By Henry Akubuiro
This week, we bring you the concluding part of the three-part review of the voluminous book, My Literary Works: Reviews and Reports (pp. 1127), written by the bookish octogenarian, Bukar Usman, President of NFS (Nigerian Folklore Society).
Like an orchard luxuriant, this book teems with personal and historical photos associated with the author’s trajectory of life. In section 2, we are taken back to 1954 through the black and white pictures of Biu Central Junior Primary School, which Usman attended from 1951-1954, in his formative years. 
On the same page, we have the picture of the Administrative Building of Government College, Maiduguri, formerly Borno Provincial Secondary School, which Usman attended from 1958-1963; as well as the Senate Building of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, the institution of higher learning he attended from 1966-1969.
This section also contains photos of Usman with fellow students, their class teacher, and a U.S. Corps member at Government College, Maiduguri, in May,1961. There is another photo of members of Harman’s House, King’s College, Lagos, which included Usman, taken in 1965.
Usman was an active sportsman in his schooldays. This is buttressed by a picture of Usman with other members of the King’s College 1st eleven, football team, which won the 1964 Zard Cup. Below it is the 1966 photo of Usman and the Ahmadu Bello University sports contingent to the All Nigeria University Games (NUGA), hosted by the University of Ife in 1966.
My Literary Works… also contains the group photo of the ABU athletics team, which participated in an inter-university games held at old Ife University site, Ibadan. We also have the photo of finalists, including Usman, in Public Administration, at the Institute of Administration, ABU, Zaria, taken in 1969.
Worthy of mention are also working life pictures of Nigerian leaders, like the one taken in 1957 of the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Belewa, with the four regional premiers — Ahmadu Bello of Northern Region, Dr. E. Endeley of Southern Cameroon, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe of Eastern Region and Chief Obafemi Awolowo of Western Region. Another spectacular photo is that of the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, with members of his Cabinet about to board an aircraft for London to attend one of the constitutional talks in 1959.
This book is a melding of reviews and reports of Bukar Usman’s offerings and, partly, Nigeria’s political memorabilia. The military transfer of power to the first civilian executive president of Nigeria, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, taken on October 1, 1979, is also captured in the book.
Other interesting pictures include but not limited to the Old Secretariat, built in the late 1920s, and last used as the Federal Ministry of Justice in 1996; Office of the Prime Minister/Cabinet Office, pictured in 1960, which later became the Executive Office of the President (1979), where Usman worked from 1972-1992; and Independence Building, constructed to commemorate Nigeria’s independence on October 1st, 1960.
Usman was a man who worked in the corridors of power. He could also pass as a man of power, for, in the background, he oiled the wheels of bureaucracy of the Federal Government of Nigeria. Also captured in this book were some of Usman’s official outings in the office.
Among others, there was a photo of Usman pictured with Oba Akinla of Erin-Ijesa, Osun State, during one of his engagements in 1995; Usman on a courtesy call to the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade at his palace, in 1995; Usman addressing federal and state security administration at Ibadan in 1997; Usman with Maj. Gen. Paul Omu at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Jos; Usman heading Nigeria’s delegations to UN Commission on Human Rights; Usman at Grand Bay with the Prime Minister of Mauritius in 1960; Usman with staff at his office at the Presidency, taken on his retirement as a permanent secretary in 1999, etcetera.
In the middle of My Literary Works… (section 7), you will find interesting reviews in English of Usman’s Hausa and Ajami folktales. This section is heralded by Bashir Yahuza Malumfashi’s review of Marainiya Da Wasu Labarai. Other books reviewed by him include Jarum Sarki, Yarima da Labbi, Tsurondi, Sandar Arziki, Wasu Labarai, Gwaidayara, Dan Agwai da Kura, etcetera.
Khalid Imam, writing on “Social Advocacy and Child Rights: Commentary on Bukar Usman’s Hausa Tales (Marainiya and Muguwar Kishiya)”, painstakingly brings to light the relevance of deploying folktales in the determined strive to emancipate the child, especially the girl-child from those primitive practices of Indigenous African societies, as found in Usman’s folkloric pedagogy.
A widely traveled man, Usman’s My Literary Works… , at different junctures, refreshes our memories with travelogue pictures, including Usman’s family tours in Nigeria and abroad. Readers would find useful pictorial collections of tourist sites and objects of veneration in distant lands. They include public gallery inside Queen Elizabeth, Alcatar Palace at Seville, Spain; Dubrovnik City Croatia, “the Pearl of the Adriatic”; Messina, Italy; Cephalonia, Greece; Venice, Italy; the British territory of Gibraltar near Spain; Kandy, Sri Lanka; Colombo, Sri Lanka; Pretoria, South Africa, etcetera.
“Evaluations of Bukar Usman’s Writings and Legacy” and “Feedbacks from Readers of Bukar Usman’s Writings” occupy the third and fourth section of the book. The Usmanic imprint is also found in composed songs, which veteran journalist, Ben Tomoloju, describes at “Lyrico-Poetic Testaments of Nigeria Artistes on Bukar Usman”, on page 941. On pages 1065-1067, Usman unveils the photos of some of the reviewers featured in the book.
In addition, reports of Usman’s recent award as Patron of Arts by the Accra-based PAWA (Pan African Writers Association) also finds a place in this magnificent book as a postscript, together with a plethora of congratulatory messages.
My Literary Works… is a triumph, and reading it till the end is a helluva achievement for a bibliophile. For the expectant reader out there, trading your time for this whopper is worth the inexpensive, mental pilgrimage.