The mammoth and destructive crowd, like a swamp of locusts in search of crops for destruction, dispersed and launched heavy attacks into different locations of Kano city, ensuring that the targets of their aggressions were not spared physical devastations.
Rolling out their locally assorted weapons, the unrepentant anarchists marched for a violent campaign tagged ‘July 10 rampage.’ Out of sheer and unbridled brutality and extreme sadism, they exploded like the volcanic eruption with maximum force, looting, destroying and eventually killing at will. Already, their selected points included government properties as well as a prominent, innocent figure, Dr. Bala Muhammad.
This is a brief recap of the events of Friday July 10, 1981 when total breakdown of law and order temporarily pervaded Kano and sacked its peace and tranquility. During that short period of the organized anarchy, Kano was held as a hostage under the Draconian regime of the rioters said to be avenging the query served to the late Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero, by the late Governor Abubakar Rimi. Regrettably, the political earthquake culminated in the gruesome murder of Bala Muhammad, the very young academician, leftist and nationalist, who was gruesomely murdered during the most productive period of his intellectual struggle. Unfortunately and to our collosal plus regional loss, his lofty visions, dreams, hopes and aspirations for a just and egalitarian society also perished in the political inferno. He was just 35 years old and until his ungodly assassination acted as the political adviser to the late Abubakar Rimi for nine months.
Clearly, Dr. Bala’s tragic killing was the handiwork of the reactionary elements who were uncomfortable with the progressive and elated ideas for which he lived, struggled and ultimately paid the ultimate price. He fundamentally believed in the quest for a new nation devoid of perpetuating injustices and was able to marshal his revolutionary ideas through intellectual actions, speeches and writings put together. Speaking on the ill- fated calamity, Dr. Haroun Al- Rashid Adamu bitterly lamented: “People will understand first that late Dr. Bala’s death is the handiwork of these people, these reactionaries and secondly that the unknown about the phenomenon of death is not whether it is inevitable and will strike at every one of us but how it will come.”
At this point, the ‘how’ and ‘ why’ of Bala’s assassination are very significant in remembering him with a view to drawing vital and great lessons. On the ‘ how’ phenomenon and anchored on authentic evidence of his dehumanized corpse, he was brutally subjected to killing by fire! As he was busy working in his office, the barbaric assailants set it ablaze in such a horrible manner that he was liable to be destroyed like all the other material items within the office. Poor Bala! He sighted the advancing death even before his last breath owing to the abrupt emergence of vulnerability that suddenly engulfed him in a building overwhelmed by ravaging fire.
