TRIPLE A, WITHOUT REGRETS: REMINISCING ON A BROTHER-MENTOR LIFE IN RETIREMENT
By Abdulwarees Solanke
Father translates to Abu in Arabic. It’s a sign of honour to so prefix anyone with Abu, attaching one’s child to this honorific. Ummu is the woman version of this nomenclature.
It’s also an honorific one can claim even before one’s child comes in expectation that when he finally arrives, you don’t bother to make⁷ naming a big deal. But, it’s also a pseudonym to hide one’s true identity.
Among my contemporaries or circle of friends, there’s, however, a strange combination of this honorific, Abu Baba,
But before Abu Baba, his pen name was Abu Umar al-Faruq. When he adopted Abu Umar as a pen name, he was most prolific in churning out brilliant pieces under the column Risala el-Miskin in a dominantly muslim publication, alHikmah Awareness, a vehicle of intellectual expression, spiritual orientation and Islamic consciousness. The publication was owned by the University of Lagos branch of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria.
This title holder was one of the most pragmatic muslim students leaders of our days, indeed a natural leader, charismatic, with intellectual depth and endearing personality.
We graduated in mass communication together, he as a broadcasting specialist and I in print journalism.
Even as a leader of MSS, he was a mentor and counsellor to most young Muslim guy students.
This leadership trait he took to his only place of formal employment in life. Since he entered public service in 1992 as a producer 1 in Voice of Nigeria, he had worked in no other workplace.
He joined VON aged 29 with a B.Sc Mass Communication and M.Sc Political Science with specialisation in International Relation. With such academic pedigree and professional grooming, he soon became a gold fish with no hiding place in VON, and soon, the first letters of his names changed whatever identity he held before.
Who in our circle we identify as Abu Umar al Faruq or Abu Baba emerged in VON as Triple A. For a whole three decades plus, the persona of trple A loomed large in VON with generous mention and involvement in most strategic matters, not only in his directorate but in the entire corporation.
While we had been friends and brothers since our undergraduate days as students of mass communication at the University of Lagos, we started working life with different sectors But he first entered the graduate school upon completing his nysc combining post graduate studies with writing for al hikma while I immediately joined National Concord with immediate transfer to old Gongola State as state correspondent.
On completion of his masters programme, he was fortunate to be offered employment in VON. He had spent 13 years in VON before I came to join him in the house.
But, many people did not know how far we had come together. So they could not understand why, as SA to the DG, I was always with him.
It was divine that when I went for graduate studies in public policy in Brunei Darussalam, he was the automatic choice of the DG to continue from where I stopped and when I returned from the foreign study, it was strange to many that I was reporting to him until my appointment as Head VON Training Centre, an office he supported me to be consolidated.
By the time Mallam Jijiwa retired from service, it was inevitable Triple A would return to English Service.
For many in the Programme directorate, it was great expectation. He returned as a deputy director in a directorate he left almost eight years before to continue as a father and mentor to young producers His prospect of becoming director in there was however dim because of limited vacancy but Allah opened the window of uplifting for him when he was returned to the DG office to head public affairs which essentially he was combining with his role as SA to the DG before.
In that office, he was promoted to a full director. In that office, he spent his last years in VON, ending his career without blemish last year to the glory of God.
In retirement, Triple returned to writing and farming his first love. I retirement. Triple A is indeed fulfilled. When he returned to Broadcasting Glass House Wuse last month, it was on a mission to assist in the rebranding of VON as he is on a major book project. I was proud to host my brother Triple A, Abdurrazaq Adegboyega Abdussalam in my Jikwoyi hideout, having arranged his airport picking and it was my honour to also see him off when he was returning to Lagos after the his visit.
Indeed, like Brother Sola Solanke, who was also one of his admirers, my brother-mentor Triple A who has been part of my life for over 38 years is indeed enjoying his life in retirement, thanking Allah for leading him far in life, *WITHOUT REGRETS*
