It was inevitable that they would grace the cover of most Nigerian newspapers on Friday last week, they were the most prominent of the earliest-known victims of the Hajj stampede. But equally inevitable was the fact that Hajiya Bilkisu Yusuf and Professor Tijjani El- Miskin knew each other and were well-known to many. This was what made their double loss a monumental tragedy for this part of the country and the nation at large.
It is for this reason that I earlier planned two tributes, one for each of them, in this column last week. But after penning what I could on Aunty Bilkisu, I got so emotionally exhausted that I couldn't write any more. I felt drained by the sheer weight of the exercise, knowing that it was a piece to say goodbye, to accept that she was gone forever.
...