Why My Father Hid Who I Was For 27 Years – Olawepo-Hashim

Presidential candidate of the Accord Party, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has revealed that his Hausa and royal identity was hidden from him for almost three decades.

Olawepo-Hashim disclosed that his late father, Alhaji Hashim Abdullahi Yauri, deliberately kept his royal heritage from him as a child after receiving a warning from an Islamic cleric about possible dangers within the royal family.

Naija News reports that the Accord Party flag bearer, who is the grandson of the 40th Seriki of Yauri, disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday.

According to him, the cleric advised his father against exposing the child’s identity prematurely, prompting him to make what was ultimately a life-changing decision: to protect his son by keeping his identity secret.

“He chose protection over inheritance,” he said.

As a result, Olawepo-Hashim was relocated and raised in the Borgu Emirate under a different identity.

Although he was named Abdulmalik at birth, he grew up within a Yoruba cultural environment, largely removed from the Hausa traditions, royal connections and family history of his paternal lineage.

Olawepo-Hashim also paid tribute to his late father, whom he described as a highly influential police officer who rose to become a Police Commissioner and Commandant of the Police College, Kaduna.

He described his grandfather as one of the prominent traditional rulers of Northern Nigeria in his era and part of a generation of educated Northern royals who combined traditional authority with modern education, administration and commerce.

According to Olawepo-Hashim, Seriki Jibril, the 40th ruler of Yauri, was particularly distinguished by his knowledge of finance and trade, financial prudence, transparency and commitment to education.

He described him as a prominent royal of Hausa ancestry who was honoured with the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) during the colonial period.

He further recalled that British records portrayed his grandfather as an unusually independent traditional ruler who, during the Second World War, exercised a degree of administrative autonomy that distinguished him from many of his contemporaries.

“It is the story of a father who chose secrecy as an act of protection; a child who grew up between cultures without knowing the full story of his origins; and a family history that eventually returned to him decades later.

“For 27 years, I lived without knowing the full story of who I was,” Hashim said.

He said discovering his Hausa and Yauri heritage did not diminish the Yoruba cultural environment in which he was raised. Rather, it gave him a deeper understanding of the different cultural and historical strands that shaped his identity.