Any Warrior to Succeed Ali Kwara?
By Kabir Nizam Baba
AREWA AGENDA – I’ve had the unfavourable privilege of listening to a BBC interview with a politician who had dispelled and dispensed with the tendency of anyone within the late Ali Kwara family to continue with the Kwara security and peace-making projects. According to him, the deceased hunter had not bequeathed anyone to succeed him, nor did he wish for the subsistence of such activities beyond his life.
This is not only far from the truth, but equally illogical. The risky adventure (of anti-crime crusade) is not a pleasure-inducing activity to a normal person. It further subjects them, the actors, to more sophisticated vulnerability and risk. While you and I could move around freely with peace of mind, no one in the family enjoys that. They’ve learnt to live with the probabilities of attack anytime, anywhere, anyhow. They’ve unconsciously made enemies of thousands.
But with the sterling leadership skills of the late Ali Kwara, his philanthropy and lifetime dedication to anti-robbery crusade, which he knew as much as we do that he could only contribute to a certain period before he shall pass on, (and he just did), it is unreasonably unbelievable that he would let the cause die with his death.
Ali Kwara did not live a lone life. He didn’t live a visionless, unfocused, disorganized life either. He had children, wives, siblings, nephews and nieces, friends, business associates and partners, employees and enemies too. And we know (some of) them. He had established a viable business enterprise in hides and skin as well as in the construction industry. Would Ali wish all that which he had built over the decades crumble and end with his last breath?
If for worldly business transactions and empires, Ali would enshrine mechanisms of continuity, what about the philanthropic one? The one thing with which he had carved a niche for himself in the country? His most important contribution to humanity? Is it reasonable to suggest that Ali Kwara wanted a peaceful world only while he is alive? Didn’t Ali care about those children, siblings and friends for whom he had numerously done the improbable?
The deteriorating security condition of the country as a whole and the North in particular is a point of sincere concern to all Nigerians regardless of theological or political inclinations.
Bauchi State is recently infested with the security situation of burglary and daylight robbery. Security agencies have been trying very laudably to arrest the situation. In the process, traditional rulers and local community leaders are now actively engaged. The Ali Kwara team has a significant role to play here!
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I’ve watched the 1st December 2020 Plenary Session of the Nigerian Senate after the horrific Zabarmari massacre. Many Distinguished Senators had emphatically recommended, as did the Borno State governor, that the Civilian Joint Task Force, Vigilante and Local Hunters be reinforced and be injected into the system proper. This is to tell that experienced volunteers and indigenous people, just like the Ali Kwara team, are indispensable to the war against insecurity in Nigeria.
I’ve scouted for information. And without any stress, I was furnished with more than enough facts that one of late Ali Kwara’s lieutenants, his younger brother and a General in the arena, Ahmad Nkuji, is the round peg in the round hole to fit into Ali’s shoes.
Leadership, like other traits, while could be acquired, are often genetically transmitted. So is bravery and adventural tendencies. It will be natural if Ahmad Nkuji exhibits some of late Ali’s Kwara’s traits. Otherwise would only be the exception. Which, from the available facts, isn’t the case.
Ahmad Muhammad Kwara (Nkuji) had exhibited unmatched bravery and ability to steer and coordinate teams for combat operations. He has a long history of tutelage under the late Ali Kwara as far back as twenty years. He has the technical know-how and the requisite physical strength.
I therefore appeal to Bauchi State Government and the Federal Government, on behalf of the citizens of Bauchi State concerned over the security situation, to seek the indulgence of Ahmad Kwara (Nkuji) to succeed his late brother and trainer in what he was well trained and known for. This, he should consider, for the benefit of the larger community. I had a sigh of relief when the seasoned journalist and cerebral writer Alhaji Saleh Bature recently narrated his interaction with the said Ahmad Nkuji where the latter expressed his willingness to oblige.
We are hopeful that, as the government had numerously been proactive in addressing issues of concern, it would consider this timely appeal. Our formal security agencies need support, complementary gestures like this and prayers. In the words of the British writer and lay theologian, C.S Lewis, ‘mere change is not growth. Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity. And where there is no continuity, there is no growth’. That is what we need in the North and especially in Bauchi State – Continuity.
Kabir Nizam Baba writes from Bauchi
Arewa Agenda is a Publication of Young writers/journalist from Northern Nigeria towards Peaceful Coexistence and National Development through positive narratives
