What a coincidence!
My first granddaughter, Mubina Mukhtar, the daughter of my daughter, Mubinatu Ahmad, by a stroke of fate, has met the upcoming poet, Maryam Bukar Hassan, the daughter of the late popular Kannywood actress, Hauwa Maina.
It so happened that my granddaughter saw a video of Maryam praising the Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, and she perfectly mimicked the young poet. The video, which my daughter posted on her Instagram, somehow got to the attention of Maryam, who contacted my daughter and indicated her interest to meet my granddaughter.
And last week, they met in Lagos, where they recorded the following video together.
Now, here's where it really gets interesting, so lend me your ears and eyes.
Around 2005 or so, while I was the General Manager, GM, Katsina State Television, KTTV, we invited Maryam's mother, late Hauwa Maina, through her younger sister, Safiya, who was then a student at Hassan Usman Katsina Polytechnic, to feature in one of our programs. She honored our invitation.
I'm sure my colleagues at KTTV, the then Director Programs, Sada Rumah, Danwairen Katsina, the producer of the program, who conducted the interview, Habib Bello Usman and my friend, Kabir Abasaya still remember the interview.
From then on, we kept in touch and one day while I was passing through Kaduna to Abuja, I paid a visit to her house, where I saw young Maryam, who was just about 11 years old then. And now, in twist of fate and in the most coincidental manner, that 11 year old girl has met my daughter and granddaughter in far away Lagos! Can you imagine this?
Maryam Bukar Hassan, also known as Alhanislam is a young Nigerian poet and an exponent of the spoken word, who has performed at major festivals and events across the world, according to Wikipedia.