Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajiun wa kullu nafsi zaikatul maut.
On Friday, October 22, 2021, a friend, Alhaji Mohammed Tumba Ibrahim, a former Executive Director Finance of Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), answered the inevitable call. He died in Lagos, where he lived, after a very brief illness. He was 66 years and diabetic.
His death was particularly shocking because he was in my house in Kaduna about three weeks earlier, having requested me to arrange for him to take his first Covid jab. He needed the jab because he was about to travel to London, where his family lives, and didn’t want violating any Covid travel protocols. He was mostly in Kaduna lately, because he had acquired new properties which he intended to be his new home in his decision to relocate to Kaduna from his Lagos base. He was thus often at the site personally seeing to the fixing of the place. When the furniture started to arrive he had called to inform me, and wanted me to go meet him and see the progress, which i unfortunately couldn’t, rather sadly now.
The next time i heard about him was the sad news of his death in Lagos, and where he was subsequently buried. His wife later told me that few days to his death he had complained to her, during a phone discussion, that he wasn’t feeling well. Sensing how serious he sounded, she had insisted on him to go back to Lagos for proper medical attention by his regular doctors, which he did, but which eventually turned out to be a rather sad terminal date with his destiny.
Allahu akbar. May Allahu gafoorur raheem have mercy on him. Ibrahim was a quiet, calm and simple gentleman with a peaceful disposition, who often operated silently.
I first met MT Ibrahim around 1987/1988 in London. He was working at the Nigeria Airways London office, while i was at the Nigeria High Commission. With time we became friends, and got to know each other more. I got to know that he was a qualified chartered accountant, from Adamawa, later Taraba state, but working at the Nigeria Airways as a local staff. I found that odd, and I never failed to bring it up whenever we were discussing generally on such issues. I often told him that a chartered accountant from the North and from Adamawa, later Taraba state, potentially had a comparative advantage in getting a commensurate job back home. And the job could even be in Nigeria Airways headquarters back home, from where the possibility existed that he could eventually be posted back to London to head the branch itself. The proposition excited him quite well, but he often showed some constraint in his body language and shy endorsement, devoid of the necessary will and courage.
I probably got it wrong, because with time Ibrahim seemed to have developed a strong will, the courage and determination, to return home from his long Diasporan sojourn in England.
One weekend he called to ask if he could come see me at home because he wanted us to discuss the plan, which was already in the implementation stage. He said he was all set, and he had applied to some agencies of government and the response from NPA was promising. He probably was also being similarly advised elsewhere, it seemed. And when he offered to sell off his BMW car, i advised him against it because he would need a car in Lagos, and he readily saw reason. Few days later Ibrahim called from Heathrow airport to bid me farewell, and off he went back home to begin a new chapter in his life.
We never heard from ourselves again, until my own return back home too in 1992 and then deployed to Lagos. One day i was out to Ikoyi Hotel, only to run into my friend Ibrahim. Our loud excitement drew the attention of those around. We were only catching up loudly. He was now a senior staff of NPA…
Again we just didn’t bother much to contact ourselves, even when we pledged to ourselves to doing so, and even exchanged phone numbers. Then in 1995, my boss was appointed minister of transport, and i joined him as his military assistant. Few days into the new post Alh Tafida Mafindi of NPA came to see me. He was in NPA London too, during our time in London with Ibrahim. I asked him about Ibrahim, and incidentally they worked together. I then asked him to please ask Ibrahim to come see me in the ministry, which Ibrahim promptly did.
May Allahu gafoorur raheem have mercy on Ibrahim, by forgiving his sins and abundantly rewarding his good deeds with aljanna firdausi. He left two wives and many children.
And to his immediate and extended families, may Allah strengthen them in their grief. And to all of us he left behind, may our respective exits be blessed with Allah’s Rahama, ameen..
Dan’Asabe
