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| ALH. SIR AHMADU BELLO kbe |
Hello
dear Readers, I hope you all liked and enjoyed the previous episode which is
the first episode and here comes the second episode, I hope you will also like
it.
In 1949, he made his debut in the Political arena and was elected a
member of the Northern region House of Assembly. In quick Succession, he was a
member of a constitutional Drafting Committee as one of the representatives of
the North; a member of the Northern Regional Loans Board. In 1951, he joined
the Northern Regional Government Executive Council as Minister of works and in
a cabinet reshuffle in 1953, he became the Minister of Local Government and
Community Development and was designated the leader of Government Business of
the Northern Region. At the Nigeria Constitutional Conference held in London in
1953, he was the leader of the Northern delegation. In 1954, at the Party
Convention in Jos, he was elected the President-General of the Northern Peoples
Congress (NPC), the Political Party that was at the helm of affairs of the
Government of the Government of the Federation up to the time our Independence.
In the same year he assumed the Post of Premier of the Northern region. It was
in 1955 that he first went on pilgrimage to Mecca, and thereafter the
pilgrimage and the Umrah to the Holy Land became an unbroken annual event in
the life of Sir Ahmadu Bello until his death. In 1957, there was another
constitutional Conference in London and he led Northern Delegation. With the
Achievement of self-Government in March 1959 he became the President of the
Executive Council in the North. In the same year, he was knighted of the
British Empire (KBE).
In 1960, he was elected Vice-President of the
Ahmadu Bello University, the institution that he founded, nurtured and
cherished. On 15th January, 1966 he suffered martyrdom at the hands
of a gang of dissident Army Officers, in a senseless and treacherous coup
d’etat that sowed the seeds of Political instability and retrogression in
Nigeria, and led the nation into bloody Civil war.
With the death of Sir Ahmadu Bello, Nigeria
lost a great patriot, a great statesman national hero and the North lost what
no adequate words can describe. Suffice to say that it lost a legend, it lost
its beacon of light and has left wandering in the wilderness for thirty years
now without pilot or guide or shepherd. But Sir Ahmadu Bello left outstanding
legacies which if we the inheritors of those legacies can apply or mite only a
small fraction, our Peoples and our nation can make giant strides forward.
The Sardauna had Sterling Qualities far too
many to mention. But it will be height of injustice and disservice to talk
about his life and not to mention anything about his qualities, his dreams, his
policies and some of his achievements.
A Devout Muslim and a Champion of Religious Tolerance
Witness: The motto he chooses for the North was “work and worship”. In his
Christmas message broadcast in 1959 he stated inter alias: “Here in the
Northern Nigeria we have People of Many different races, tribes and religious
who are knit together to common history, common interest and common ideas, the
things that unite us are stronger than the things that divide us. I always
remind people of our firmly rooted policy of religious tolerance. We
have no intention of favouring one religion at the expense of another. Subject
to the overriding need to preserve law and order, it is our determination that
everyone should have absolute liberty to practice his belief according to the
dictates of his conscience…”
Michael Audu Buba, Jolly Tanko Yusuf, George Uru Ohikere, Pastor David Obadiah lot, Peter Simon Achimugu, Ignatius Durlong, Sunday Awoniyi among others who were in his Government or in the public Service and work closely with him had the same treatment from him if not better then their Moslem counterparts. With Sardauna, what earned you more favours was your hard work, dedication to duty and honesty.
In the Process of undertaking the legal
reforms of 1959 that involve the Sharia law, delegations were sent to Sudan,
Libya and Pakistan. Peter Achimugu, a Christian, was included in the delegation
that went to Libya and Pakistan..
A Progressive Reformist
Witness: The reforms and the democratization of the Native Authorities
which were carried out during his time; a giant stride from Emirs-in-Council to
Emirs-and Council; with outer Councils having as members, elected
representatives of the people.
Witness: The launching of the Crash training programme at the Kano Medical
Corps mooted in 1952-53 to produce doctors at a time when the North did not
have more then a few indigenous doctors like Dr. Ahmadu Rimi who rose to
become a Major-General and Director-general of the Nigeria Army Medical Corps;
the mounting of crash programmes in law and accountancy and the assistant
District Officers (ADO’s) training programmes at the Institute of
Administration Zaria.
