# Dadasare Abdullahi

Maimuna Dada-Sare Abdullahi MON (1918–1984) was a Nigerian writer, nurse, teacher and journalist of Fulani descent. Her controversial romantic relationship with Rupert East, a British author and educationist, challenged the cultural and social assumptions of Colonial Northern Nigeria.

## Life

Dadasare (a Fulfulde word for wife or mother of the house) was born into a fairly privileged family in Gola in the Bajama district of Adamawa. When she was still a toddler, her immediate family moved to Jambutu also in Adamawa. In her book It Can Now Be Told, she wrote that her childhood was eventful and happy before her abduction.

### Abduction

During a trip in 1929 to Gola with a relative, she was kidnapped on the orders of a British colonial district officer who desired a young Fulani girl. Her older male cousin, with whom she had travelled to Gola with, was part of the planning and execution of her abduction She was only 11 years old at the time. The officer ordered a parade of kidnapped three prebuscent Fulani girls of which he picked Dadasare out of.

#### Attempted escape

Her family back in Jambutu armed themselves and threatened to invade Gola to rescue her but some of the members of her clan pleaded with the family to not use violence but to speak to the officer first. The colonial authorities at the provincial headquarters in Yola launched an inquiry and investigation. After their investigation was concluded, they asked Dadasare if she wanted to return home or stay with her kidnapper. She was asked multiple times and each time she stated her desire to return to her mother. Despite her clear desire, the British colonial authorities ordered her to remain with her abductor. In the middle of the day not long after this decision, she attempted an escape while the guardsmen were sleeping. She spent the night in the bush on her journey home in Jambutu. The colonial policemen eventually found her and took her back to the officer's residence. Because of her attempted escape, her uncle, who was the district head of Gola, was removed from his position and her other relatives, particularly the women, fled Gola in fear of their own abduction.

#### Move to Benue and later return to Adamawa

Her abductor was transferred to Ibbi in the Benue province not long after and he took her with him. In Ibbi, she acted as the officer's 'hostess' to his many European guests. At this point she had accepted her fate and tried to make best of her situation. For three years, he used her as a sex slave which later resulted in her having a child by the officer. The officer's service in Nigeria came to an end shortly after and returned to England leaving her and the child behind. He told Dadasare that he would be back and that she should go back to her mother in Adamawa. On her journey back to Adamawa on the Benue River, her child died of malaria. In her book, she recounts:
   I spent the night at a small place called Bajabure. Mosquitoes swarmed everywhere. My baby was badly bitten all through the night. He quickly got malaria, and as he was not very strong and I could not get to a doctor, he died in my arms at Song on the way to Gola. I shall not dwell on this event. Only a mother can know how I felt.

### Relationship with Rupert East

Shortly after returning home, she was married off to a man in the community by her kinsmen. This prospect filled Dadasare "with gloom" as she expressed in her book. She further wrote that she was no longer the "child who had been unscrupulously carried off" and that "something had fundamentally changed and my horizon had widened". Dadasare quickly missed her life with her abductor as she had access to an exclusive colonial privileges and luxuries. In 1933, Dr. Rupert East invited Dadasare to live with him in Zaria, 500 miles away from Gola. She met Rupert East in her abductor's social circle. She fell in love with him then and taught him Fulfulde (her native language). She immediately accepted his invitation and started making preparations to meet him in Zaria. Rupert East was managing the upstart Northern Region Literature Agency (Gaskiya Corporation). He was 35 years old and she was 15 years old at the time of his invitation. Dadasare, in her memoir, explained her decision to move with Dr East, whom she called Jaumusare (Master of the house):
   This time I did not have to be kidnapped. I had decided of my own free will to go to a man I felt I could love and who, I was sure, had real feeling for me. I do not propose, now or later, to expatiate on the personal relationship that grew up between Jaumu-sare and myself. Those who have deeply loved will not need to be told, and those who have not, could never understand.
Their relationship was controversial resulting in a number speculations and rumours. She was the hostess of the home, where she entertained his guests which included writers, artists and government officials. He found her a teacher who taught her how to read and write in both English and Hausa using the Latin script. She quickly developed a liking to reading books especially in Hausa. She read the Hausa version of the Bible three times despite being a Muslim herself. She also enjoyed reading English fiction and took a liking to Jane Austen. East treated Dadasare as his wife and she enjoyed all the privileges, prestige and power that came with being a spouse of a colonial official. A close associate of Rupert East, Mr H.P. Elliot had this to say in his memoirs:
   East was insistent that she should be accepted in their company of Europeans as any other partner/spouse. She was treated by him as a wife and was the hostess in their home.
In 1951, Rupert East returned to the UK with his new wife, Jacqueline de Neyer, later having two kids, but he still maintained communication with Dadasare. She visited him in their home in Wiltshire several times while on holiday in England. H.P. Elliott, also in his memoir, recounts:
   I was still finding my feet in this exacting job when a message reached me one day urgently to call and see Dada Sare. I found her in tears. ‘I am sure something dreadful has happened to my husband’, she said. I did my best to calm and comfort her, but was disbelieving. Rupert was on his way home via the Sudan and Egypt with a DO [District officer] friend. We learnt some days later that the DO had been killed and Rupert seriously injured in a train crash on the railway between Cairo and Tel Aviv. Dada Sare was right. It was a ‘psychic’ sensing—the only one of its kind I encountered in Nigeria. She was a remarkable woman who became later an Education Officer and died, greatly respected, recently in her native Adamawa Province.
After he died in 1975, he left a "substantial amount" of money to her.

## Career

During Dadasare's time with Rupert East in Zaria during the late 1930s, she worked as a journalist in Gaskiya Corporation which published the weekly Gaskiya Tafi Kwabo. Before working there, Dadasare was a reader of the weekly paper. She often wrote letters to the editor on different issues, usually under a pseudonym. She once complained about the lack of clinics in the city of Zaria and its densely populated Tudun Wada. This resulted in the colonial authorities getting furious and seeking to punish the writer, whom they could not find. However, it led to them establishing clinics in Zaria and Tudun Wada. She was later employed by Gaskiya Corporation.
She worked closely with legendary Hausa-language writers and journalists like Abubakar Imam, who was the Editor, and Nuhu Bamalli. She wrote on issues in the paper, focusing primarily on women's issues. In 1946, Gaskiya Corporation launched Jakadiyya, a newspaper aimed at women. It became widely popular in part due to Dadasare. She established a women's page where she wrote articles on successful women like Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale. She also wrote essays on hygiene and childcare. Her also being a female writer connected with the female readers as it was rare to find a female writer or journalist in the male-dominated field.
During the Second World War, she became a volunteer nurse in the Mission Hospital in Wusasa. Due to her experiences with the missionaries, she converted to Christianity and was baptized soon after. However, a racist prayer which blamed the Fulani for enslaving Christians caused her to revert to Islam a few years later.
In December 1949, she left for England to train to become a nurse for six years. She trained at Horton General Hospital in Banbury and later transferred to Plainstow Maternity Hospital in London until 1955. It was during this period that Rupert East married his only wife, the Belgian artist Jacqueline de Neyer, whom he met in Gaskiya Corporation. Before she could come back to Nigeria, Rupert East had already left the country and moved back to England forcing Dadasare to move on with her life. She later became a nurse enrolled at the government hospital in Zaria and attained the level of matron.
Dadasare later became an Adult educator and a teacher in the newly independent Northern Nigeria. She worked in the regional service as the Assistant Superintendent of Adult Education and later the North Central State service until the late 70s when she retired. On retirement, she started her career as a liaison officer for many international researches in Northern Nigeria.
She was awarded the Member of the Order of the Niger National honour in 1970, one of the first women recipients.

## Death

In 1984, Dadasare jumped into a well in an attempt to commit suicide. She was rescued and rushed to the hospital. She survived but two weeks later she died due to the damages already done to her body and mind. Before her attempted suicide, she told her adopted daughter, Aishatu Dikko, she wanted to see her. Dadasare informed her that if she eventually comes and she did not meet her, she should check under her pillow for a message. Aishatu asked for an explanation which Dadasare refused to provide. On the same day, she told her house help, who was the first to find her in the well, "from tomorrow you will see me no more". Aishatu arrived too late as her funeral service was already in progress when she reached.
Before her death, she wrote her autobiography It Can Now Be Told which was eventually published in 2019.