This history of democratic politics and oppressive military rule initially affected how sections of the radical-left related to the democracy project-prioritising popular struggles and people power and maintaining a sceptical stance on liberal democracy,
period, creating a transnational Nigeria Research Network of scholars to study Muslim identities, Islamic movements and Muslim-Christian relations, with funding, after competitive bidding, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands. This culminated in two important edited volumes: Sects and Social Disorder: Muslim Identities & Conflict in Northern Nigeria, published in 2014; and Creed and Grievance: Muslim-Christian Relations & Conflict Resolution in Northern Nigeria, to be published in January 2018. Sects and Social Disorder throws light on intra-Muslim divisions, conflicts over interpretations of Islamic texts, and violence in pursuit of the «right Islamic path»; and concludes that the violence between Muslims and Christians cannot be resolved without tackling the divisions within the Islamic sects. One prominent US academic with profound knowledge of Northern Nigeria described it as «the unrivalled original source, easily the canonical collection».
Raufu was a versatile and consummate scholar, with diverse professional interests. In this tribute, I have tried to read him through the lense of four key themes. But the totality of his work transcended these themes. He co-published in 2008, Gulliver’s Troubles: Nigeria’s Foreign Policy After the Cold War; and edited Conflicts and Security in West Africa in 2013. He served on the Boards of journals, newspapers, and research centres, including the Review of African Political Economy in Sheffield, Premium Times in Abuja, and the Development Research and Projects Centre in Kano. He, was a consultant to international policy think tanks; and participated actively in the work of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa in Dakar, serving as Director of the 2002 Governance Institute and as a member of the Scientific Committee between 2009 and 2011.
I will end this tribute by sharing some personal experiences I had with him in Nigeria. Raufu was the first person I bonded with when I first arrived at ABU as a young lecturer in 1980. He booked me into Kongo Conference Hotel at the Kongo area of Zaria, and we had a late lunch at Shagalinku restaurant, which specialised in jolof rice and lamb pepper soup, and became my favourite restaurant in Zaria. His favourite eatery was Mama Kudi, which we often visited at Sabon gari, to eat pounded yam, eba and amala with egusi soup and okra or draw soup (I quickly learned that draw soup in Yoruba is obe-yoh, which Raufu always ordered). Another favourite eating place where went in the evenings was an Igbo-owned bar along the Samaru road to eat isi ewu (goat head peper soup).
Raufu invited me to spend a few days with him in Ilorin, in 1985, where I had the opportunity to meet his mother (deceased), father (now in his nineties) and members of his extended family. He taught me how to use the overcrowded molue buses in Lagos and to navigate my way around the city during a threeweek visit we both made in 1985 to collect documents and conduct interviews with officials in various government agencies and industrial firms for a project on the politics of economic crisis and structural adjustment. During the Nigerian Political Science Association’s annual conference at the University of Benin in 1984, he nominated me for the post of Vice President-a position which improved my interactions with colleagues in Nigeria’s numerous campuses. It was at this conference that I presented the paper «Overcoming Some Basic Misconceptions of the Nigerian Economic Crisis», which later generated the Usman-Bangura debate on the Nigerian economic crisis.
Raufu was a very devoted family man. He is survived by his lovely wife, Kate Meagher, also with a DPhil from Oxford (where they both met) and an Associate Professor of development studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science; and two children, Asma’u and Seyi-both graduates of Oxford.
A great friend has passed on. May he rest in peace.