Readers’ Comments on Prof Falaki

Readers’ Comments on Prof Falaki

My dear readers, it is another circle of readers’ comments when you are allowed to express your opinions on issues, which appeared in this Column. However, I am dedicating the entire Column to the comments of my readers on the recent tribute I wrote on my mentor, teacher and motivator, Prof. Ahmad Mustafa Falaki. The tribute was published on 9^th November 2018, titled  “Professor Ahmad Mustafa Falaki: The Fall of The Farmers’ General”. The article enjoyed unprecedented readership; there were uncountable number of comments and more than 100 individuals’ “shares” of the article, which was posted on my Facebook, Instagram and circulated among WhatsApp individuals and groups. This Column cannot publish all the comments but selected only three comments from few among the beneficiaries of Falaki’s benevolence, who had privilege of closed working relationship with him at one time or the other. Their comments reflect the comments of the generality of people and provided additional information on the life and times of Prof. Falaki.

Re: Professor Ahmad Mustafa Falaki: The Fall of The Farmers’ General

Late Prof Ahmad Falaki’s historical background in terms of his journey into SG 2000 dated back as 1993. That was when the country director, then Dr Balancia contacted Falaki, after Falaki was appointed by the ditrector of IAR to replace Prof Irenle as the technical desk man for Sasakawa in Nigeria.  In 1998, the program was about to close for certain reasons, there was a transistion program before the closure, Dr. Norman Boulong approved Falaki’s appointment as the National Coordinator different from the counry director who was then transferred out of the country to Malawi. So falaki took over the management of SG 2000 from 1998 to 2008. It was during this period we received Norman Boulong twice. He came in and attended the national maize workshop in 2000 and Maize field day in saminaka in 2001 and you can clearly see the level of interaction between Norman Boulough and Falaki. It is because of the respect Norman Boulong had for Falaki that made him to come back to Nigeria, one year after his first visit. Falaki was very prudent and tactical in his approach to things and very simple mind. He took over the use of the management training plot (MTP), which was the extension tool for demonstration of good agronomic practices for production on the farmers’ plot. MTP replaced  SPART (Small Plot Adoptive Research Technique) concept and made a national tool, which was nationally  being used even where SG 2000 was not operating, MTP became the tool of extension service delivery. At that time, Norman Boulong was the president SASAKAWA Association and Chairman of the Board, This is the realtioship between Norman Boulong and Falaki. On leadership of SG 2000, he was able to bring about competent extension Staff in SG 2000, build their capacity and enhanced their skill and knowledge and then push them out to carry out specific task with outstanding performance in delivering extension service to small holder farmers. By the time, Falaki handed over the leadership of SG 2000 to me, Falaki has improved the maize yield of small holder farmer from 1.5 to 4.5 tons per hectare, wheat value chain technology was another giant achievement of Falaki in this country. Improved varieties were introduced and improved practices from small research plot to proximate analysis were all promoted through the effort of Falaki as the country coordinator of SG 2000. On his relationship with people, Falaki had touched lives thousands of people positively, Your article has clearly brought out this human angle where Falaki played prominent roles in shaping and making people. What you wrote was actually a true testimony of Falaki’s benevolent gesture to people as a gentleman. He never showed resistance to support people from all walks of life achieve their desired goals in their careers. I have so many instances to show this, there was a time; Falaki and I were leaving the Senate Building of ABU, we met a young man weeping, we didn’t know him, Falaki asked him why he was weeping, the young man said, he was given admission and he came for registration and the admission letter was consficated because the young man didn’t come with “letter of indigene” which shows your state of origin in Nigeria, Falaki checked the academic qualification of the young man, his o-level was excellent, Falaki became furious and went back to the academic secretary and directed that the young man should be registered and latter be requested to bring the “letter of indigene” and that was how the young man was registered. Another example is my case, when I finished my school of Basic Studies, Falaki was the admission officer of the faculty of Agriculture, I didn’t know him from Adams, I met him coincidently, I told him I applied to read agriculture and he requested for my credentials, he checked and promptly assured me of admission. When the admission was released my name was number one on the list. He took us several courses at my undergraduate level; he automatically became my role model, he made me to be a competent and resilience researcher in the area of irrigation agronomy. He was always up and doing, calling his staff, have you done this, that, etc to make sure goals are achieved within the targeted period. He had touched the lives of farmers from Maiduguri down to Calabar, even though, SG 2000 activities were limited to the northern parts of Nigeria but you can find his name up to Cross river state,   he organized national training in several towns in the south aimed at increasing SG 2000 intervention to cover the nation, even though not officially operating there. There was a case of a student who came for financial help to me and I told him, I was not in position to help and he should approach Falaki but the student was resisting because of wrong perception on him, but Falaki just emerged at that moment, we eventually told Falaki the problem, there and then the problem was solved beyond the student’s imagination. After the student graduated, he had no means of travelling back to the south and Falaki made possible for him to return back comfortably.

Technically speaking, he won the confidence of Norman Boulough who described Falaki as a gentleman, simple man, active and goal getter. This is because within a period of three years (2000 to 2003), Falaki was able to convice Federal government to accept extension model formulated by SG 2000 and made a national model.  Currently, that is what SG 2000 is doing, formulating a model, which makes smallholder farmer increase productivity and production per unit area of farm land. Falaki continued to serve SG 2000 as the national adviser even after he completed his tenure as the National Coordinator in 2008. This was the position he was holding up to the time of his death.

In addition to serving SG 2000, he also served Leventis Foundation as Chairman of the technical Board of the foundation. The Board is responsible for planning of technical training of young men and women in Nigeria. He served the foundation with all the resources at his disposal, first as national coordinator of SG 2000, then as Assistant Director, IAR and then finally as Executive Director of IAR. He linked the colleges with high level personalities in government for support to the activities of the colleges. The colleges churned out graduates with vocational skills in different agricultural trades and starter – packs, which enabled them to entrepreneurs with many of them becoming employers of labour in the country. One amazing thing about Falaki, each time, a problem arose, Falaki had a magic wand on who to contact, how to address it and what to do.  He was able to bring a lot of innovations to the colleges.    He was instrumental to the establishments of all the six colleges under the foundation. He was not taking salary or allowances from the colleges but he never missed their graduations, meetings and other functions.     

With all sense of humility, the tribute to Malam, as I addressed late Prof. Ahmad Mustapha Falaki during his lifetime as a mark of respect,  recognition and appreciation, published in the Tuesday, 11th September, 2018, edition of Leadership Newspaper, came a right time and written by the right person-Prof. Mohammed Khalid Othman, the Executive Director, National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services, Ahmadu Bello University (NAERLS), Zaria. Let me state that the duo (Malam and the Prof. Othman), for me, were both my mentors and inspirational leaders. They both possess shared principle of humane compassion as well as exhibition of qualities of visionary leaders. Coincidently, I served as the Institute Secretary, Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR), Ahmadu Bello University, Samaru-Zaria, with Malam until his sad rest in peace, and, currently, serving as the Institute Secretary, NAERLS, with Prof. Othman as the Executive Director.

 Prof. Othman write-up can only be described as scratch on an unhealed wound, obviously the sudden and untimely gruesome murder of Malam in cold blood. Reading through the article made my heart to bleed profusely. However, I found solace and comfort when Prof. Othman summed up the accomplishments of Malam as" consummate agricultural extension specialist per excellence and farmers; general".  Prof. Othman described, and I wholeheartedly shared the description of Malam as" embodiment of truth, hard work and perseverance, with limitless passion to assist, fight for common man and absolutely engage in youth mentorship".

 

Prof. Othman, one of the celebrated disciples of  Malam, has, using pen and paper, presented our collective tribute to the 'Farmers' General' and indeed, a Marshal in Aljannatul Fidausi. May Allah (SWT) continue to shower His Rahmah on Malam, amin!

Aliyu Sule

NAERLS,

Ahmadu Bello University,

Zaria

         I have carefully and thoroughly gone through your article on our elder brother and mentor 'Alhaji Falaki'. Prof. Falaki was an epitome of humility, discipline and generosity. More often than not, he denied himself for the benefit of others. He sacrificed his time and energy to secure admissions and appointments for people regardless of religion, tribe or other primordial factors. I am good example of his benevolence. I was doing my national service at Agenebode in the former Bendel state and suddenly I received a mail through the post office, in which he directed that I should send my application for employment to Ahmadu Bello University through him. I was surprised on how he got my address as I was not close to him as a student. I was shocked because as a shy student I couldn't imagine that Prof. Falaki ever notice my presence in a class of over 100 undergraduates. Moreover, I am from Gongola state and not Kano where Prof. Falaki came from. Unknown to me and many of our classmates, Falaki was hunting for talents that will replace his generation. A visionary leader knows that he will not be in a place forever, so he scouts for replacements. Out of about six of us in our class he scouted from different states of the federation, we are today first class Professors. Indeed a good succession to their generation. I have not seen anywhere in the article where you mentioned his tenure of as Executive Director of IAR, a premier agricultural research institute in Nigeria. As a Director of IAR, Prof. Falaki's open door policy and experience in international project administration made him to attract numerous third party projects to the institute. Furthermore, he created enabling environment to research that made many researchers to rediscover themselves and put in their best to research and innovation. This significantly improved the research output of the institute. He really set the institute on solid research foot. I am his direct successor and at first the shoe was too big, but God's willing, we have adjusted. I am eternally grateful for his impact on me. I have learnt a lot of wisdom from him. May his soul rest in Aljanna Firdaus, Amin. Prof. I. U. Abubakar.


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