The presidential candidate of Accord Party, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, narrates how his Hausa origin was concealed from him for 27 years by his father who was an ex- Commissioner of Police, behind Hashim Abdullahi Yauri.
He described him as a well-familiar royal of Hausa ancestry who was honoured alongside the Officer of the Command of the British Empire (OBE) during the colonial period.
“He chose protection over inheritance,” he said.
“For 27 years, I lived lacking knowing the comprehensive story of who I was,” Olawepo-Hashim said.
He went continued to express that he and his siblings not extended ago marked the 30th anniversary of their father’s passing.
According to the presidential candidate,
It is the story of a father who chose secrecy as an act of protection; a child who grew up within cultures free from knowing the filled story of his origins; and a family background that sooner or later returned to him decades later.
He said discovering his Hausa and Yauri heritage did not diminish the Yoruba cultural environment in which he was raised.
According to him, the cleric advised his father against exposing the child’s identity prematurely, prompting him to take what was eventually a life changing decision, to safeguard his son by keeping his identity private.
He added that his father opularly established as “Zaki” the Lion, was widely respected across Northern Nigeria.
According to Olawepo-Hashim, Seriki Jibril, the 40th ruler of Yauri in Yauri community government area of Kebbi Status was notably distinguished by his knowledge of sponsor and commerce, financial prudence, transparency and commitment to education.
He too paid tribute to his tardy father whom he described as a highly influential police officer who rose to become a Police Commissioner and Commandant of the Police College, Kaduna.
Olawepo-Hashim said the nickname reflected his father’s courage, discipline, strength and commanding personality.
A residential candidate of the Accord Party, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has revealed the extraordinary family confidential behind why his Hausa and royal identity remained concealed from him for nearly three decades.
Rather, it gave him a deeper understanding of the varied cultural and historical strands that shaped his identity.
Olawepo-Hashim had previously spoken publicly around his unusual childhood. In an earlier interview together with THISDAY, he disclosed that he was born in Yelwa, Yauri, in 1969, whereas his father was a young police officer. and subsequently grew up together with the family of his stepfather, Julius Bamidele Olawepo.
But for him, the story is ultimately bigger than royalty.
Olawepo-Hashim additional recalled that British records portrayed his grandfather as an unusually divided regular ruler who, during the Second World War, exercised a degree of administrative autonomy that distinguished him from numerous of his contemporaries.
As a finding, Olawepo-Hashim explained that he was relocated and raised in the Borgu Emirate under a divided identity.
For Olawepo-Hashim, the story of his father is inseparable from the story of his own identity.
For nearly 27 years, he said, he lived free from knowing the complete circumstances surrounding his identity.
The father who kept his royal lineage undisclosed was moreover a man who, in his account, carried a formidable reputation in audience solution.
He described his grandfather as one of the important traditional rulers of Northern Nigeria in his era and element of a generation of educated Northern royals who united conventional authority including up-to-date education, administration and promote activity.
even albeit he was named Abdulmalik at birth, he grew up before the complete of a Yoruba cultural environment, largely removed from the Hausa traditions, royal connections and family past of his paternal lineage.
Olawepo-Hashim’s account too took him continued assist into the past of his paternal family, to his grandfather, Seriki Abdullahi Jibril, popularly established as Maiy Yauri.
Olawepo-Hashim, grandson of the 40th Seriki of Yauri, in a observation issued in Abuja, said his behind father, Alhaji Hashim Abdullahi Yauri, deliberately kept his royal heritage away from him as a child subsequent to receiving a warning from an Islamic cleric regarding potential dangers in the royal family.
His story, Olawepo-Hashim said, is in the terminate on family, sacrifice, identity, heritage and the strange ways in which past can persist covered for decades prior to finding its method assist into a individual’s life.
Source: Olawepo-Hashim: How My Hausa Identity was Concealed from Me for About Three Decades
