Balarabe Maikaba: Passage of a munificent scholar

Since the announcement of Professor Balarabe Maikaba’s death, the cry of grief that is coming from his family, community members, colleagues and his students is that the man who was always willing to assist others has returned to his creator. He died on Sunday, April 26, 2020.

The 42-year history of the of Department of Mass Communication of the Bayero University Kano (BUK) will be incomplete without stating the role Maikaba played in uplifting the it to its present status.

He was admitted into the department in 1988 and graduated in September, 1991. Being the best graduating student that year, he was employed as a Graduate Assistant (GA) and rose through the ranks to become a professor in October, 2018.

No pain, no gain was what Prof. Maikaba’s life exemplified at the department, and by extension, in the university.

He was at different times a coordinator, departmental examination officer, sub-dean, chairman of a number of technical and professional committees and Head of Department (HOD) between 2010 and 2016, a period when 16 PhD candidates were able to graduate from the department.

He was also the brain behind moving the department from the Faculty of Arts to the Faculty of Social Sciences; where it rightly belongs, and the department was upgraded to a faculty during his headship.

My teacher and senior colleague at the department told me a story about Prof. Maikaba’s encounter with a co-traveller on a flight. The man was bothered because he believed it would not be a piece of cake for him to get a passport at the Gwagwalada Passport Office in Abuja on that very day they were travelling. Having realised that the man sitting next to him really needed to be assisted, Prof. Maikaba calmly brought out his complimentary card and wrote a note at the back, handed it to the man and asked him to take the card to the person in charge at the passport office. The man reluctantly collected the card, and on getting to the passport office, he did as he was requested. The passport officer assembled all necessary staff and within a very short time, a new passport was ready for the man. The person in charge of the office then was Mustapha Maikaba, an elder brother of Prof. Maikaba. Mustapha who retired as a Comptroller of Immigration, died on March 21, 2020, 36 days after his younger brother, Prof Maikaba, followed him.

For people living around Kuntau area in Kano Metropolis, the late Prof. Maikaba was a community leader, mobilisee and above all, a responsible neighbour.

Satisfied with his commitment towards development of the area, the community named a street after him while he was alive.

My relationship with Prof. Maikaba lasted for nearly two decades. Towards the end of 2003, I was assigned to the then Malam Maikaba as project supervisor; we started working well and ended as friends. After our graduation, Maikaba said four of us who graduated with Second Class Upper Honours made him proud among his colleagues, as the number was one-third of those who graduated with upper degree that year in the department.

Thereafter, my relationship with Maikaba became cordial and he provided me all necessary assistance to ensure that I succeeded in the academia.

May Almighty Allah forgive him, overlook his shortcomings and give him the best of His Jannah. Ameen!

G.S. Nababa is with Department of Mass Communication, Bayero University Kano (BUK).