THIS writing was first published on 6 July 2020, then May 16, 2023. With changes of leadership soon at the federal and state levels, I see it as relevant. The first part in particular. However, do we forget the lessons in the second part? The world is changed by your example not by your opinion – Paulo Coelho, Brazilian Lyricist and author of The Alchemist. Allah (SWT) said in the Qur’an that He does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in their hearts. It is a verse widely quoted out of context by people…
Author: Hassan Gimba
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LET us face it and tell ourselves the truth, bitter as it is: all patriotic Nigerians conversant with happenings among our elite class will be disappointed with the sordid behaviour of most of them. And their behaviour is further putting a strain on the fabric that holds the country together. In the first place, they never consider justice or fair play. Many of them have a grandiloquent idea of being chosen, especially by God, and blessed above everyone else. Their regard and consideration are, therefore, only to their ilk. This is why they never think it is the right thing…
“One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to convince them steadily with propaganda that they are still free.” N. A. Scott, American author. EVERY human being currently living on earth came to this world and saw the United States of America posing as the cradle of democracy, a bastion of freedom and a citadel of human rights. For those of us in Africa, especially West Africa, and particularly those along the coastline, that America ruptured family cohesion, ties and lineage by forcefully taking our able-bodied forefathers and enslaving them, was either forgotten, forgiven,…
IN my last two write-ups, I narrated my sojourn to Saudi Arabia, where I ended up at the Makkah Saudi-German Hospital in search of Medicare. After extolling the virtues and efficiency of the Saudi model, I asked the pertinent question: Why can’t we replicate the model? I went as far as requesting state governors to build one each in their states and engage the Saudi-German Hospital to run it for them for some time. It was just after the publication that I came across a statement by Katsina State Governor, Dr Dikko Umar Radda, who said that his state had…
TWO days after I started taking the medication prescribed by Dr Heba, I could lift myself out of the wheelchair and walk about. By the fifth day, I walked into the hospital, gingerly, but surely, and came face to face with Dr Heba, who was not even surprised to see me on my feet, on her way to buy a cappuccino, I guessed. We went to the waiting area and waited to be called in to see her. She soon returned, holding a cup of her drink. She asked me certain questions and, after taking my vitals, sent me to…
I NEVER thought I could attend the Eid prayer held on 10th April, a day after I clocked the definitive age of 60: I have now joined the senior citizens’ rank. Not being confident I could attend the Eid prayer seems an understatement; for actually, in February, the way I was feeling within me, it was looking to me that I would not witness Ramadan, not to talk of participating in the Eid marking its end. I easily get exhausted from the littlest of tasks, making me always gasping for air to fill my lungs. It reached a stage where…
THE chickens, the saying goes, always come home to roost. But some people would prefer to be Shakespearean by quoting the insightful words uttered by Marc Antony in William Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, “the evil that men do lives after them while the good is oft interred with their bones.” The first is a long-established English idiom that was used as early as 1390 AD in Chaucer’s The Parson’s Tale. It means that wicked deeds or words return to trouble their originator. In the second, spoken at Julius Caesar’s funeral, Mark Antony, referring to Brutus, Caesar’s murderer, was saying that…
TWO weeks ago, in my article entitled “Tinubu, beware the gathering dark clouds (2)”, I touched on our unity and rhetorically ended by asking if going our various ways would be better for all. I said, “To stitch the “merely a geographical entity” that we currently have, therefore, is a task that must involve all of us. We do not have any other country to call ours. And we cannot afford to see the country put together by God through the British rendered asunder. “Another reason I always look at some Nigerians from the south and north who shout ‘let…
This article is a repeat as it was first published on November 1, 2020. PALLIATIVE – This ten-letter word has taken over our national discourse displacing #EndSARS. Considering how the #EndSARS protests threatened the very fabric of our existence, no one will think anything will supplant it with such ease and in such record time. However, it has turned out to be a welcome development for the authorities. But what is it about palliative that it has taken over our national discourse? What is even palliative? Is it the looted noodles and rice hidden in these dire times as many…
LAST week, we read how the signs are not looking good for a nation like ours that wants to be reckoned with internationally. We concluded by asking the federal government to look at ways to reduce the cost of governance and the unimaginable take-home pay of political leaders and redirect the excess towards production. And we emphasised that we must become a productive nation that eats, drives and wears what it produces. We also exhorted anyone genuinely interested in the welfare of workers, and of Nigerians, to proffer solutions that would boost our economy and strengthen our currency and not…
I DO not want to believe that in a country of close to 250 million people, I am the only one who thinks there is a gathering of ominous dark clouds over our dear country beginning from the North. I cannot afford that foolish and lazy thought even if I wanted to dream so, because it is that type of thinking that brought us to this sorry pass. Yes. Not long ago, we had a leader who believed he knew more than everybody and was better than everybody. And surprisingly, many northerners believed he was the only upright person in…
THESE days, the words dominating the air are “hunger” and “protest”. And that, we are told, is because of two others – “dollar” and “salary”. Unfortunately, those capitalising on the latter two words to push for the first two words hardly mention the words “production” and “security” which are fuelled by justice and fairness. And there can be no justice without the rule of law. I suspect some behind-the-scenes push regarding cries of hunger and a subtle mobilisation for protests that would engulf the entire country. While not discounting the fact that there is massive hunger in town, it is…
(Readers’ Reactions) SALAAMU alaykum. I saw your tribute to late Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim, may Allah (SWT) grant him mercies with jannatul firdaus. I read it today and was touched by your powerful pen. Your late father, Sulaiman Gimba Ahmed, was a humble and quiet person who worked with me in 1979 while I was Commissioner of Agriculture during Governor Muhammadu Goni’s administration. He was in charge of the Borno State Water Board under my ministry. (He was acting Perm Sec and at the same time first GM of the state water board). And that is why I asked for…
ADAMU Maina Waziri is one politician most people misunderstand. He is one man who does not suffer fools and, unlike the typical politician, he shoots from the hip, the reason some saw him as “crude”. His word is his bond; and if you asked him for a favour that he can grant, he would tell you, and if he promised, he would deliver. But if he wouldn’t, he would not bat an eyelid in telling you no. This is not the kind of leader Nigerians want. Nigerians prefer the man who will tell them, “Ah, we did it for others,…
“He had a good heart, see where he died.” “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” – Thomas Campbell “DAGA Allah sai talaka,” (meaning service to the poor after that to God) was his campaign slogan. Bukar Abba Ibrahim was a man whose life was spent in service to the people. This was reflected more in his method of governance that was skewed towards empowering the people. When Yobe State was created in 1991, the state itself was rural and Damaturu, the state capital, was not better than a big village. Elected on the platform of…
NIGERIA is a country of one week, one issue; but insecurity, spreading over the nation like a cancer in a diseased body, remains constant. However, in some ways, a nation’s behaviour tends to reflect that of its leader’s character. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria’s president, is that kind of person, especially during the home run in the last presidential election. One week he was fighting off pretenders to the All Progressives Congress presidential ticket and the next he was fighting for his “health”. Throughout the campaign, he was either fighting the Villa cabal against him or crying foul about policies…
AS reporters and analysts, we must inform, based on trends, and where possible, raise the alarm, hoping that those in authority will heed. In 2018, six years ago, that was what I did. And so, this is just a rehash of my article “Insecurity, the North under siege” written on this page on 24 December 2018. Perhaps those concerned did not read it or they were unmindful because they were safe or just that they did not care. Well, now Abuja is a town gasping for breath from the stranglehold of criminals. Read on: The Boko Haram insurgents, once touted…
ON MONDAY, January 8, I lost my mother. She died at the age of 85. Despite the age being ripe, it was still a shock. It is normal for a child to see his parents as immortal despite an ingrained knowledge that every soul shall taste the inevitable – death. She succumbed to a debilitating pulmonary disease, something I think I inherited. She died on the 8 and her husband, Suleiman Gimba Ahmed on the 6 of January 2013. However, I want to talk about President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. There was a time when I was hopeful that I could…
LAST week, we got a dose of what investigative journalism ought to be. Umar Audu, a promising young journalist, proved to be an outstanding student of his mentor, Ja’afar Ja’afar, an investigative journalist of the first order. Reporting for Daily Nigerian, Ja’afar’s online newspaper, Umar Audu went underground to bag a degree in Mass Communication from a university in the Benin Republic. It is a report worthy of the highest award in the land for investigative journalism. “This certificate will be delivered to you just like you ordered a pizza or something, and you give them your location, and it…
AN IGBO adage says that when an anomaly persists for one year, it becomes the norm. So slowly, steadily but surely, it is becoming a norm, an accepted aberration, for a president in Nigeria to appoint himself as a minister. It is like saying in a country of 200 million-plus, there is no one good or capable enough to hold that particular office except the man entrusted with the running of the nation. It was President Olusegun Obasanjo that started it. Nicknamed the “Trinity President” in some quarters, for six out of his eight years in office, i.e., from 1999…