Mallam Salihu M. Bappa: He was loyal to community, friendship

By Denja Abdullahi

A COLOSSUS of pristine human relationship and interconnectedness is gone. He is (was) Mallam Salihu Mohammed Bappa, who until his demise yesterday (Wednesday) evening , was of the Department of Theatre and Performing Arts, ABU Zaria.

Mallam Bappa as he was fondly called by all was also a former senior colleague at the Department of Performing Arts, National Council for Arts and Culture. The sheer humanity of Mallam Bappa was bewildering. He gave and gave of himself to whatever he was part of and to whoever crossed his path until nothing was left.

Before the effluence and affluence of today in the field, whenever you looked up North of Nigeria for serious theatre scholarship and practice, it was Mallam Bappa you would see.

As an old member of a conclave of writers from all over Nigeria that I was once fortunate to head as President (2015-2019), Mallam Bappa epitomised the spirit of creative and intellectual unity that the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) has built in this country.

Apart from his eternally friendly and avuncular presence at the many activities of the Association over the years and his other stately service to the literary community, Bappa served for many years as a judge in the prestigious literary prizes panel (drama category) of the Association. He was always there giving me tips, uncanny advice, support and encouragement throughout the period of my active service to the Association.

Beyond ANA, Bappa had been a long time friend and senior colleague in the same department of the government culture organisation where I presently work. I came in there from the academia at the crest of the moment he left back to ABU where he came from. I met echoes of his creativity, rigours of theatre scholarship and practice and legendary tales of his boundless humanity and energy.

It was Bappa that facilitated the first full production of my play “Death and the King’s Grey Hair” at ABU Drama Village in 2015 where I encountered a pleasantly feminist re-interpretation of the play in performance (with the guidance of the present HOD, Dr Rasheedah Abu Liman ). I honoured that production with my presence because of Bappa and his enthusiastic students and had my first close experience with that famous theatre enclave.

BAPPA never forgot his friends, colleagues and acquaintances. He remembered them when they had even forgotten themselves. He was loyal to the sense of community, comradeship and partnership. He was quick to react with sheer sincere joy at any good news about persons he knew and exhibited it by sharing such news to others. He was also there to extend sincere solidarity whenever the spirit of anyone went low with any setback.

As I write I still have many of Mallam Bappa’s unsolicited text messages of identification, support and encouragement on my phone. They are hardly deletable as they are words you go back to in reflecting about how a human being could show so much care about others around him.

Mallam Bappa was a rare soul and may Allah grant him peace and a place in His eternal garden of delights reserved for the faithfuls (Amin).

• Abdullahi, writer, culture administrator, and former President of Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, writes from Abuja.