Of course, the element of physical excellence is common to all of them in these pictures. That is obvious from the pictures. But more than the physical plenitude is the heritage. While the Naval Officer, Abba Alkali, is the son, the woman in red is the daughter of Mallam Abdullahi Alkali, the University of Maiduguri academic and activist who died on December 15th, 1996.
1996 is a long way from 2019. But that is the time and space his children took to come into their own, for one to become a Naval Officer of the Nigerian Armed Forces and another to be an intellectual worker with the University of Maiduguri.
Amal
To think that the daughter, for instance, was born at a time their father was confronting eviction from his quarters as a Political Science academic at the University of Maiduguri as the government of the day executed an eviction order in the early 1990s is to reflect on history. For, today, the daughter is set to become a citizen, a wife and, hopefully, a mother herself in not too distant future. This is not to talk of the son who has signed to defend the honour and integrity of Nigeria.
The son is Abba Alkali and the daughter is Amal Alkali. Amal has her original name but which has been overshadowed because everyone calls her Amal. Both read Computer Engineering @ the University of Maiduguri. Abba wedded her beau last Saturday, March 30th, 2019 in Kaduna. That is the lady in blue. Amal is set to wed next Saturday, April 6th, 2019.
These are developments that would gladden the minds of all those associated with the struggle for national liberation of which their father was a recognized intellectual through ASUU activism. Mallam Alkali was the Borno State secretary of the union and a foremost intellectual of the underprivileged with a lot of recognition in that regard and circle.
A named comrade has, in the tradition of sharing, assisted the family through the dark days to this moment of joy when history and God have combined to make everyone forget the past because the future is now greater than that past!
