Mukhtar Rufai
Yes, that was where I was truly ‘made’; I only came to OAU to ‘play’.
There was hardly a thesaurus I didn’t go through in the Kashim Ibrahim Library.
Talk of encyclopedias, Britannica, Americana, and the rest, I was there.
The newspaper section gave us access to dailies, weeklies, journals, periodicals, and magazines. Time, The Economist, etc., were always at hand.
I explored writers’ guides, readers’ guides, and books on how great authors wrote. Then there were grammar texts, books on common mistakes, and even the warnings against clichés.
We were allowed to make photocopies, as long as you had the money, at very affordable rates. I would come home with several borrowed books at the end of the session. I once came home with one Olabisi Onabanjo's book. I dey read nonsense walai.
We also had access to the audiovisual section, where we could watch documentaries and historical programs.
Then there was the Iya Abubakar Computer Centre, where I trained on MS Word and other computer programs.
As for class activities, they were the least of my concerns. In our Newspaper Design class, a Part Three course, I became something of a hero. Mr. Shittu, our lecturer, once asked if I was already working with a newspaper house.
I was excellent in news writing, and equally good in features and articles.
I still remember the principles behind writing powerful, country-shaking editorials.
When I announced I was leaving in 2002, many lecturers approached me to stay back. Mr. Mahmood, trained in Maiduguri, told me he was grooming me for the department and believed I would one day make a good professor.
Mr. Eze Cosmos, from the East, was deeply fond of me.
So was Dr. Salau, my mentor and admirer
Even Ms. Ladi, despite a disagreement we once had, admired my work. I recall a news report I wrote that she read aloud in class, serenading me with her praise. She said: “Ustadh” (they all called me Ustadh), “you wrote well o.”
My dream has always been to write for Islam—that was the reason we set up SimplySalafiyyah.com. I may not have achieved much in life, but I hope that little effort on the website earns me reward from Allah.
The Islamic section of the ABU library was also my haven.
Fatḥ al-Bārī, ʿUmdat al-Qārī, al-Mughnī by Ibn Qudāmah—all of them dey there.
ABU Zaria was my school, but OAU Ile-Ife was my Salafi point (you would recall, na). I read tira at OAU so much that some brothers wondered whether I came to study Law, or Arabic and Islamic Studies.
I remain grateful to Allah for both schools, and to all my teachers at one point or the other.
