Zikeyi Eneware was a bubbly baby boy when he was born in Isoukiri, Nembe, Bayelsa State, on 5 January 1955. He showed just how expressive he can be when he cried in the arms of his mother, Maria Yekorogha, who had just died. Zikeyi’s father, Ajayi James Eneware, a civil servant from Trofani, was born in Kano, and worked in later years with the Native Authority in the colonial times. He was the last Amakosiowei of Trofani. The paramount ruler died at the venerable age of ninety-one.
Zikeyi attended St Luke’s School, Nembe, from 1964 to 1970. He then enrolled at Nembe National Grammar School, and studied from 1971 to 1975 when he earned his West African School Certificate. He remembers his class mates as if it was yesterday. Nimi Barigha Amange. Lionel Jonathan. Toinpre Sambo, now Chief Poute, owner of Blue Waves Hotel, Yenagoa, amongst others.
Zikeyi became a classroom teacher afterwards. He was Second Master under Francis Awotongha Ololo, the jolly good old teacher, who was fondly called “The Unbreakable Bottle” at RDC in 1976. Zikeyi held a chalk before the blackboard, standing before children for one talkative year. Afterwards, he was posted to Odioma, then off to St John’s Teachers Training School, where he bagged his Grade II Teacher’s Certificate, and assumed office as Headmaster of Ibidi State School in 1978.
He also remembers working under another headmaster, Apaebinyo Ololo, at Obiata in the heydays of Babangida’s austerity measures when salaries took long in coming. Zikeye had to look for a way to earn money. So he joined Konfit Nigerian Construction, a firm owned by Victor Masi. In 1980, he was billed to travel out of Nigeria for the first time to read a course in Shipping in Italy. But, try as he might, he couldn’t get the passport in Kaduna, to say nothing of a visa.
And so Zikeye started teaching in private primary schools. After a while, he started his own school. He is happy that he took that decision. Today, Rahman Schools, Agwan Sanusi, Kaduna, still exist. In all, Zikeye lived in Kaduna for 20 straight years, from 1980 to 2000, speaking the Hausa language like a thorough-bred mallam. He recalls how he went by train for the first time, from Port Harcourt to Kaduna. It was a life-time adventure to remember.
He left Kaduna at the start of the new century, in 2000, returned to Bayelsa State, and took up appointment as Special Assistant to Patrick Ogoun, Vice Chairman to Salo Adikumo in the Toru-Abubu Local Government Area (LGA) of that time. After seven months of service, he returned to Yenagoa and decided to read for a National Diploma in Law at the Bayelsa College of Arts and Science.
New parties were formed about that time, and Zikeye felt obliged to play active politics. He wanted his opinion to count in the making of a new Nigeria. He opted to join the National Democratic Party, and was elected to serve as secretary of the party in Bayelsa State.
Zikeye also served as secretary of the Social Democratic Party in Brass LGA in the old Rivers State. He was an ardent supporter of Chief Moshood Abiola, flag-bearer of the party, and was desperately disappointed when the outcome of that election was nullified.
Zikeyi said: ‘From 27 July 1993, when that historic election was annulled, I chose to be called 12 June. I was sending out regular greetings under that name to democrats through the Kaduna State radio station and in daily newspapers. I have much to talk about 12 June because it was the gateway to proper democracy and grassroots development in Nigeria’.
His phone rings, and the caller tune is an Islamic call to prayer. That is the first signal you get that Zikeye Eneware is Muslim by faith. He has since taken the name Abdulrahman. He converted to Islam in June 1979 in Port Harcourt, following his close association with Alhaji Rogers Inengibo, a friend and one-time class mate.
‘I admired him as a person. We were class mates. I read his copy of the Quoran, and saw for myself that it was a plain and peaceful religion. I feel sad about what’s happening in northern Nigeria today. Religion should not be forceful. It’s not about force. It shouldn’t allow for violence. No killing. No bloodletting. Anyone who does that can’t honestly be called a Muslim. They can’t possibly be’, Zikeyi further said.
He went on his first pilgrimage to Mecca in 2008. He was among a six-man team sponsored by government. He is a member of the Bayelsa State Pilgrims Board. In 2012, he actually led the team on pilgrimage for the first time. He also travelled in 2013 and 2014 for the Hajj.
Alhaji Abdurahman Zikeye Eneware protested against the composition of the 11-member board in Bayelsa State, a joint body comprising nine Christians and two Muslims, unlike the Boards in Rivers, Delta and Akwa Ibom States. ‘In all the Niger Delta states, the boards are separated, except in Bayelsa’, he said. ‘And in the case of Bayelsa, the Chairman, Vice and the Secretary are Christians. That’s an obvious imbalance’.
Alhaji Abdulrahman is overly concerned about the political health of Nigeria, and remains a passionate commentator on topical public issues. He has a knack for speaking his mind till he sweats, so he carries a small towel around his neck like a proverbial albatross. He regrets that his own country has no place for people who tell the truth.
He said: ‘They always find ways to eliminate them. That’s the tragedy of our society, but we thank God for where we are today. Worthy sons of the soil have done their best. In Yenagoa today, I can say that I am seeing physical structures. Every government is doing its best. Fine buildings are springing up. That’s the way it should be.
‘Now we can even drive to Nembe. That’s great. Sylva would have done better, but perhaps he was misguided. He gave me five million naira to go to India for kidney transplant. Without him, I would have been a dead man. Now I need more than that to go for check-up. I wrote to the Governor then, but I don’t know if he saw the memo. I’m dying with every passing day. I need medical attention, and I need to receive a word from Creek Haven’.
Alhaji Abdulrahman Zikeyi Eneware has served as the President of the Bayelsa State chapter of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, and has repeatedly led pilgrims from the state to Mecca. He was an unapologetic disciple of late President Muhammadu Buhari, and he holds a fanatical loyalty to the All Progressives Congress administration under President Bola Tinubu.
I woke up one morning, heard a knock on my door, and went to see who could be there. Guess who turned out to be the visitor? Alhaji Abdurahman Zikeyi Eneware. He was his good old bubbly self. He had just returned from Mecca, and brought me a gift, a golden pen worth its weight in gold. I looked closely at it and was suitably amazed to see my personal name, Pope Pen, engraved on the side. The least I could do was smile.
