The Labaran Maku Peculiar Story: He Does Not Know His Birthday And Must Have Trekked The Earth’s Circumference To Attain Primary Education

               

 The former minister of Information, Labaran Maku, who quit office a couple of days ago to pursue gubernatorial ambition in his  native Nasarawa State, told the story of his life recently during a thanksgiving service.

Maku’s antics as minister would sure irritate anyone and so many, and in same measure, the peculiar story of his life would equally excite and inspire you.

In his testimony, the former minister said, having walked 14km everyday for about five years as primary school pupil,  it was possible the distance he covered was could equal the circumference of the earth.

The story of his birth has it that in his village, his dad was attending to his mother when the baby was born. On account of the  setting, there was no record of his birth, hence, there is no record of his birthday. He says everyday is his birthday.

Some years after birth, a tussle ensued in his family on why he should not be taken to school by the catholic priest, because such was punishment not meant for an only son of his mother in a multi-wife setting where his mother was just one of the wives. But by what he called substitution, he was picked for the ‘punishment’ instead of his brother from another mother.

That is exactly how providence made Labaran go to school to later become a teacher, journalist, public officer as commissioner, deputy governor and at last minister with an eye for the gubernatorial seat of Nasarawa.

He likened his story to that of David in the Bible, the little family shepherd that tended his father’s sheep that was selected above his elder sibblings, even when almost forgotten in the bush as King of Israel.

The special thanksgiving service tagged “A Testimony of God’s Goodness and Mercy” based on the scripture Psalm 113‎, held at the Catholic Diocese of Lafia, St. Patrick’s Parish, Akwanga. He also narrated the encounter he had with cultists whom he said visited his home to give him conditions on joining them if he would want to be governor.

He stated that he does not know his birthday even though officially it is stated he was born January 1, 1962, because his peasant farmer parents were the only ones present when he was born at home.

The teacher and journalist who resigned his appointment as minister on October 20, in accordance with President Goodluck Jonathan’s directive those with political ambition resign from the cabinet, also used the occasion to reveal how his journey so far in his professional and political career has been of divine providence as he did not have to lobby anyone‎, saying he is on a mission to rescue Narasawa State and to fight for peace and justice.

Maku was ‎deputy governor of Nassarawa State from 2003 to 2007. Before then he was Democracy and Governance expert at USAID from 1997 to 1999.  He was Commissioner for Information in Nasarawa State till 2003. He was also a teacher and headmaster from 1981 to 1983

He told Abuja Metro his story on the day of his thanksgiving

Nasarawa roads

Our roads are crying for attention and we at Federal Executive Council have agreed we should resume this work very soon. ‎As at last week, I am aware that the Ministry of Works had concluded arrangement to resume the construction of this road and they were waiting for the release of fund for the contractor to move to site.  I have that assurance of what is about to happen.

Child of grace

‎My wife, Mrs. Mary Maku, with whom I have come to hold this thanksgiving is also filled with special gratitude to God today.

The various biblical text read by the priest sums up the reason why we are here.‎ But I will add that Psalm 113 is of special significance to me in addition to what our priest has already told you. If you look at Psalm 113 you will see that King David was expressing to God his heartfelt gratitude for how God took him from behind; from tending his father’s sheep in the bush, over and above his strong, well groomed elder brothers and made him King of Israel. Now as I stand before you here, the summary of my life is that I am here because of God’s grace and mercy.

For those who know my little village by the hills, Wakama, Akun Development Area of Nasarawa State‎, if you go there, what it will remind you of will be what was said in the Bible that Bethlehem was the least of the cities of Judah and what good could ever come out of Nazareth.‎ So God can go to the most unlikely places and raise people from the dust and place them at the rulership of their communities and their nations. That is exactly what God has done for me.

Child of the poor

My late parents didn’t go to school. They were ‎peasants farmers; and so when I was born, there was no modern facility in my village. My mother didn’t go to the maternity because there was no hospital around. And she told me that on the day I was born my father was the birth attendant, so he received me. It was not midwives and nurses that received me at birth. This is really a very interesting story. That is the way I came into the world. Indeed I don’t know my birthday because it was not recorded, so every day is my birthday, maybe it was today I don’t know but everyday is my birthday.

In our time, our people did not go to school. There was a catholic school at Alushi, St Michael’s Primary School, here but my community refused to go to school because we were very deep in culture. So I started life worshipping as all the traditionalists in my community were. Then some times at the beginning of the civil war, a priest from this church convinced the village head, he told him, ‘look we want to start a school in your village but you people don’t come to school, can you please go house to house and get maybe one child per house so that we can start a catholic school in your compound?’ So the village head went from compound to compound himself because he knew if he didn’t nobody will agree, forcing each household to release a child to come to school.

Conscription into school

When he came to our compound, there was a big drama. My father said it will be my younger brother that will go to school. So I was very happy because they said then that they use to beat children in school, so anyone sent to school then was like punishment. I was very excited that I was not the one, so I went behind the compound rejoicing. Then some twist of fate took place, my step mother refused. She was begged for more than 30 minutes she said no that her last child will not go to school. Because my elder brother, Alhaji Usman Sule had already been forced to go to school earlier on in the 1940s, she felt that this last child will stay with her. So my father said I am the only son from my mother’s side so if I go to school, who will take care of my mother on the farm. There was stalemate and every opportunity to convince my step mother to allow my younger brother go to school failed. So the village head said look, if his younger brother’s case is impossible can we call his mother and plead if she will allow him to go to school. They called my mother and she said yes. That is how I went to school, by substitution.

The problem called school

This school was just a Catholic class. We went there first year, by the second year the catechist, stranger absconded.  I can’t even recall‎ his name now because we were so little. There was no road to the village, there was only the bridge ‎that was build in 1974, there were only thatched roofs all over, so after some months he didn’t come back and my father rejoiced and we returned to the farm. After one year, the priest sent another catechist to go to the village again to restart the school. My father said ‘why are these people disturbing us I thought this matter of school had ended.’ Then we were compelled to go back to school. After a year the second catechist who is still alive today also left. I recently invited him to my office in Abuja where we sat and rejoiced together. So he too left after a year and we returned to the farm, enjoying ourselves.

Johnnie Walker

Then the third year the village head announced that all those children that started school three years ago, that they are now to go to school at Badah compulsorily. That is how our parents were compelled to send us back and I happen to make the class, to come and start school here. For those seven years, we trekked something like 14 kilometers to school and back each day to finish class 1-7 and on our way back we have to go to the farm because they will carry your food there, so that you won’t be a lazy boy. So for me to finish primary school, maybe I trekked something like the circumference of the earth. To trek 14 kilometers for seven years if you calculate it you will see how difficult it was to be able to finish school.

Higher school

So when we finished‎, I went to Zawang Teacher’s College, Bukuru, Jos‎, another Catholic College. To go to school was not like the children of today, they took me to Akwanga, asked the driver where are you going he said Jos, they put me in the vehicle and went home because my parents didn’t know the direction of Jos.

So you see everything concerning me has been God’s grace‎. It is not my effort, it is not my family’s pedigree, it is not royalty, it is not wealth, or fame. It is all God’s grace. God was so merciful to me. The first time I started in that Catholic class, I came first in the exam that followed.

First, but poor position

I will tell you a funny story. When we went home, my cousins were sitting around in the moonlight with our parents in the village. So they asked what position we took in the exam. I had a cousin who came 12th another 19th and I said I took only one. So the people exclaimed and said how can somebody took 19, another 12 and you took only one, we are going to withdraw you from school. Because they didn’t understand how someone who took one could be better than someone who took 19. This is true life story because they didn’t know. Now I can tell you that when I left the university I also took first. So God has been gracious upon all the limitations of not having anybody in the school. Whenever we went home on holiday, there was nothing apart from moonlight. Nobody will ask if you have done your home work because nobody knew what you were doing. But in spite of that God lifted me above the law of gravity and I was always leading my class and I led up to the university.

Rejoicing in God

So today, I rejoice with God‎ because His mercy has been so much in my life. My younger who was supposed to go to school in my place, when I was in Form Five, I came and instigated him to go to school, we quarrelled with that but eventually he went to school. I taught him in Form Five because I was already a Grade II teacher then, and he was coming first in class, he was more brilliant than myself. I trained him up to Form Five but as fate will have it in that fifth year, some people came and convinced him and he left school and got married and returned to the village and refused to continue. He is today with the Civil Defence, and doing well with his family.

Never despise little beginnings

I must say that on behalf of myself, my family and everyone around us, I want to give this testimony so that when you see little children from poor family you should also remember that God thinks about them and lift them above those from the families of acclaim.

The priest talked about poverty here; so I tell you that you would be wrong to look down on children from very rural settings whose parents are nothing. And that is why I will continue to tell politicians, do not misuse anybody’s child because I know where I am coming from. The child that God may use to lead may be from the least of families and I am a testimony that God can use anybody’s child. So don’t be discouraged especially parents and children from backgrounds like mine. All that my parents gave me was sound morale training to do right at all times, you are not permitted to misbehave and you must be very hard working. Therefore, poverty is not the absence of material comfort, it is rather the absence of character.

Definition of poverty 

So we must not ‎define poverty as the dearth of material things. People living in good houses, in comfort and luxury may be the poorest in the community. Sound upbringing, strong faith in God, strong bringing up of children, that is what we need in this world, it is not the material comfort. Like Christ said, for the poor they will always be here, that I come from a poor family in terms of the material things, we didn’t have skyscrapers and the modern things of life but we had a comfortable life. A life of strong culture, a life of enough for everybody in the community, we didn’t lack in terms of what to eat, what to drink, what to celebrate. So poverty must be properly defined. Sometimes we underestimate certain people, certain community because of the material things but I think that life is more than the comfort we live. And that is why I keep telling my children, you can see the way I am, God lifted me from ground zero so don’t ever think the position of your father is what will lift you. No. It is strong character, faith in God that will lift you. I don’t have authority to lift you. I can pray for you‎ and prepare you like my parents prepared me.

When the president said he went to school without shoes, many Nigerians are surprised. If you look at our previous leaders, from Gen. Gowon to Obasanjo, their stories may be as interesting as mine and that of the president today. They didn’t come from big families, but from what we will define today as the poor. So I think we need more confidence in ourselves and those of us God has lifted, should always remember to thank God and when I look back I keep saying God you are an amazing God, you can do anything with anybody.  That is why I called for this thanksgiving.

When I went to the university I became a student leader in the second year, in the third year I was elected the National Publicity Secretary of all Nigerian students all over the world. ‎I graduated and became a journalist and rose very rapidly to be political editor and member of the editorial board. I went to USAID, I rose very rapidly and became a director, coordinating the governance and training that led to the democracy in 1999. When I was leaving USAID, my former governor had to write a formal letter for them to release me because they trusted me and what I was doing with them. I came home in 1999, two years later they sacked the cabinet, and I was retained. In 2003 everything ended I was elevated to a deputy governor.

Cultist condition for being a governor

I wanted to vie to be governor, and some people came to my home and said look, you cannot just be governor. We have to recruit you into a cult. My wife and I were sitting after the morning prayer. They insisted that becoming the governor is not just a matter of preaching. They said there is a cult I need to join, and there are 12 people controlling the world, so if I agree then they would recruit me and with that I would become the governor.

I quickly ordered them to get out of my house. “You are a shame, you came with a Bible and you are telling me this story. I told them that I want to be governor just to help, just to serve but if being governor will separate me from my God then to hell with it.”

I said look at the trees outside, the goats outside God created them, I came into the world and I am a human being. Some things came into the world as flies, cockroaches, ants, but I came into the world as a human being ‎therefore God has already made me a governor over all his kingdoms. So anything that you are giving me as governor cannot add anything to me. Therefore I want to rejoice with God for making me a human being not because I have been in any office. See the experience of animals around you God created them, look at the trees outside they will never move from where there are. So I am rejoicing not because of those things, so I drove them from my house. Well, as you know the story I didn’t become a governor I returned to my village.

Divine prophecy

When I was in my village, an old woman came to me and said my son, you were climbing a tree to the top and some people drove you down because you have nobody. I want to give you an assurance today, God is going to lift you from this village and those people who stopped you in the way will not be able to stop you. I said Mama, thank you very much. First year passed, the second passed, this person will dream and said ‘we saw that you were given appointment’ another will dream, ‘we just saw that they elevated you, we saw you in a large convoy.’ I always said to them keep praying.

On the day before I was appointed a minister, my cousin dreamt that I was appointed a special assistant to President Obama but when they went for the thanksgiving they were singing the Nigerian National Anthem. And I said my brother thank you just keep praying. The following day my name was announced as nominee for ministerial appointment.

Passion for Jonathan, Nigeria

So I will like to tell you that if you see me work for President Jonathan, work for Nigeria as if my life depends on it is because God has lifted me free of charge and given me the things He has given me using the President, using my former governor Abdullahi Adamu, using all those He has used to bring me where I am.

And that is why when I work for Nigeria I am not looking for money. I am not looking for money from this country to be rich, no. That is not my mission. My mission is to make sure that I serve this nation to the best of my ability and set standards. They are those who go into government for skyscrapers, that is their own dream, I am in government to serve the people, to work for my country with gratitu‎de to God, to lift the image of my nation. That is why I am there.

Forgive if I disappointed you

So for those of you whom I may have disappointed, a number of you here wanted so many things from me but I couldn’t give in spite of my high status, not because I didn’t want to give you, I didn’t have the opportunity to give. But at the same time, those that were able to  get, those who didn’t, trust in God. People come to me and I pray for them, I said God you know I cannot do anything for these people but you will do it for them, meet them at the point of their needs.

A praying wife

I also want to thank God because I have a wife that prays for me daily. There is no place she wouldn’t go to pray. So if you see us succeeding it is because we are always praying. So I want to thank her here openly for being a spiritual anchor in my journey. I am very grateful. And I know all of us here will take my story because the reason why I give this thanksgiving is that I want politicians to abandon a lot of things, to abandon the role of principalities and power and run to the throne of Jesus where you will be lifted without even asking for it because this is how it happens.

The Sun interview conducted by Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye