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…
Author: Hassan Gimba
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 people think…
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…
“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 the…
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…
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…
Google is going to start getting rid of inactive accounts, beginning this Friday, as part of its inactive account policy. The company plans to do this gradually, starting with accounts that were created but never used. To prevent deletion, a simple action like signing into the account or sending an email is sufficient. Google explains that this change is driven by security concerns, emphasizing that forgotten and unused accounts are more susceptible to compromise. A Google account provides access to various Google products, including Gmail and YouTube, using the same login credentials. The company, in a blog post from May,…
“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.”…
Tommy Okon, the esteemed national president of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), has brought to light a concerning issue affecting more than 5,000 federal civil servants, potentially jeopardizing their receipt of the December salary. Okon, during a press briefing in Abuja, disclosed that this group of workers is grappling with discrepancies in their dates of first appointment and dates of birth. “Undoubtedly, this revelation raises questions about the seamless functioning of administrative processes within the federal civil service.” Okon reassured the public that the ASCSN is actively collaborating with the head of civil service of the…
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…
The University of Maiduguri, in Borno State, recently bestowed upon Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima, an honorary Doctor of Science (D.Sc) degree. Retired Justice Sidi Bage Muhammad, the distinguished Chancellor of the University and Emir of Lafia in Nasarawa State, played a pivotal role in the ceremonial proceedings by presiding over the conferment of honors. In a moment steeped in tradition and academic significance, the Chancellor underscored the conferment of the honorary Doctor of Science (D.Sc) degree upon Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima. The decision to bestow this prestigious accolade was rooted in the profound acknowledgment of Vice President Shettima’s…
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 text was published three years ago when Nigeria marked its 60th year of independence. Nothing has changed except for the age, now at 63, as the conditions remain the same. The text is therefore being reprinted today with only one change: @60 has been replaced by @63. Nigeria ought to be a great country. We have all that is needed to transform our country into the envy of even the most advanced countries of the world. Nigeria is blessed with a plethora of intelligent, innovative, daring, competitive, and egalitarian people. Then the land is favoured by the creator of…
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…
“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…
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 are alien to us, to our culture, to our souls.” Some think…
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 why he…
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…
