Abubakar Gimba
BIOGRAPHY
Abubakar Gimba was born on March 10,
1952 in Nasarawa, Lapai Local Government of Niger State, Nigeria. Between 1959
and 1962 he was at Gulu Junior Primary School and later at Lapai Senior Primary
School. Between 1965 and 1969 Gimba was at Government College Keffi, Nasarawa
State where he obtained his West African School Certificate. He then enrolled
into the School of Basic Studies, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria from 1970 to
1971. Later he secured admission to read a Bachelor of Science degree in
Economics in the same institution between 1971 and 1974.
After graduation Gimba observed his
one-year mandatory NYSC program me at Akai Ubium in the then Southern Eastern
State. Gimba then joined the North West State civil service in August 1975 as
Planning Officer in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and in
April, 1976 he was transferred to the newly created Niger State.
1976/7 saw Gimba at America studying
at the University of Cincinnati for a Master of Arts degree in Economics. He
returned to serve as Economic Planner in the service of Niger State Government
and was subsequently appointed Permanent Secretary of the newly created
Ministry of Economic Development.
Between September and December, 1982
Gimba attended the University of Bradford’s Project Planning Course. He was a
member, Board of Trustees of Nigerian Books Foundation, and on November 22,
1997 he was elected National President of Association of Nigerian Authors.
Gimba writes in virtually all genres
of literature. But he was most concerned about arresting the ebbing-away
morality of the society. Perhaps that is why he wrote many ‘letters’ —Letter to
the Muslim Fundamentalist (2004), Letter to My Children (2006), Letter to the
Unborn Child (2008) etc.
In my final year in school, my
project supervisor rejected all the topics I proposed. Exhausted I threw up my
hands and asked her to select for me whatever topic she sees fit. She refused
but invited me to her house where she handed me two books by Abubakar Gimba: Footprints
and Letter to the Unborn Child.
‘Read them’ she said, ‘and see what
you can make out of them.’
After reading the books—and
ingesting the disturbing but truthful messages he kept hollering at us, the
society— I was in my supervisor’s office the next Monday with a project topic:
The Writer As a Moral Compass of the Society: Examining Abubakar Gimba’s Letter
to the Unborn Child.
That was who Abubakar Gimba was; a moral compass of a straying
society reminding the society the difference between wrong and right. He won’t
let us rest as he highlighted the social mishaps that bedevil the society. But
he didn’t stop there, he went further to show us the solutions to these
problems. Abubakar Gimba’s commitment to moral uprightness in the society
cannot be overemphasized. He was a writer with a clear purpose. In his own
words:
I set out to be a novelist with a
cause. With a mission. Mine was a literary adventure in advocacy. To get the
society in which I live to be a better place for our generation…
My business as a writer is to try in
my little ways to remove the moles in the eyes of Nigerians so that they can
see the so many possibilities that would make our nation grow… Basically, I
write about social issues… things I see around me. And why I do this is to draw
attention to issues and let people judge. You try to mould opinion in a
particular direction. But I must also say that a writer must try to convince
people not to incite.
Professor Vicky Sylvester of the
Department of English, University of Abuja said this of Abubakar Gimba:
He (Abubakar Gimba) would want the
people and state to change for the better especially for the sake of the
Nigerian child whom he believes has no optional country to Nigeria and must
necessarily move away from the conduct that bedevils the nation. He thus adopts
the epistle in which he is a passionate narrator capturing the devastating
reality, perception, and delusion of the compromised situation of Nigeria. He
adopts an ethical stand point evaluating conduct of Nigeria and the country’s
down trend since independence.
After examining all he has achieved
one may be tempted to water down the loss by using the cliche, ‘Oh I am not
going to mourn him. I am going to celebrate him for a life so well lived.’ But,
however one tries to, no one can talk away this loss, this painful tragedy that
befallen us in the form of the death of this nectar of knowledge. It is just as
an African proverb aptly captures it: when an old man dies, a library burns to
the ground. Adieu!
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