Veteran journalist A.B Ahmed dies at 74
Veteran journalist and one-time Editor of Sunday New Nigerian Newspapers (NNN), Alhaji Aliu Babatunde Ahmed, popularly known as A. B. Ahmed, has died in Ilorin at the age of 74.
He died at his Idi Ayan residence, Oke Apomu in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital in the early hours of Tuesday after a brief illness.
A B Ahmed first became famous in the 1970s when he was a journalist, columnist and prolific writer at the New Nigerian Newspapers in Kaduna. In addition to prolific reporting and editorial writing, he also maintained a very influential weekly column on politics in the run-up to the Second Republic and also during the early years of that Republic.
He edited other newspaper titles in Kaduna and Abuja during his long career.
In 2002 the late Senate President Chuba Okadigbo appointed him a Director of Information in his office and he was there for about two years.
Ahmed was a member of the Daily Trust Editorial Board in Abuja for many years until he left for his hometown, Ilorin about eight years ago.
A statement by his son Aminu Ahmed said the fidda’u prayer in honour of his soul would take place on Friday at his family house in Ilorin at 10 o’clock. It will be presided over by Islamic scholars. He is survived by a wife, children and relations.
INEC National Commissioner, Mohammed Haruna, said “AB Ahmed was a brilliant Economist, Editor and Columnist. As Editor of Sunday New Nigerian during my time as Managing Director in the late eighties, he almost single handedly wrote the anonymous popular weekly Maigani column which matched the famous and older Candido column in wit, humour & insight. Above all as Editor and journalist AB, as we all called him, was simply incorruptible. May Allah give his transgressions and grant him Aljanna firdaus. Amen.”
Veteran journalist and former editor of the New Nigerian, Dan Agbese, said this of AB Ahmed, “Mohammed Kudu Haruna (an INEC commissioner) was the bearer of the bad news. I did not quite get the message he sent to me with an Islamic prayer for the dead. I suspected he was reporting the death of someone both of us knew. When my colleague Yakubu Mohammed peeled off the mystery from the garbled message, I was taken aback to no end that he was reporting the death of A.B. Ahmed.
“I have actually forgotten the last time Ahmed and I spoke on phone but I remember he asked me to send him phone recharge cards. It turned out to be the last act of kindness I did for him. I never saw or heard from him again. I will always cherish the times we had together. I worked with A.B., as he was popularly called, in the New Nigerian when I edited the newspaper in the early eighties. He struck me at our first meeting as a very jolly good fellow.
“And he was. A.B. was a very pleasant man. He did not just laugh. He wore his laughter on his lips… A.B. did not strike me as a serious man at our first meeting. I soon found out I was wrong about him. His casualness and jollity were his way of life. It took nothing away from his intelligence or his sense of duty. He had a pleasant way with words. He was a good writer. He wrote stories on the economy without dressing them up with economic jargons. But truth be told, he was largely indifferent to his talent as if it was nothing special.
“I was happy to see him move up the ladder at the New Nigerian Newspapers Limited as editor of Sunday New Nigerian some years later. We will all miss him. I commiserate with his family...”
Bukar Zarma, another former New Nigerian veteran, described A. B. Ahmed as a person who was passionate about Nigeria and stood for what is right. “We’ll miss him a lot,” Bukar Zarma said.