Identity boundaries and fault lines collapsed temporarily earlier today as Nigeria lowered a barrier breaking elder. Christians, Muslims and others travelled to bear witness to the burial of Mallam Danlami Samuel Ibrahim, aka D S Ibrahim, a Christian, Hausa and Kano man at the Anglican Communion cemetery, Wusasa, Zaria in Kaduna State of Nigeria.
Grand children cum relations of the late DS Ibrahim at the burial
Another set of grand children at the burial
Mallam D S as he was more popularly known passed on May 23rd, 2025. He lived all his life in Kano where he belonged to a generation of civil servants who, collectively, gathered so much clout on account of the rigour with which they approached procedure, standards, propriety and competence in handling governance. They subsequently became members of the ‘Special Room’, an informal but influential source of wisdom in the policy mill, never trifled with by governors, military or civilian governors.
Members of the John Bawa Jibrin family
Prof Adele Junaid, Mr. JP Adamu and others at the burial
D S was among those sent to the UK by the Sir Ahmadu Bello regime to acquire university education, attending the University of Nottingham in the late 1950s. He came back to be a teacher, in Rumfa College – then a finishing school in the old North – and in other schools in then Bauchi Province before moving into mainstream civil service. In the end, his civil service career stretched from being a former Rector of the Kano State Polytechnic, former Executive Secretary of the Kano State Scholarship Board and the Kano State Pension Board.
Dr Kole Shettima of MacArthur Foundation and Dr. Garba Dauda of the CDD
Comrades John Odah, Dalha Isa Fagge, Y.Z Y’au and a woman attendee
Today, two former governors of Kano State – Ibrahim Shekarau as well as Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso – were, among many others, his students. It would thus not be out of sync to say that DS Ibrahim might be the last or close to the last of the Sardauna Brought Up (SABU) in the old North and they transcended the religious divide of today.
A grandson reads DS’s biography
Anglican Bishop of Wusasa, Rt. Rev. Titus Alkali on the homily
Although a Kano man from Kumbotso Local Government Area, he was buried in Zaria where Mrs Azumi Esther Anka, his mother came from and where he was raised. His biography shows that his contemporaries in Zaria City and in Wusasa stretched from Alhaji Shehu Idris, the immediate past Emir of Zaria; Mallam James Nuhu Hassan, a former Sarkin Wusasa; Justice Muhammed Uwais, a former Chief Justice of Nigeria and a classmate of his at the Provincial Secondary School, Zaria, now known as Alhudahuda Secondary School, Zaria; Dr Stephen Kitchner of the famous Kitchner family in Wusasa; Dr Chris Abashiya and several others. He was a title holder -nthe Dan Masani Wusasa.
EX-ABU, Zaria political scientist, Dr Abubakar Siddique Mohammed, Mr. JP Adamu and other faces
Mallam Dauda Ibrahim, now the family elder, gives his vote of thanks
His burial in Wusasa, therefore, speaks to the many Kano people today but who are Christians and who have Zaria (Wusasa) roots in one way or the other. Most notable would include Prof Adamu Baike, the well known academic; John Danjuma Bagudu who was a broadcaster before becoming a Commissioner in either the Abubakar Rimi Bakin Zuwo regime; Musa Booth, a veteran journalist at the Triumph Publishing Company or even Ali Nuhu, the versatile film maker.
This speaks to the complexity of the religious configuration in the old North. Until the eighties, this religious complexity was better managed in contrast to the adoption of religion as a form of resistance all over the place today. It would be recalled that his 85th birthday in Abuja in 2023 featured issues thrown up by the life and times of D. S. Ibrahim, an indigenous Christian Kano man whose religious identity did not become a roadblock in the old Northern Nigeria. It could be said that, beyond family members, no one knows, no one asked and no one appeared to care that his D S initials stood for Danlami Samuel.
Meanwhile, the diversity of attendees at his burial implies a successor generation’s approval for DS’s generation and the return of knowledgeable, rigorous, accountable and decent leadership across Nigeria.
Pix credit: Cde John Odah
