Nigeria, Sept. 9 -- There is a particular privilege in knowing someone before the world decided who they were going to be; before the titles, the cameras, the offices and the public arguments. I have had that privilege with Abdulmumin Jibrin.

I knew Abdulmumin long before most people knew him as they do today; before the National Assembly and before the many chapters of public life that have since defined his name. So, as he turns fifty, I find myself writing not about the Honourable Member for Kiru and Bebeji, but about my friend, my older brother and school father. That distinction has always mattered.

I remember someone whose mind never seemed to rest. Chairman, as we fondly call him, could take an idea everyone else had accepted, tu...