Last week I requested that a family member of the late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa should reach out to me to set the records straight on their patriarch’s ethnic identity. The son of the late Prime Minister’s oldest surviving daughter, Alhaji Ahmad Yakubu Wanka (who holds the traditional title of Sarkin Dawaki Mai Tutan Bauchi), graciously contacted me a day after my column was published.

But before I share what he told me, it’s good to recapitulate the context of my interest in the ethnic heritage of Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister. In my January 9, 2016 article titled, “Is There Such a Thing as Hausa-Fulani?” I pointed out that “the late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was and still is often called a ‘Hausa-Fulani’ by the southern press even though he was born of a Shuwa Arab father and a Fulani mother.”

Click for more http://www.thinkersnewsng.com/2016/01/23/gere-sir-abubakar-tafawa-balewas-real-ethnic-group/

Someone should do a full-length documentary on this man - there is still so much that we do not know about the late Prime Minister. His ideology, his early childhood, educational life, his rise to power, his family life, lineage, political decisions, challenges etc.

Even copies of his autobiography are very difficult to get in the bookstores especially in the South-West. Why is there so much silence about this noble man? Is it deliberate?