DAPO OLORUNYOMI
One sunny afternoon in 1953, first year pupils of Katsina Middle School were sweating it out in an arithmetic class. Mallam Baraya Gombe, the teacher who doubles as headmaster, was prowling the narrow passage between the blackboard and the class, his hulky frame casting a frightening shadow on the class.
One of his pupils was missing and Gombe, without prompting, knew who that could be: Leko, the truant, was at it again. Suddenly, as the teacher was trenchantly stressing his point, a tall, skinny, gangling frame burst into the class, his face plastered with a smile. Gombe was mad with rage. Who was this lousy fellow, late to class, still grinning, still naughty? He thought. He reached out for Leko, the famous hockey player, soccer centre-forward and the school’s 800- metre record holder, who had never hidden his disdain for school and delivered a horrendous slap on his face.
Muhammadu Buhari, Leko for style, in later years an army general and former Nigerian Head of State, learnt his first lesson in discipline, order and rules. This too, was probably the watershed in his life. Buhari grew up never to forget that encounter.
Born 17 December 1942 to a Fulani father, Ardo Adamu (who died when he was four), and a Hausa mother Hajia Zulaihatu Musa, in Daura (present day Katsina State), he grew under the care of a firm uncle and a strict Islamic ethics of frugality and Spartan sensibility.
With this background of strict, austere propositions, Buhari , when it became necessary to choose a career, saw the army as a logical platform “I was impressed with the discipline in the military,” he told TheNews in a rare interview at his Haliru Dantoro Street home in Kaduna.