Dr Safiya Mohammed, 66, served as Permanent Secretary in various ministries including the Federal Ministries of Information and National Orientation, and Environment before her retirement in 2009. The two-time Bauchi South Senatorial District aspirant, speaks to ARMSTRONG BAKAM about her days in the civil service, among others issues
You were born in Bunga in the Dass Local Government Area of Bauchi State, and attended Government Girls Secondary School, Bauchi. Were you a quiet or troublesome child in school?
Frankly, I wouldn’t say I was a quiet person, because I grew up in my community as a tomboy. I was my dad’s only child. In our community in those days, children looked after their families’ livestock together – goats, sheep and so on. We worked as a group and I never allowed any boy to bully me. I fought along with them as a child and didn’t see myself as a girl.
Can you share some of your fondest childhood memories?
As a young child, it was when I left junior primary school to go to a boarding school, which was a senior primary school, that I saw electricity for the first time. That was the first time I saw pipe-borne water. That was when I was brought to Bauchi. I have fond memories of the times I spent with my father. As an only child in the family, I was always by his side; we used to go to his farm together. I had a little hoe I also used and I was the one looking after the livestock at home during the holidays. During school time, once I returned from school, I would follow my father to look after some animals. My father was the Village Head, so I was treated like a little princess and he used to put me on the horse with him whenever he had to travel some distance on horseback. I cherish those moments so much.
What were your aspirations at that time?
I didn’t know what it was to have aspirations but somehow, at age five, I used to see the older boys and girls from my village going to the school in the next village, and I started following them to school even though I hadn’t been enrolled yet. When I heard that they were going to enrol new pupils, so I went with them but I was turned down; they said I was too young and was told to come back the following year.
I remember that first day I was to resume at school, I couldn’t sleep because of the excitement. And because it was a full moon night, when I heard cocks crowing, I thought dawn had broken so I went to the houses of older people already in school then and knocked on their doors so that we could go to school together. Somehow, instead of them to say no, they came out and we went to school when it was still dark. There was a flat rock in front of the school, we laid down there for more than two hours until daybreak.
When it turned out that I would not be enrolled because I was too young, I refused to stay at home, and I kept on going to school day after day. Some days, I would be threatened with the cane that if I came again, they would use it on me, but I never stopped. I would stay at a distance and listen to what was being taught. I did that for three months and in the fourth month, I was enrolled because of an incident. We didn’t even have a classroom then, pupils were taught under a tree.
The teacher was teaching consonants and vowels, how you could make a sound using a consonant and a vowel in Hausa. Although, I was not part of the class, I was following it. The teacher wrote “sa”, “ma”, and “ri”, and asked who could put the words together and pronounce the word but nobody in the class could say it. I raised my hand where I was and the teacher ignored me at first since I was not part of the class. He asked the class again but nobody could say what that was, then he asked me and I said, “Samari” in Hausa, meaning “young man”. “Wow”, the teacher exclaimed, and said, “Clap for her!” He took me to the front of the class and gave me a present – a big magazine. I could hardly pick it up. I got so many presents; that was how I started primary one (laughs).
Did you have any hobbies then?
I did everything every child was doing, I could swim very well. My father had to teach me because we had to cross a river to get to school, so I was a very good swimmer. I could cultivate and I looked after livestock. I played in the village square and did traditional dances. I used to be a great dancer and singer.
How did you become a teacher later?
After my primary education, I went to Women Teachers College, Kano, where I spent five years. As I was going to secondary school, my husband was going to university. We were proceeding with our education at our different levels. It was when I finished at WTC, Kano in 1971 that I was actually married. Immediately, I was taken to my husband’s house and I graduated as a Grade II teacher. I started teaching at Dass Central Primary School while my husband was in medical school. In 1972, we were blessed with our first child; it was during that time that I joined my husband who had finished at medical school and started working as a medical doctor in Zaria (in Kaduna State).
While I was with my husband in Zaria, I used the opportunity to further my education. I went to School for Basic Studies and from there, I proceeded to earn my first degree and graduated in 1978. I read English as my special subject and taught for a while in some secondary schools around Zaria. My husband went to Bauchi for a political appointment and I went with him. I taught at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi but before then, I was a Vice Principal at the Government Girls Secondary School, Bauchi. At ATBU, I taught English at the Department of Social Sciences. Together, we later went back to Zaria and I earned my master’s degree in 1980 and was employed by Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. While I was lecturing, I was doing a postgraduate course.
Punch
