It is what they call lighting the candle in one little corner, the candle being a performance of the illumination that light brings to darkness. Nigeria is a dark space of ethno-religious and regional cabalistic consciousness.
(L-R) Prof Habu Mohammed, Director of Mambayya House and Prof Bawa Hassan Gusau of the Dept of Political Science, BUK (in blue kaftan) at the same occasion
Bayero University, Kano’s Mambayya House is lighting the candle in this thicket, “publishing books meant for secondary school pupils to read and reflect on our heroes past”.
This year, the centre unveiled the one on Joseph Tarka. In fact, it was the high point of the recent 40th anniversary lecture on Mallam Aminu Kano. We must all know Joseph Tarka, the Nigerian politician who, along with Aminu Kano, operationalised emancipatory ethnicity in the First Republic.
The centre has already published the series on Malam Aminu Kano and Yusuf Maitama Sule. But, more than that, they are soon coming out with the versions on Awo and Dora Akunyili, amongst others.
Intervention has understood that all the publications are being sponsored by MacArthur Foundation. If this is not a great example of lighting the candle in one little corner, with profound implications, then someone has to tell us what it is.
Perhaps, it is not surprising that of all the five other centres of the defunct Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS) the Babangida administration experimented with, the Mambayya House is the only surviving one.
