HUMBLE IN LIFE; GENTLE IN DEATH: A TRIBUTE IN HONOUR OF PROF. ABDULGANIYU AMBALI, THE 9TH VICE-CHANCELLOR OF UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN
Like life, like death: the manner of the death of Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali appears to me as a replica of his manners in life. He was humble in life and gentle in death. However, no death is pleasurable for the dying one, as we are told by our eminent spiritual teachers. When the soul wants to part with its casing, the body, the dying person experiences an excruciating trauma which, as the teachers have noted, far surpasses the pregnant woman’s agony during child-birth. Still, for some people this inevitable torment and distress, even if momentary, may still be preceded by prolonged suffering of different types, all of which the Almighty Allah (SWT) had spared Prof. Abdul-Ganiyu Ambali. It has thus pleased Allah (SWT) to bestow mercy on him in his life as well as in his death. On the Day of Reckoning when the Balance of Justice is established, may Prof. Ambali’s good deeds far outweigh his short-comings, and may he be admitted into Al-janatul- firdaus. Aameen.
The eve of his death was a Friday and he undertook certain activities that were of immense spiritual value. Hale and hearty, he observed the Friday congregational prayer,partook in the janasah (burial rites) of a deceased one, visited close relatives and doled out generous financial gifts. As the Yoruba would say, “Oku n sunkunoku; akasolori n sunkunara won”. (“The dying are mourning the dead; the wailers are singing their own swansong). Just like our birth-dates, we all have our death-dates firmly determined and imprinted on our foreheads, but only discernible to the Almighty Allah (SWT), our Creator and Cherisher. There would be unimaginable distress, even pandemonium for some, if each of us here knew our death-dates. Did Prof. Ambali have a faint premonition of his death? Perhaps.
Something intriguing happened a couple of days before his death. One of his associates, a much younger lecturer and cleric, visited him as he often did. Prof. Ambali requested that the lecturer offer him a sermon. The theme of the young cleric’s sermon, taken from the verses of the Glorious Qur’an, is that Allah (SWT) is the True Owner of Power and Honour which he gives to whom He wills and withdraws from He wills, and He Alone is the Source and Inheritor of all Good. Prof. Ambali was briefly lost in deep reflection, as if he was unconscious, and the young man had to shout “Prof.” tapping him on the lap at the same time. Prof. Ambali came round and gently replied: “Allah Akbar” (“Allah is Great!”). With the benefit of retrospect now, Allah (SWT) Alone knows what went through Prof. Ambali’s mind a few days before his death.
My career journey intersected with that of Prof. Ambali, beginning in this Auditorium where in 2012 Prof. I. O. Oloyede handed over the mantle of leadership to him as the 9th Vice Chancellor of this great University, and he inherited me as the incumbent Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic). After the brief but colourful ceremony, Prof. Ambali proceeded to the VC’s office accompanied by the out-going Vice Chancellor and the incumbent Principal Officers. I deliberately left the Vice Chancellor’s Office last so as to be able to pledge my support and loyalty to him. I said: “VC, Sir, any time you see me behind or beside you, count meas a solid pillar of support”. He was calm, unmoved. I instantly perceived an enviable leadership trait.
Did I have a good time working with him? Yes and No. Yes, due to his essentially good-natured personality, and No because of the antics of fifth columnists, the shadow cabinet, who had their own narrow agenda. One lesson to draw from this experience is that University leadership in Nigeria is getting more political than academic. A Vice Chancellor would, therefore, need to balance appropriately academic and political leadership within the scholarly setting of the University, as did Prof. Ambali, even then he had his own unfair share of the agonising machinations of the fifth columnists. Permit me to cite just two symbolic instances.
He was out of the country on official assignment on two occasions and he directed me to stand in for him. On the first occasion they sent a distress call to him that the whole campus was on fire and he was agitated. That day, there was no bush fire in the teak plantation as we used to experience from time to time. However, due to an unusual power surge, an electric spark led to the burning of a few items in an office in the then Chemistry Department. I had to send him pictorial evidence before I could convince him.
The second alarm was more vicious. He was in China when a terrifying message was sent to him that the two lions in the University Zoo had escaped and were on their way to Tanke. He was hysterical on phone. I immediately rushed to the Zoo and found the two lions sleeping, having just been fed. To be convinced, he directed me to wake them up by startling them. I did so. The female was the first to rise and growl. Prof. Ambali said “Thank you DVC, that is the female; what of the male”? I repeated my initial action and the male rose and roared. He then thanked me immensely and apologised for unsettling me.When I perceived that the fifth columnists were stepping up their machinations, I decided to have a word with Prof. Ambali himself. I chose Cape-coast in Ghana in the holy month of Ramadan. As we were about to break our fast in an open space in the hotel overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, I moved to him. He was alone, and I sat opposite him. I then proceeded: “Vice Chancellor, Sir, I am invoking this sacred moment to humbly request you to tell me if, since working with you, I have ever wronged you in any way?” His response was deep but circumspect and indirect. He began: “Prof, there used to be a Vice Chancellor at the University of Maiduguri who was in the habit of responding harshly to the comments of every senior professor during senate meetings. I tried to find out from him why he was doing that and he told me that they needed to know that he was fully in charge” I became even more confused.
Beyond Prof. Ambali’s characteristically calm demeanour and peaceful disposition, he possessed a very strong character which often manifested in his shocking candour and forthrightness. He demonstrated this in a Retreat organised for Principal Officers, Deans and Directors at Omu-Aran, to which I was invited as facilitator, after I had left office as Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic). After my presentation, a Dean raised an issue concerning the emergent lethargy in the handling of crucial academic matters. Prof. Ambali looked me straight in the face and spontaneously pointed at me, remarking sharply: “when this man was in charge, it was not like that”. Inwardly, I felt deeply relieved and fulfilled.
He was even to shock me and others more profoundly, including especially Prof. S. A. Kuranga, during the Get-to-getherKwaran Professors had in his honour at the expiration of his tenure as the Vice Chancellor. While giving a recapitulatory account of his stewardship, he dropped the bombshell: “Finally, I want to put on record that there is a man in this gathering who told me on my assumption of office to be confident and assured anytime I saw him beside or behind me, He once gave me a piece of critical advice which I did not heed and I seriously regretted”. Once again, he pointed at me: “That man is Prof. Bayo Lawal”. I was deeply stunned. This incident sealed my impression about the strength of Prof. Ambali’s moral character.
Prof. Ambali inadvertently taught me enduring lessons in just less than two years of working with him. He once told me that his trainingas a veterinary doctor had equipped him with calm, perceptive and patient disposition, because his patients,the animals, cannot complain about their ailments. He also foresaw the current epidemic of insecurity in Nigeria, recalling how Mahammed Yusuf, the leader of the Boko Haram sect, started his dangerous sermons in one corner of Maiduguri and this was allowed to fester because some eminent people made political capital out of it.
Most memorably, every academic session I must reference Prof. Ambali at least twice when teaching my regular and sandwich master’s degree students my theory of metaphysical literacy — the ability to read a complex DESIGN, in everything Allah (SWT) has created as a SIGN and then proceed to appreciate Him as the inimitable DESIGNER. Prof. Ambali and I were on a working visit to the University Zoo when he went to the giraffe and studiously contemplated the strange animal, spending much longer time than he had done with the other animals. I moved over to him and he gave me a short but impactful and memorable lecture on the anatomy and physiology of the giraffe. According to him, because the giraffe’s neck is unusually long and adequate blood must get to its head for the physical, mental and emotional well-being of the animal, the Almighty Allah (SWT) has endowed it with a powerful blood-pumping machine, a disproportionately large heart. In this short scientific lectureI immediately saw the key concepts of “Sign” (the giraffe), “Design” (the long neck and big heart) and “Designer” (the Almighty Allah, the Uncreated Creator). Every session since a decade or so ago, this powerful illustration with the giraffe has always resonated with generations of my students, many thanks to Prof. Ambali.
In sum, I fervently pray that Allah (SWT) accept all the direct and indirect lectures Prof. Ambali had delivered, all his academic publications, every little or great kindness he had shown to his students, colleagues, relatives, associates, strangers and even to his patients in the lower animal kingdom, and every righteous word of advice he has offered to all and sundry, as sadaqah Jariyah, i.e. charity that will continue to grow and flow until the Day of Resurrection. Aameen. May Allah (SWT) grant his family, his native community and those of us his beloved colleagues the faith and fortitude to bear this huge loss. Aameen.
*Lawal, a Professor of English Education, is a former Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic), University of Ilorin.
