“I fought in the civil war. Our division was stationed in Enugu. Two years after the war ended, my division returned to Kaduna. Later that year, after our division returned to Kaduna, I was appointed a standby driver attached to the fleet for all foreign dignitaries. “I drove every important foreign dignitary. I drove almost all the top-ranking military officers of that era also. There was no important personality that I didn’t drive.
“I drove former President Olusegun Obasanjo. I also drove late General Murtala Mohammed, General Sani Abacha, General Jeremiah Useni (retd.), and Lt. Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (retd.) when he was the Chief of Staff. I also drove General M.B. Haruna and even General Paul Tarfa (retd.),” Garba said.
Since 1942 when he obtained his driving licence, Garba said he was happy that none of the vehicles assigned to him was involved in any accident even until 1985 when he left the military.
Garba also narrated how he drove President Muhammadu Buhari as a colonel in the Nigerian Army.
“He was the General Officer Commanding Zone 3 before he became the director of Supply and Transport. I drove him when he was the director of military supply and transport,” he said.
Speaking of his knowledge of Buhari, Garba said, “Buhari is one person who cares for your welfare. He wouldn’t cheat. The Buhari I know would take hours to finish a bottle of soft drink. One bottle of soft drink was too much for him to finish in five hours.
Following the overthrow of the Shehu Shagari regime, Garba said he felt happy for Buhari, but was sad that he never had the opportunity of seeing him again – until 2015 when he became a civilian President.
He said, “I decided I wanted to see him after failed attempts in the past to see him as a military man. But my daughter, who is now a serving senator questioned my curiosity. She wanted to know my relationship with Buhari. I simply replied, ‘I was once his driver.’ Many people asked me the same question when Binta was taking me to meet with the President.
“Eventually, I saw him. We hugged each other and took pictures. I sat close to him and he felt very happy. It was one of the happiest days of my life. Buhari told me, ‘Garba, it’s been long. It’s good to see you after all this while.’”
Asked if he had ever imagined that his daughter would become a senator someday, Garba replied, “Well, there is an adage in Hausa that says that a good Friday is noticeable on Thursday. There’s one important incident I would never forget. When she was in school, quite young then, the Kaduna State handball team had featured her in a handball competition.
“Immediately she reached home, she handed over all the money she got from the competition to me. She did not take even N1 from it. She often said, ‘Daddy, take it’. She has continued to behave that way till date such that her mother even envies her closeness to me, saying she’s my favourite child. When she finished school, the New Nigeria Newspapers employed her and she worked with them and from there, she joined politics. I didn’t know she would become what she is today.”
As the father of the only female member of the senate from the north, Garba said he always felt happy, disclosing that one of the things he had always told himself was that since he didn’t have an opportunity to have Western education, he would invest all he had to give all his children good education.Räägi sõbrale... #AFRICA ... spill TEA ABOUT THE TOPIC ABOVE.... Easy on Shade #jaiyeorie
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