Author: Hassan Gimba

ONE learns every day. Anyway, a man is supposed to learn from cradle to grave, as said by the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (SAW). And so, I have learnt a great deal about people throughout my life. I have come to understand that life is fleeting, and our perceived years on earth are but a fleeting moment, passing at the speed of light. It is also true that behind every smile, we may see multiple pains that surface the moment the smile is wiped away, just as screensavers disappear at the touch of a finger. Therefore, always do your bit…

OF course, one must ask that question because everyone, especially those accusing Iran of inching towards acquiring the nuclear bomb, knew it was not so. After all, the country spent a whole year implementing the JCPOA agreement, even after Trump unilaterally tore up the deal reached after exhaustive negotiations lasting eighteen months. Iran waited, giving the USA a chance to return, before continuing with the enrichment of uranium, only to be accused of violating an agreement that the US had already abandoned. How Janus-faced! For the past 41 years, Israel – often with Netanyahu as Prime Minister – has been…

IT is a new” word, huh? Hypocrity. Well, it is not a word in usage. But come, you must have seen its closeness to hypocrisy. OK, hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have virtues, beliefs, or feelings that one does not possess, especially when those pretended beliefs contradict one’s actions. Now, interchange it with hypocrity. You get it. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), established in 1957, is an autonomous international organisation within the United Nations system. It carries out programmes to maximise the contribution of nuclear technology to society while verifying its peaceful use. Related to this is…

Victory is with patience. Success is with endurance. And war is a matter of turns. – Imam Ali, Nahj al Balagha, saying 189. Gaza. A four-letter word sounding like the tasty gizzard. But Gaza is nowhere as palatable as the gizzard. Gaza is now the symbol of all that is bad with apartheid and racism. It brings to the world the sights, sounds and fury of the Holocaust. Gaza is not a place that can be tasty at all. Well, except for hunger. Diseases. Deprivation. And death. Gaza City, a hot semi-arid climate with Mediterranean characteristics, was the most populous…

THIS article was published on July 26, 2021, after the Eid-ul-Adha or Eid-ul-Kabir of that year. It remains relevant and vital, with a few adjustments, to be re-published. Muslims the world over have celebrated the Eid-ul-Adha or the “big Eid” or “big Sallah”. We are, however, more interested in its meaning, implications and bearing on us as a nation. We need to look at spiritual milestones, hoping to find the seemingly elusive panacea for our ills. Eid means feast, festival or celebration, while adha loosely means “sacrifice” (animal sacrifice), “offering” or “oblation”. It got its name because it commemorates Prophet…

INNA lilLahi wa inna ilaihir raji’un! May Allah have mercy upon their souls and grant them Aljanna Firdausi. My condolences to you and through you, to the entire Neptune Prime family as well as Borno journalists. – Governor Mai Mala Buni Inna lil Lah, wa inna ilahirraji’un! May Allah forgive their shortcomings and grant them aljannah firdausi, amen. My sincere condolences, and may Allah give you the courage and fortitude to bear this irreparable loss. – SK Usman Please accept our sincere condolences. – Engr Suleiman Bah Gimba, Magajin Garin Fika May Allah forgive them. Ameen. – Ibrahim Sheme May…

LAST week was a dark one for journalism in Nigeria. The light of two of its bright stars, Hajiya Amina Alhassan Ahman and Haruna Dauda Biu dimmed and blew out. Amina was cast in the print section of the profession, while Haruna was a star in broadcast journalism. I first noticed Amina in 2014 at a Leadership Newspaper editorial meeting for editors and senior editorial management staff. The meeting, held every Monday, had each editor defending their paper comparatively against its counterparts from other media houses. Friday Leadership, for instance, would be compared against every paper around the country published…

ABOUT three weeks ago, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was in Katsina, where he charged the Nigerian Army to end the terrorism menace and reclaim every inch of the nation’s territory. He also strongly warned: “Let the enemies of Nigeria know — their time is up.” After other state engagements, he honoured an invitation to attend the wedding of Governor Dikko Radda’s daughter — an event where guests were treated to lavish entertainment. Recall that the Governor, about two months earlier, had lost his beloved mother. Were Hajiya Sarafa’u Umaru, who died at the age of 93, to be asked, she…

FROM time to time, we give our readers a chance to make their voices heard through their input. Well, it has been quite a while since we did that. We will start a serialisation of such inputs beginning with this. Why should Nigeria not break up? (March 31, 2024) You expressed the minds of all genuine comrades and patriotic elites. Dr Matawalli Geidam No reason, sir…. It is a Destiny created by God that, whether we like it or not, we MUST live together as brothers and sisters of different religions, languages, attire, dress, behaviour, attitude, conduct, and ethnic groups…

IN A tête-à-tête with journalists last week, the Governor of Jigawa State, Umar Namadi, openly disagreed with retired General Theophilus Danjuma, former Chief of Army Staff and former Minister of Defence, over his advice to us Nigerians, to defend ourselves against those who have been killing citizens like Christmas turkeys and abducting and negotiating ransom payments like buying and selling sacks of potatoes in Shendam market. Namadi said, “He (Danjuma) is a very senior security person and should be respected. But if he says citizens should be allowed to defend themselves, I think you are causing anarchy.” TY Danjuma, of…

SOMETIMES in life, one comes across people whom one is at a loss for words on how to present to the public. This is not because there are no words or that you lack them. No—it is mainly because you know them closely enough that you do not want it to look like you are buttering your words. After all, you know them. Take the case of Bala Ciroma, who recently retired as a Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG). When he was a newly minted police officer in the early 1990s, his house in Suleja was my transit “camp”…

ON Friday last week, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former House of Representatives Speaker and Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal, former Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufa’i, former Benue State Governor Gabriel Suswam, former Governor of Imo State, Achike Udenwa, and former Governor of Kaduna State Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, alongside other political heavyweights, paid a visit to former President Muhammadu Buhari at his residence in Kaduna. It was ostensibly a social visit, and they were seen exchanging banter, having a tete-a-tete, and enjoying lunch—all for the photo ops—before going into a closed-door meeting – where the main issue would be tabled,…

This is a repeat. It was published on 24/12/2023. Readers may find it still relevant. RIVERS, a state so rich because God blessed it with abundant crude oil and gas, is named after the many rivers that border its territory. Forty percent of Nigeria’s crude oil output 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…

“Today, nearly everything is made in China – except courage; it’s made in Palestine.” – Anthony Bourdain. ANYONE conversant with world affairs knows what’s happening in the Middle East. One does not have to belong to a particular faith to take an interest in events there because, where humanity is concerned, all divine religions agree on the sanctity of human life. Even though Nigeria has unending problems, that does not mean one should shut out other humans and their suffering. It’s like saying we don’t have enough food, so we would not give someone in dire need, even a bite.…

“It’s a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe. NOT as many people know the popular novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions experienced by enslaved African Americans, as they know its author, Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896). She was an American author and abolitionist. Coming from the religious Beecher family, her book reached an audience of millions as both a novel and a play. It became influential in the United States and Great Britain, energizing…

This was first published on March 12, 2018, nine days after her death. It is repeated wholly with only a headline change as a posthumous birthday seven years after. LAMI Fatima Babare, my beloved wife, my friend, the mother of my children. Today marks one week of your painful death. When we got married on the 30th of October, 1992, our dream was to grow old together; to live to the age when we will walk about alone in the house with walking sticks after sending all the children on their course, reliving our early love once again, with our…

HAS anybody wondered why the generality of the first set of our educated citizens revered the United Kingdom and aped the white Briton? They saw the mode of dressing, manner of speech, behavioural nuances, and general etiquette of the Briton as the epitome of civilisation. It took some coups and counter-coups, the death of some British-trained political and military leaders, and a civil war, coupled with the British diminishing international political and economic influence on the one hand and the United States of America becoming a world power on the other, for Nigeria to discard the British parliamentary political system…

THINGS are happening fast, and in an ever-changing world, keeping track of them is becoming increasingly difficult. This is not particular to Nigeria alone, as we have seen many global shifts that may ultimately spell peace for the beleaguered, even though others may have the potential to exacerbate fragile peace. Russia/Ukraine axis may see peace, but Gaza may enter another phase. However, the revelation that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a sponsor of many global terrorist activities, including Boko Haram, may help us solve that aspect of our security problem. And who knows, perhaps even banditry…

AS long as I remain the minister of defence, our soldiers will marry the prettiest women, live in the best houses, eat the best food, wear the best clothes and drive the best cars because when war comes, they will be the ones to die first. – Muhammadu Ribadu. If I did not get the above quotation right, I would not be far off the correct one. I vividly recall reading the book Power of Powers, A Biography of the Late Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu, in which the above quotation was narrated the year it was published. The 100-page book, published…

THAT is the question. Perhaps we should first take a look at Lake Chad and Mai Mala Buni, the governor of Yobe State and current chairman of the Lake Chad Basin Governors’ Forum. The Lake Chad Basin is an area of about 2,434,000 square kilometres (940,000 square miles), roughly 8 per cent of Africa. It includes parts of Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, and Niger and is fed by the Chari, Logone, and Yobe Rivers. There are around 30 million inhabitants and over 70 ethnic groups, with their primary sources of livelihood being farming, fishing, and animal husbandry. The lakeside is rich…