The Depth in Dasuki by Ekanpou Enewaridideke

Rituals for different purposes walk on the surface of this earth like the void upon the earth before the world was born. Rituals vary as are the people that perform them. The ritual of wrong-admission is a good one. I know when somebody is wronged. I know somebody had been wronged for years. I have wronged Dasuki for many years. For many years, without any attempt made to right the wrongs done to Dasuki, I have lived comfortably. In the twilight of 2020 I had the flush of a penitent force to right the wrongs by way of graceful public apology but an inner counter-force came and extinguished it.

Recently, the barbarities, the enormities, of those wrongs committed against Dasuki invaded me and revealed the image of my stupidity, wickedness, insensitivity, inhumanity and callousness. In admission and acceptance of the callous wrongfulness of my actions vindictively directed at Dasuki, I have decided  to take on this apologetic voyage of epiphany, anagnorisis and wrong-reversal like a porter that ports luggage but this porter only ports the best thoughts for Dasuki – best thoughts alchemically distilled from the crucible of numerous wrongs done to him over the years.

In life there are audacious moments when even the most merciless autocrats and killer herbalists admit their transgressions, atrocities, and gracefully solicit pardon and reintegration into the sane society peopled by progressives and reformers. Like the musical dawn that exceptionally talented Ijaw highlife musician, King Alfred Izonebi, rhythmically draws attention to, the day has indeed dawned for me to confess and admit my wrongs, sins and gracefully apply for forgiveness because the man called Dasuki has suffered grievously as a result of my wrongs perpetrated against his personality.

I have known Dasuki for many years as a man intellectually charged and conversationally versatile. He  has amazing capacity to switch over his language codes in response to the drift of the engagement underpinned by both intellectual and traditional wisdom. He has amazing ability to read novels and analyse critically with a touch of phenomenology, post-structuralism, marxism and post-colonialism. He often reads my novels, articles and plays and gives back to me his critical reflections and they are as strikingly accurate as any literary critic could attempt.

Yet, Dasuki is not an accredited literary critic known in literary circles. However, beyond his intellectual depth admired by me, Dasuki also has remarkable depths in administration, project-management, investigation and prosecution of criminal cases in his chosen career he engages daily without questionable distractions. Comparatively, like the mutating Corona-virus in its variant, these are the variants of Dasuki’s intellectual depths in other areas in his life yet to be foregrounded by me. Even at that it should be quickly noted that unlike the destructive variant of the destructive corona-virus,the variants of Dasuiki’s depth are positively charged.

Dasuki is a devoted and principled police officer from Kano State who, as Assistant Superintendent of Police I and II, meritoriously rose through the graded ranks from Commissioner of Police in 2017 to Assistant Inspector-General  of Police (AIG) in 2021. In his steadily rising meritorious service in all these capacities, he left behind memorable records as a disciplined, principled, devoted, sincere, incorruptible and investigative police officer par excellence. In Dasuki one can see intellectualism deployed as the framework and base for his investigative, prosecutorial and administrative engagements, indicating that it was not an exercise in futility when he studied hard and got B.SC (Hons) Mathematics, MSC Development Studies and Postgraduate Diploma in Public Policy and Administration (PGDPPA) in 1983-1988, 2007-2008 and 2006 – 2007 from the Bayero University of Kano state.

Clearly located is the fact that when intellectual depth is transfused and grafted onto administration, investigation and prosecution in police work, the result is always amazingly striking and beneficial to society. In Dasuki one can see an integration of these resources as many can still testify to his (Dasuki’s) commendable performance as a Deputy Commissioner of Police in Akwa Ibom (2015), Lagos State (2017), Ekiti State (2018), as Assistant Commissioner of Police (AC) in Delta State (2012-2013), Oyo State (2013-2014), as a Commissioner of Police in Imo State (2019), Commissioner of Police, Community-policing at Force Headquarters, Abuja, (2018), NPF co-operative Ikeja, Lagos (2019).  Currently as AIG in FCIID Annex Alagbon, Lagos (from 2020 till date), Dasuki’s performance echoes in the area of incorruptibility, detribalisation, investigative thoroughness, prosecutorial dexterity, project-management and administrative thoroughness are everywhere like migratory birds upon the sky – migratory birds hovering strategically.

In police work energies and resources could be strategically channelled in different dimensions; but whenever energies and resources are specifically appropriated, aggregated and deployed in community-policing, investigation, prosecution, administration and project-management of any species, Dasuki Danbappa Galadanchi of Kano State skillfully throws progressive stones with progressive exactitude within the demarcated radius or the demarcated nautical miles without any deflection.

Retrospectively, Dasuki has never  journeyed ‘promotionally’ without the accompaniment of merit as his lodestar.In all his merit-based steady rise to AIG unblemished reputation has always projected himself as his inseparable friend. At work and beyond, Dasuki Galadanchi intelligently antagonises ethnicity, tribalism, nepotism, religious prejudices, religious bigotry and favouritism. Dasuki is the residence of cosmopolitanism and ecumenism in investigation, prosecution and administration in anything that has to do with police work geared towards the ideal image-sustainability of the Nigerian Police Force coupled with a guarantee of the fundamental rights of the civilian populace.

In Dasuki Danbappa Galadanchi – an Assistant Inspector-General of Police known for his pragmatic approach to administration, supervision, monitoring, mentoring of personnel, investigation and prosecution of criminal cases, whose core competencies revolve around data-gathering and reporting, project-management, flexibility and persistence, human relations, time-management, computer-proficiency, creativity and innovativeness, team work and resilience built within the framework of his organizational, managerial, listening, communication and leadership skills accumulated over the years of his service in the Nigeria Police Force – one sees the codes of ‘Otuaroism’ because he is an expert in conflict-management, conflict-resolution, peace-making and community-policing.

As one would in an intellectual dance of comparative analysis for positional reinforcement and clarity,here lies an intersection point between Dasuki and His Excellency Kingsley Burutu Otuaro, the Deputy Governor of Delta State because both personalities personify humility and peace-making in their various daily engagements, though this is purely an accidental intersection point rooted in ‘Otuaroism’ and its allied theories of meaningful engagement and development.

I am besotted, always besotted with Dasuiki’s intellectual depth My besottedness with Dasuki’s intellectual depth over the years has become my blind side viewed against the fact that the AIG has demonstrable depths in administration, project-management, community-policing, investigation and prosecution of criminal cases. Dasuki, as a humble, self-effacing and principled person, had lived these years without his rosy other depths in police service highlighted and foregrounded through conscious publicity by people who can bear testimony to his radiant intellectualism – particularly the likes of the village boy here. 

Definitely,  that Dasuki Danbappa Galadanchi’s depths in other areas of engagement have not been devotedly foregrounded by me before now is a grievous wrong against Dasuki equivalent to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s dangers of a single story in comparative terms. This is therefore my graceful apology to Dasuki because for all these years I have lived a life condemned to the limitations of a single view of the great Dasuki whose depths memorably transcend intellectualism.

May my readers see this piece as a product of my graceful moment of epiphany, anagnorisis and wrong-reversal as the only road to re-integration into the world of Dasuki Danbappa Galandanchi because I have contextually become the image of the prevaricated beings in martinism as studied in mysticism.

Enewaridideke
Writes from Akparemogbene, Delta State