that what united us was more than what divided us as a nation.

To a large extent, the emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari as the Presidential Candidate of the APP in 2003 was substantially a product of sacrifice by Umaru Shinkafi. That year APP Governors and the leadership of the APP in states not controlled by the party resolved to field him as the party’s presidential candidate.

Former Sokoto State Governor, Attahiru Bafarawa, and former Kwara State Governor, late Mohammed Lawal, were delegated to intimate Shinkafi of this resolution. This was in my presence. He thanked them and appreciated their offer. He, however, courteously declined and asked them to field General Buhari. He assured them he would give whatever support he could muster to ensure General Buhari won.

There are, as one political sage once observed, some men who lift the age they inhabit till all men walk on higher ground in that lifetime. Umaru Shinkafi was such a man. He bestrode the security, political and humanitarian world and was acknowledged for his patriotism industry, depth of knowledge, discipline, empathy and competence.

May Allah grant him peace in Aljanna Firdaus.