Author: Hassan Gimba

RIVERS, a state so rich because God blessed it with an abundance of crude oil and gas, is named after the many rivers that border its territory. Forty per cent of Nigeria’s output of crude oil is produced in the state. It also has deposits of silica sand, glass sand and clay. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), ₦1.93 trillion was raked in, in 2022 as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) across the 36 states in Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory. Out of this, Rivers State generated ₦172.89 billion, second only to Lagos, with ₦651.15 billion. And despite…

IN the first part of this write-up, we saw how in 1983, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), afraid of defeat, capitalised on Shehu Shagari’s perceived likeability and reversed the election timetable and started with a vote for the president. They relied on what they christened the “bandwagon effect” to commit monumental electoral fraud to win, calling it a “landslide” victory, which opponents and critics derisively described as a “moonslide”. We also saw how in 2003, the same fear of losing, the threat from General Muhammadu Buhari’s foray into the presidential race, an altercation with his deputy, Atiku Abubakar, and…

IS there something with the presidential system of democracy we have twice adopted for ourselves that necessitates involving the courts where judges are made to be the ultimate arbiter between contestants? In 1979, it was the judges who decided who emerged as the president between Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Chief Obafemi Awolowo when they told the nation what two-thirds of nineteen should be in a judgment that is more of a compromise between the spirit of the law and political practicality. The requirement to be the president was a majority of votes and national spread, determined by the ability of…

“A corrupt judge is more harmful to the society than a man who runs amok with a dagger in a crowded street. While the man with the dagger can be restrained physically, a corrupt judge deliberately destroys the foundation of society.” – Justice Samson Uwaifo, a retired justice of the Supreme Court. ABOUT two weeks ago, Mr Olumide Akpata, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), at the International Bar Association (IBA) conference in Paris, France, lamented that only by sheer luck will the Nigerian judiciary produce a good judge and that the country is under “judiciary capture.”…

THERE is no Nigerian that will tell you he is not aware of the NLC even if he does not know that it is an acronym for the Nigeria Labour Congress. What the average Nigerian knows about them is that they always go on strike at the drop of a hat, strikes that have lost their meaning because they always achieve almost nothing. Well, there’s nothing in it for the average Nigerian; only for the vanguards of the congress. At least, that is what an average citizen will tell you. This suspicion, or rather an assumption, is fueled by the…

THIS was a speech delivered by Dr Hassan Gimba, publisher of Neptune Prime online newspaper and a syndicated columnist, at the Ebony Herald Hall of Fame and Dignity, held at the Stonehedge Hotel and Suites, Abuja, on 09/11/2023. Ladies and gentlemen, I say good evening to you all. This is not a topic of my choosing, but one given to me by the organisers. Nonetheless, I will try to do justice to it. When we say “renew”, we are talking about restoration, revival, regeneration, rebuilding, repeating, resuming, etc., while “hope” is to anticipate expectations of fulfilment. On the other hand,…

It’s worth noting that this article was originally published on December 3, 2017, yet its relevance persists to this day. The Peoples Democratic Party THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not seriously planning to return to power. It is more focused on the inordinate ambitions of its stakeholders and how much money they can make from each. If Nigeria is on the minds of some of its members, it is regarding what can be made out of it with the party as the vessel. Even at that, they are not ready or desirous of reinventing, re-positioning, and strengthening the vessel.…

SO, Malam Adamu Fika, the Wazirin Fika, is dead. Called home by our Creator who loves man more than man loves himself. When He created the world and everything that is inside it, He made man for a purpose and sent him down to earth to complete the purpose. The purpose of the creation of man is to worship the creator as a way of life. Therefore, our lives and how we conduct our affairs all count on the scales of worship. Imam Ja’afar Assadiq (AS) said: “If you want to know the religion of a man, do not look…

THIS article was first published in December 2017, repeated in August 2018 and September 2020. With change being the only constant in human life, a lot of water has passed under the bridge in our country since then that have made yesterday’s hailers today’s wailers and vice versa. I find this write-up very relevant and perhaps may make us view Nigeria first over many of the things that pull us apart. Hailer and wailer are new terms in our political lexicon. Just as ‘men and women of timber and calibre’ and ‘extraordinary and plenipotentiary’, etc. were introduced in the Second…

FOR five years now, I have been advocating for our currency to be strong rather than for salaries to be increased. Not because those collecting salaries from the government are a minuscule few or because of the tendency that makes the prices of everything skyrocket. No. and not because the implication will push a lot of small and medium-scale businesses to death because they cannot afford it or because even big businesses and the government itself must retrench a lot of staff to accommodate salaries in a growing budget. No. My primary fear is that the more salaries are increased,…

This was first published by Daily Trust on Saturday, 17 November 2012. It encapsulates my mission and how I want to be remembered. I PICKED the title for this piece from the book written by Arthur Nwankwo when he felt former President Olusegun Obasanjo threatened him over a series of exchanges they had when the former president called for a one-party state in 1989. The book, published in 1989, which I found very refreshing, intellectually, started with Nwankwo claiming “Before I die, I will remain a critical visionary of the imperatives of Nigerian politics and a purveyor of the desiderata…

We have, over time, developed a culture of now and then giving our readers the opportunity to be heard. Today is one of those. Enjoy the views, please. Two tears for Dadiyata and the Sun, by Hassan Gimba (28/08/2023) It’s hard to believe that Dadiyata has disappeared for this long without any deliberate action by authorities concerned to rescue him, if he’s alive, or to provide an explanation of what actually transpired. Dr Ukasha Ismail This issue is worthy of serious consideration, let action take its cause, please let the security do something about his whereabouts. Yunusa Mohammed Babie So,…

“The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonourably, foolishly, viciously.” ― Julian Barnes, Flaubert’s Parrot TILL the rivers run dry and the world ceases to exist, problems shall never end. Problems became part of man the moment he took a bite of that apple and was banished to earth to come and find the solution that would take him back. And so, seeking solutions to problems must be our eternal habit. However, just as Albert Einstein said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when…

IN the past three years, at least eight African countries have witnessed military coup d’états. This is coming when it was thought that Africa’s democracy had come of age when we were beginning to think that coups had gone for good, consigned to an era in the past when African governments were led by the military. Coincidentally, all but one of the eight countries were colonised by France. Some of the countries are Mali, Chad, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and now Gabon. The first coup in Mali was in August 2020, when President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was overthrown by a…

AT about 1 am, on the cold night of Friday, August 2, 2019, exactly two months after celebrating his 34th birthday, Malam Abubakar Idris, commonly known as Abu Hanifa Dadiyata, or just Dadiyata, was abducted in front of his house at Barnawa, a quiescent area of Kaduna. Armed men kidnapped the PhD student and History of English Language lecturer at the Federal University, Dutsinma, from his house after they breached his house’s security from where they took him away in his BMW car. For all these four years, no ransom was asked and nobody has contacted his family in any…

First published on September 23, 2019, and repeated on August 22, 2022. WE have looked at various forms of government in the first part of this treatise. We ended with the posers, “Can we continue this way? Is it the fault of the system or the operators of the system? Should we scout for a better system or better operators? Should we look inwards? Will a system in tandem with our inner being be the answer to our multifaceted and ever-growing problems as a nation?” We signed off with this thought: “Perhaps we have been imposing on ourselves systems that…

First published on September 23, 2019, and repeated on August 22, 2022. SINCE man became aware of himself and realised that whether by mutual arrangement or contrived by nature, there are always leaders and followers, communities fashioned out ways and means in which to live together under organised systems to regulate and conduct their affairs. From primitive father figure leadership to the animalistic instinct of the strongest leading the flock, man has experimented with many ways in which to live in harmony with one another and with the larger community. Since then, nations have tinkered with various forms, some of…

NIGERIA is mobilising countries in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to fight the coup plotters of the Niger Republic to restore democracy. The regional body, led by Nigeria’s president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has expressed its resolve to use all necessary measures to restore constitutional order in the country, including the use of force, if they do not meet its demands in a week. Backed to the hilt by America and France, ECOWAS leaders’ demand to Niger’s junta leaders is simple: release and reinstate President Mohamed Bazoum within a week. That deadline expired yesterday. But if the leaders…

“ANY man whom Allah has given the authority of ruling some people and he does not look after them in an honest manner, will never feel even the smell of Paradise.” – Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Before going to my topic, please allow me a little digression. I want to start by appealing to the federal government to please stop the charade and for the people to not take their eyes off the goalpost. Or where do you place the ongoing drama about the former Central Bank Governor’s arrest, arraignment, and re-arrest? In the first place, no one told the nation…

LAST week, the federal government, through the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), banned two loan app banks, permanently removing them from Google Play Store and initiating the process of deleting their respective apps. The culprits, Sycamore Integrated Solutions Limited and Orange Loan and Purple Credit Limited, along with their apps, Getloan and Camelloan, were permanently delisted due to their illicit practices and for their harassment of Nigerians. They were also accused of duplicity and illegal activities when they were discovered to be using APKs to attract borrowers, which is both illegal and unregulated. The truth is that loan…