AJKG Imam: Memories of a great pioneer
AJKG Imam, better known as Malam Kalli, who died recently at an age a shade short of ninety years, was a pioneer in many ways. He was the first in the north to be sent to the United Kingdom for a full degree course in forestry. While there, he attended the Aberdeen University in Scotland, and graduated with BSc in forestry in the fifties. Due to this lofty attainment, it was inevitable that he would eventually take over from the last Bature, to become the first Chief Conservator of Forests in Kaduna then headquarters of Northern Nigerian Government. Earlier he had also served as the second substantive indigenous Principal of the School of Forestry in Jos, after Musa Daggash, the first to hold the post.
It was a time when citizens of Borno, due probably to a good start in the field of education seemed to have monopolized the top positions in the Northern Nigerian Government. They had a hold particularly on the agricultural field with the likes of Dr. Mohamet Lawan, the doyen of them all, who along with Dr. Bukar Shuaib, were among the first five indigenous permanent secretaries to be appointed by the Sardauna of Sokoto.
There was also Dr. Musa Goni, the second northerner to Dr. Shuaib to hold a veterinary science degree and the first indigenous head of the National Veterinary Research Institute, Vom. Musa Daggash has already been mentioned as a veteran forester, who went to even greater heights at the Federal level as Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defense, in the mid-sixties.
It was in Kaduna that Mal Kalli honed the fine administrative skills that will come to bear so productively on the agricultural and natural resources of the north-eastern region of the country. In 1967 when Nigeria’s four regions were broken into 12 states, Mal Kalli, was in the first group of seasoned technocrats sent from Kaduna to assist the very young Military Governor, Musa Usman to midwife the newly created North-eastern state (now comprising Gombe, Bauchi, Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Taraba states}.
Mal Kalli was a key member of the team as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Agriculture. Throughout the North-eastern state years, Mal Kalli’s deft hands were manifest in many agricultural projects that were undertaken by the government. By the time Borno State was created in 1976 with Muhammadu Buhari as the first military governor, Mal Kalli had attained a senior status among the Permanent Secretaries and could be moved to other ministries. He was in the Ministries of Health and Finance. He was preparing to retire in 1978, having attained the age of fifty, when he was named General Manager, Chad Basin Development Authority, then, the largest irrigation project contemplated by the Federal Government. The appointment at that time was a culmination of the soaring profile of Mal Kalli.
Mal Kalli came to Chad Basin Development Authority at a crucial time of its development. The authority created, along with Sokoto-Rima in 1973, had by the end of 1977 under the tutelage of the first General Manager, Musa Daggash, established most of the infrastructure needed for the irrigation project to come to fruition. Mal Kalli came to the Authority with a marching order from the Federal Government to immediately prepare phase 1 of the South Chad irrigation Project for commissioning before the exit date of the Military administration in October 1979.
I was then a young administrative officer in the Authority and could see from my ringside view the enormous problems confronting Mal Kalli. There was no doubt that plenty of work has been done to advance the project. By mid1978, the fields had been cleared, the main canals to bring the water from Lake Chad had been built, the 32 megawatts power station was almost ready, and orders for the pumps and ancillary parts for the Logomani pumping station has been made.
However, there were pieces and bits that needed to be tidied up for the project to be ready for commissioning. The civil works at the main pumping station at Logomani had been delayed and will not be ready for at least a year. The power station was yet to be handed over by the contractors. The road from Maiduguri through Dikwa with a detour to the project headquarters at New Marte and onwards to Logomani, Ala, Kirenowa was still under construction, and this is the same road the Head of State, General Obasanjo would be plying. To make matters worse, there was restiveness among the beneficiary community and the farmers on issues of compensation and other demands.
It required a lot of wizardry of sorts in project management to surmount these problems and fortunately Mal Kalli had abundance of it. He was the archetypal, consummate civil servant, who is totally unflappable in the face of crisis. There was no time to waste and he set about it with unusual gusto.
Mal Kalli’s careful husbandry paid off handsomely. Soon the Authority was ready to welcome the Head of State. I was the secretary of the launching committee and I remember accompanying Mal Kalli and the chairman of the Board, Dr. Mohamet Lawan in early 1979 to a point near Logomani to watch the waters of Lake Chad gushing into the canal for the first time. It was a moment of triumph that went along with a lot of cackling noises and backslappings among staff who trooped along to witness the event.
To crown
Mal Kalli’s efforts with success the Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo flew from Lagos on 5th July 1979 with a stopover in Kuru, near Jos, to commission the newly established National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS} and thereafter proceeded to Maiduguri onto New Marte to inaugurate the South Chad Irrigation Project in a very grand ceremony. For these and many other services a grateful nation amply rewarded Mal Kalli thereafter with the national honor of OON.
When his term as General Manager ended in 1982, he was immediately taken back by Borno State Government to be the first to head BOADAP, the accelerated development area programme, initiated by the government as a precursor to the statewide agricultural development project to be financed by the World Bank. He spent 4 to 5 years laying the administrative foundations for the project up to the World Bank approval for the loan.
He was warming up to be engaged in the nitty-gritties of running the agricultural development project when he was suddenly named a commissioner in the National Electoral Commission. This appointment came amidst plenty of hullabaloo. Someone had earlier been officially announced as the commissioner, but this announcement was widely rejected by a large number of notables in the state. The Military Governor was overnight inundated with written petitions and phone calls that precipitated him to inform Lagos the very next morning that a replacement would be made. A headhunt was immediately carried out and Mal Kalli’s name came up as a public servant with a pedigree of unimpeachable character who would not suffer the kind of rejection the previous candidate encountered. I was, then, an aide to the Military Governor, and was sent to convince Mal Kalli to accept the appointment. It was a tough task knowing fully well that Mal Kalli’s heart lay with agriculture. To leave this known perch for the minefield of the electoral commission would amount to committing a professional hara-kiri. However, after rounds of consultations, he became convinced, and to his eternal credit went on to serve the nation with distinction in Enugu and later Ibadan during those very trying election times of the late eighties and early nineties.
Mal Kalli was still in Ibadan in 1994 when he was appointed a commissioner in the Federal Civil Service Commission. This time he didn’t need any prompting to proceed to Abuja to take his seat in the commission. He found the commission a convivial place to operate among colleagues of similar background and aspirations of putting the civil service on a sound footing. The chairman of the commission was Abubakar Umar, a colleague permanent secretary. When Abubakar Umar died in office, he was replaced by Gaji Galtimari another colleague permanent secretary with whom they all served in Musa Usman’s government. Mal Kalli finally retired in 2OO1.
Alkali Kalli Jafar Goni (AJKG} Imam, was born in 1928 at Benisheik, where his father was on posting as a staff of Borno native authority. He came from the illustrious Imam family - a family that was prodigious in producing jurists and Imams for the courts of many Shehus of Borno right from the days when Borno capital was at Kukawa. He was raised in his uncle’s house who was the headmaster of the only Borno middle school in Maiduguri. Inevitably, he was one of the lucky few to be educated. He went to Kaduna College in the set of 1943. His surviving classmates include Justice Mamman Nasir and Maitama Sule, Dan Masanin Kano. He passed out of Kaduna College in 1947 with a Cambridge School Certificate. This enabled him to get into Aberdeen University, Scotland, to graduate with a degree in Forestry.
Mal Kalli died peacefully in his sleep, in the evening of 23rd September 2O14. He is survived by his wife Hamra Imam, four children and many grandchildren as well as an elder brother, Dr. Musa Goni, and a younger sister, Hajja Hauwa.
Dori wrote in from Abuja