The first novelist to be published in the English language in northern Nigeria, Alhaji Labo Yari, died on Saturday in Katsina at the age of 81.
Yari died at the Federal Medical Centre, Katsina, at 2 a.m. on Saturday, March 18, after a protracted illness. He had been incapacitated for five years.
He is survived by his wife and seven children – four females and two males.
Family sources told the New Citizen that Yari’s burial rites will take place at 2 p.m. today at his No 124 Layout area of Katsina city.
Born in Katsina on April 14, 1942, Labo Yari was educated at the London School of Journalism and the University of Oslo, Norway.
He started work as information officer in the defunct Katsina Native Authority before transferring to the Federal Ministry of Information, Lagos, and later became the Press Attache in the Nigerian Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden.
Subsequently, he held executive positions in publishing, including as chairman/chief executive of the Northern Nigerian Publishing Company, Zaria.
In 1989 he was appointed the Government Printer, Katsina, a position from which he retired from government service after some years.
Our correspondent noted that Yari was barely celebrated by the Nigerian literary critics and the media in spite of his immense contribution to African literature, having penned several literary works and was a co-founder of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).
His first novel, Climate of Corruption, was published by First Dimension Publishing Company, Enugu, in 1978, and became an instant hit. It was the first novel by a northern Nigerian published in English.
The same company published two other works of Yari – A House in the Dark and Other Stories (1985), and a novel, Man of the Moment (1992).
His second collection of short stories, A Day Without Cockcrow, was released by Informart Publishers, Kaduna, in 1999.
Yari’s 351-page biography of a powerful colonial-era traditional ruler of Katsina, titled Muhamman Dikko Emir of Katsina, was published by Summit Books, Katsina, in 2007.
Sources told the New Citizen that Yari’s last book, Awaiting Gozo, a novel, was being prepared for publication by Informart before the author’s demise.
Yari was among the five writers, including Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, who founded the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) in 1982. He was one of the four lifelong National Trustees of the association for three decades, the others being Achebe, T.M. Aluko and Mabel Segun.
The author of six books will be remembered for his pioneering work in the field of African literature.
