Mallam Jibo Straddles Our Existence In Radical Politics – A Tribute To Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim@70; By John Odah

SLIGHTLY over a decade ago, Kole Shettima, Y. Z. Yau and myself decided that we should celebrate Mallam Jibo’s 60^th birthday anniversary on November 30, 2014 with a publication in which we would invite various persons in identified thematic areas around which Mallam had done work on, to make contributions. This project didn’t take off the ground for sundry reasons. We were particularly irritated by the demand of a younger comrade who had asked: “how much honorarium will I be paid for doing the chapter requested of me?”

A decade later we came back to the topic of celebrating Jibo at 70. This time, our focus shifted to doing a selection of his unpublished works, and to raise funds to support at least one Ph.D. student researching on the works of Mallam striding his writings in democracy, mass communication, political science, religion and gender, among other themes. This informal committee was later expanded and the commemoration of Mallam Jibo’s 70^th anniversary as it has turned out is the collective inputs from this organising committee.

In Mallam Jibo, we have a comrade whom we can no longer guarantee a secure understanding by looking at him from one fixed point. He straddles our existence in radical politics in a way that we can better situate him by looking at him from different standing positions. For me, looking at him from the political education position offers one of the most valuable insights I think we need.

Political education was a mainstay of the radical imagination in the eighties. The Struggle Newsletter was a striking example of it. It was a source of inestimable ideological education for cadres. Unknown to majority of those who consumed it with relish (especially as undergraduates), is the fact that it was actually produced in Zaria under the editorial and logistic guidance of Mallam (and the Zaria Group) at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Ahmadu Bello University. However, to divert attention of all prying eyes, the copies were taken to Ilorin and posted from there such that they came to us readers as a made-in-Ilorin magazine or radical newspaper. 

Reflecting on that practice now suggests that the radical democratic struggle in Nigeria in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s did not lack its own practitioners of Leninism that could have led to a more productive outcome. At Mallam’s 70^th anniversary, it is important to piece such bits into the larger picture vis-à-vis the inferences we can draw from them.

After the expulsion of a number of our student comrades, many of them in their final year at the Ahmadu Bello University following the so-called Rice Protest in 1981, Mallam Jibo was part of the radical Comrade Lecturers that went round other Nigerian universities to fix many of the expelled comrades in universities by linking with progressive academics in these universities.

This was how Chom Bagu got admitted to start Political Science afresh in UniJos, Jibril Bala Mohammed was admitted in UniLag to start his undergraduate course anew. Issa Aremu was admitted in University of Port Harcourt and read Economics. In fact, at one of our Fish Joint conversations, Mallam related how he made his last trip by rail from Zaria to Port Harcourt to meet with the late Claude Ake to arrange Aremu’s admission to UniPort. This was despite the express decision of the Committee of Vice Chancellors to blacklist all those expelled from ABU from gaining admission to any federal government-owned universities.

Mallam Jibo was in the thick of the ‘quarrels’ in ABU that eventually gave birth to the radical feminist organisation – Women in Nigeria (WIN) in 1982. Ayesha Imam one of the founding members of WIN had elsewhere among the tributes to Jibo at 70 given a perspective of what led to the decline of this very promising organisation and quoted Bene (whose demise has just been announced, (may her soul rest in peace), speaking of this perspective in a Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) interview.

Of course, there are always at least two sides to any single story, we will for the sake of a joyous celebration of Mallam just acknowledge that Mallam was among the men who became members of WIN who genuinely believed that for the struggle against patriarchy and women oppression to succeed, we need men to join with women to carry out this struggle.

When Mallam left the services of ABU and joined the civil society world, he gave employment to one of our finest comrades, the late Tom Adambra, who was refused graduation with us in June 1983, and subsequently vowed not to return to the university of Jos to redo the courses the department refused to grade. Tom had taken the federal government scholarship as best English student in our second and third year in UniJos and was engine room of our Movement for the Advancement of African Societies (MAAS). This was when Mallam was head of Global Rights in Nigeria.

While serving on the President Yar’Adua’s 22-member Electoral Reform Committee with Justice Uwais as chairman, along with Mallam and some of our other comrades like Attahiru Jega, when I occasionally cause trouble in the committee, I was always sure to run to Mallam and the other comrades for protection.

I was representing the Nigeria Labour Congress on the Committee. One such case was when I rebelled against Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi’s imposition of the practice of having red win served chilled for our meals. In pleading my case before the chairman, Justice Uwais, I told him that Mallam Jibo haven done his Ph.D. at Bourdeau (home to French wines) would bear me witness that it was not right that red wine should be served chilled. Mallam enthusiastically supported me and we stopped the practice for the remaining duration of the committee’s work.

Happy Birthday Mallam!