Born in Kano in 1957 and was brought up there. The schools he attended include Kofar Nasarawa Primary School and Bayero University, Kano.
I loved Pacesetters during my secondary school days and the book “The Undesirable Element “ by Mohammed Sule was the first in my life.
Mohammed Sule wrote “The Undesirable Element” when he was in Secondary School.
Muhammed Sule died in his sleep on this day on Monday morning, 12th Feb 2007. Not many people, even within the literary circle, knew him as a person.
He was born in Kano in 1957 and was brought up there. The schools he attended include Kofar Nasarawa Primary School and Bayero University, Kano. He then went to U.K to study Motion Picture Production and Script Writing and Directing. He worked with the Kano State Television Service (later taken over by the Nigeria Television Authority, NTA) and then Kano State Ministry of Information. He retired in 1988 to set up his own business; Incorporated Links Films Limited.
He was a student when he began to write. He wrote “The Undesirable Element” during his secondary school days in Government College, Kano. He started it in Form One. And by the time he got to Form Four he had finished it and sent it to Macmillan for publication. It eventually got published after he had left secondary school. He was actually in London when it got published in 1977.
He wrote his second book “The Delinquent” soon after he finished writing “The Undesirable Element”. He wrote about seven chapters before he graduated from Government College. He completed it later on and gave it to Macmillan even when he was yet to know the fate of “The Undesirable Element”, whether it would be published or not.
How he went ahead to publish his books;
He didn’t know how to go about it at that time. But fortunately, he took the right course without anyone telling him. When you work on a book, eventually you get bored with it because you probably have read it over a thousand times. When he reached that level he felt he had done enough and wanted to get rid of it. So he sent the manuscript to the Northern Nigeria Publishing Company (NNPC) in Zaria. At that time Macmillan was running the NNPC as co-owners. The management was provided by the Macmillan. The NNPC then had no interest in publishing English works. So the MD, Mr. Taylor, a Briton, took the manuscript from him and gave it to his wife, who was teaching at the Government Girls Secondary School, Zaria, to go through. And when she had gone through she decided that since it was the first book in English they had received and since there were no such writings from the North, they would take it to London. Luckily, she took it to Macmillan office in London at the time when it was planning to start the Pacesetter Series. They decided to include it in the series.
One of the messages he intended to pass across in his book “The Undesirable Element” is the importance of education. Having realised that education is a key factor in every person’s life, so in all his writings you will find that in one way or the other the importance of education is the central theme. “The Undesirable Element” in particular is a reflection of what obtained in the Northern Nigeria of that period. The situation was that older men who were well-to-do were marrying young girls. And some of these girls were in school. They had to be brought out of school to marry. That was the social trend that time. It was money. Marriage were based on “I’m rich, I can marry young girls.’’ Once you were rich you could do anything in the North at that time.
Socially the North is in a bigger trouble now than that time. Now they are not marrying the girls, they are abusing them. The situation is compounded by the fact that the quality of education has collapsed. So even though many girls now go to higher institutions, they are not intellectually and morally sound enough to maintain self-discipline. And so they are more liable to the evil machinations of the older rich men.
The Delinquent is centred more on how the children of the rich easily get spoilt by the riches of their parents.
He has published two other books:        “The Infamous Act” and “The Devil’s Seat”.
Mohammed Sule’s writings mostly centred on fighting corruption.
He said: the situation in the North is still very alarming. As long as the situation persists in the way it is, a committed writer will continue to pay attention to the social dynamics. We have numerous problems in the area of education, health and so on. And there is poverty everywhere due to the misuse of wealth. I have never seen a place where the rich of that area misuse their wealth like the North. It is a tragedy. You can’t see concrete investments that are capable of relieving the social tension as well as translating into a huge economic benefits to both the owner of the business and those who lean on the business in terms of working or trading in the product of that business. So the North is a human failure in terms of the wealthy Northerners utilising their wealth for the economic sustainability of the area.
His book “The Libertine” is an indirect sequel to “The Undesirable Element”, it is along the same line. But here we are not dealing with a secondary school girl. We are talking about a young lady in the university who has to drop out due to poverty. But not simply poverty, she also got herself involved in so many other things. Yes, she is also a delinquent, but in her own case she came from a poor family. And because the society is uncaring so many problems that would have been avoided happened. Nobody cares. And that is the most unfortunate thing about our society.
Mohammed said he is also aware of the poor reading culture. He said; When we were in primary school, we had a library where we could read. It was the same in secondary school. And we read a lot. But these days, even some university graduates hardly read.
To be able to write novels while he was in secondary school, he must have read hard and wide.
Secondary school students used to read a lot those days. They were dedicated to their studies and were always thinking of what they wanted to be in life. From the start he had always wanted to be a writer. And he was able to realise his dream through hard work. He said young people of these days don’t want to strive. They just want the money. May God Almighty forgive all his shortcomings and admit him into Aljannah Firdausi.
