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Opinion

My Vision for Jigawa State (VII)

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Mustafa Sule Lamido

 

By: Mustapha Sule Lamido

I wish to start by commending all stakeholders who have been working round the clock to ensure that we remain on the right track. Over the past few weeks, we have been holding consultation meetings with leaders and elders from all 27 Local Government Areas of our dear state to establish a strong synergy that will enable us to finetune our policies and pass our message across to the grassroots. I commend the efforts of all volunteers working for the betterment of Jigawa State.

In the past few weeks, I have received concerns that our focus is still largely on the regular perennial issues of education, health, agriculture, water resources, etc. which every leader in Nigeria keeps talking about. Actually, I share these concerns also. In fact, I find it disturbing that we are still battling to get the basics right in Nigeria even after over 60 years of independence. One wouldve wished that by now, we should be discussing sophisticated issues of 21st century development, but we cant erect the building without a foundation. This is why we still have to emphasize on solving our foundational problems. Hopefully, we will get things right in a few years time.

Today, I want us to discuss agriculture which for now is the bedrock of the Jigawa State micro-economy. Over 75% of our people are farmers though at subsistence level. Agriculture is so broad that you cannot discuss its development in summary. Therefore, our vision for the sector is so wide and comprehensive that we have decided to discuss it in two series. Our major long-term plan is to make agriculture a macro-economic commercial venture that can be independent of government funding. We want to create an enabling environment which farmers will become strong enough to run their ventures just like factories and companies. In the long run, government will be the one benefitting from agricultural revenues even without huge budgetary allocations for the sector.

First and foremost, we are lucky that all the natural and artificial factors favourable to agricultural development are already available in Jigawa State. Our State has a total landmass of 24,742 square kilometres, a large proportion of which is certified to be arable. Ground survey data from the Jigawa State Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (JARDA) indicates that our State has a total fadama (wetlands) size of 3,433.79 km (14% of its total landmass). In addition, we have a population of over 3 million able-bodied youths.

In addition to our new plans for agriculture, we intend to build on the achievements of the previous PDP administration. Our major deliverables are, establishment of a conducive environment through solving the farmers-herders conflict, revolutionary upgrade from subsistence to commercial farming through agricultural mechanization, sustainable agricultural funding, modernized and scientific agriculture through research and revival of agricultural extension, developing an irrigation masterplan for all-year round farming, modernized animal production and upgrade of veterinary clinics, effective storage and increased agro-processing, increased access to subsidized farm inputs and establishment of a strong linkage between agriculture and industrialization.

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We will start by establishing a synergy with relevant national and international organizations in order to achieve the complete formalization of the agricultural sector. We shall deploy experts to conduct a comprehensive soil classification across the state and document the environmental requirements of all crops so that farmers can be guided on what to produce, how to produce them and where to do so. This will pave way for the gradual migration of Jigawa State into scientific agriculture. We shall work to evaluate the periodic contributions of agriculture and its components to our GDP.

As a matter of policy, we shall encourage all civil servants and other corporate entities to take up agriculture as a second venture. Our government will consider granting significant funds as agricultural loans to civil servants at zero interest rates to be deducted from their salaries over time. Only those who show convincing evidence of existing investment in agri-business will benefit.

We shall deploy a viable and sustainable means of supporting serious farmers with the right capital. Under the Anchor Borrowers Scheme of the Federal Government, the CBN is reported to have disbursed over 5 billion Naira as loan between 2016-2021 to Jigawa State farmers. However, it is difficult to objectively assess the sustainable impacts of these loans on the sector in the state. In partnership with the same Federal Government, we will start from the depoliticization of these loans so that only real farmers will have access irrespective of political affiliation. We will then expand the scheme at local level and improve it through monitoring and evaluation Insha Allah.

We will revive agricultural extension by extensively and intensively using the services of relevant graduates of the agricultural discipline. They will be given exclusive consultancy and extension service training and development exposure on new and better ways of mechanised agriculture and utilisation of better yielding seeds and varieties of animal/fishery breeding methods, etc.

We will conduct a comprehensive review of the policies and implementation mechanisms of agricultural inputs to farmers and cooperatives. To ensure the sustainability of fertilizer supply at affordable prices, we will work with private investors for the establishment and strengthening of factories with the capacity to produce the right quality and quantity throughout the year. We shall also work to attract further investors that specialize in other farm consumables like pesticides and animal supplements to see the possibility of producing them in Jigawa.

We cannot move beyond our current status if we dont substitute crude implements with modern ones; but we are aware that achieving agricultural mechanization will require time and huge resources. Since it will be nearly impossible to provide farm machineries to all categories of farmers at once, we will emphasize on agricultural equipment hiring and maintenance arrangement. Under this, there will be a community-based arrangement to deploy these equipment and tools to farmer groups to expose them to their uses and elementary maintenance. The services of the newly trained extension workers and practitioners will be utilised here.

We shall give priority to irrigation agriculture. Jigawa has 8 Dams, Dambo, Kazaure and Wawanrafi Dams in Kazaure LGA, Warwade Dam in Dutse LGA, Galambi and Hayin Walde Dams in Gwaram LGA, Kafin Gana Dam in Birnin Kudu LGA and Kalwai Dam in Kaugama LGA. Insha Allah, we shall develop a new irrigation masterplan to make the best use of our existing water resources. In my next focus, I will continue with our agricultural policies and programmes for Fulani nomads, animal production, agro-processing, storage and marketing as well as the complete agricultural value chain.

Gobe ta Allah ce
©Santurakin Dutse

Opinion

A Trial,Seized Passport,An Abridged Citizenship

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Ishaq Moddibo Kawu

 

Is’haq Modibbo Kawu
kawumodibbo@yahoo.com

On Monday, June 16th, 2025, I drove the 58 kilometers from Abuja to Gwagwalada. My mission was to secure a new Nigerian passport. Those who follow African liberation struggles would have remembered June 16th, as the 49th anniversary of the Soweto Massacre of 1976.

An event that reverberated all over the world, when security forces of the then South African apartheid government gunned down hundreds of demonstrating school children in Soweto and other parts of the country. That massacre of Hector Peterson and his colleagues was going to become a major spark that lit a worldwide movement of solidarity, as well as the intesification of the struggle by the South African liberation movement. But, I have digressed. My mission in the Passport Office was to join the queue along with several other citizens to renew my passport, which expired in 2022!

But the story of the expiration of the passport, along with visas to several destinations around the world, was not because I forgot the expiry dates. No. The passport was seized from me six years ago, at the commencement of the trial that I was put through by the ICPC.

The last time that I travelled out of Nigeria was in October, 2018. I had gone to Rabat in Morocco. I had a couple of other trips lined up for official assignments and personal reasons, to Argentina, United Arab Emirates, South Africa and Switzerland. These were scheduled between the end of 2018 and the middle of 2019.

By this period, the depth of animosity between my supervising minister and I was beginning to reach a head. I did not secure approval for the trips. By that time, we were already a year into the argy-bargy with the ICPC, and by April, 2019, we were arraigned in court. This was after an orchestrated media campaign had been launched earlier, set out to tarnish my image and to create the impression that I had stolen the sum of N2.5Billion from the coffers of the NBC.

Our arraignment in court was equally a rehearsed part of the elaborate charade. Television cameras from the press as well as the prosecuting agency were strategically positioned to record our every movement within and around the court house, just as much as the salacious reportage was central to the orchestrated process of demonization.

But the most important punishment even before the proper commencement of the court process was that by fiat, our passports were seized, along with the submission of other documents, as part of the bail process. Never mind the legal position that declared us innocent until proven guilty! There was no way that I was ever going to imagine that the passport would be under lock and key for the next six years.

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One of the greatest pleasures of my life, as well as a source of very deep education about our very intriguing world, has been travel. I used to tell my friends that I carry the genes of movement and of travel as a Fullo. I have also made professional success from writing travelogues from different locations around the world.

I was travelling with the POLISSARIO FRONT in the liberated areas of Western Sahara; I travelled on the two sides of the Civil War in the Ivory Coast, going between Abidjan, Yamousoukro and Bouake in the North; I went to interview President Isaias Afewerki in Asmara, Eritrea; I attended the funeral of John Garang in Juba, in South Sudan.

I similarly travelled extensively in Iraq before the illegal American invasion in 2003, visiting Baghdad, Karbala, Najaf, Samara, and Babylon, before doing a road trip to the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth, Damascus, in Syria, passing through Aleppo.

There were all those remarkable journeys within the African continent, in the Americas, in Europe, and in Asia. Travel enriches our humanity and allows us to understand that there’s no one way of being human. With travel, we also learn to appreciate the fact that there is no superior or inferior human culture. We are different, yes, but equal in our human worth, without doubts!

When my passport was official seized, and we went through the tortuous trial that lasted six years, a very important part of what makes me a very happy, and equally cultured human being, was taken away from me. It was torture that was deeply felt because my citizenship was abridged, and a vital element of being able to connect with humanity was similarly locked away in the vaults of the Nigetian courts. Afterall, we were officially accused individuals undergoing a criminal trial. For six years, I was a witness to the world’s exciting developments only from my home without the possibility of travel.

I made an almost superhuman effort to block off thoughts of my inability to travel. In any case, I didn’t even have a livelihood for six years, having been suspended as DG of the NBC in 2020, and I therefore, didn’t earn the income to purchase a ticket or the foreign currency to do a trip. But a point came when I was requested to do a trip to Cuba, a country that I have always wanted to visit. Unfortunately, my passport, which had expired by the time of the invitation, was still in the possession of the court.

Finally, on February 13th, 2025, the court discharged and acquitted me and my colleagues. The three-point charge against me was dismissed by the Federal High Court. That verdict opened a new and potentially exciting vista. I can begin to repossess my life and earn back all my rights as a citizen of Nigeria and a man of the truly incredible world of the 21st century.

For six years, I was on trial accused of criminal conspiracy, and as a consequence, they seized my passport, thereby abridging my citizenship. When I entered the passport office in Gwagwalada, they snapped my picture, and I did the biometrics. It struck me that I was back on the road to full citizenship. It has been a very tough journey to arrive at this new point. But I feel that excitement of knowing that I can begin a new engagement with the world and humanity. I have collected a new passport, and the world should be ready for me. I will travel, I will enjoy the scenes of various destinations and I will write about them. So much for a six-year trial, a seized passport, and an abridged citizenship!

Is’haq Modibbo Kawu, PhD, FNGE, is a Broadcaster, Journalist, and a Political Scientist.

Abuja, June 17th, 2025.

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Opinion

Beyond Shettima: The Real Target of Northern Non-Progressives-Shawai

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Vice President Elect Kashim Shettima

 

By Comr. Mahmud Garba Shawai

It’s obvious that the emerging war between northern progressives and their counterparts is gaining momentum in all directions.

Everyone can easily comprehend this with the recent chaos that presented itself at the just-concluded Northeast APC stakeholders’ meeting in Gombe State.

Sources from a significant number of APC proponents revealed that, before the event, there had been several indications that exposed the hidden agenda of some APC non-progressives working under the command of their Principal.

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Let me take you back a little. Did you forget the first interview that Mal. Nasir El-Rufa’i granted Arise TV since after he vacated from office? Can you relate his assertions to the current saga? If that’s the case, then Tinubu’s administration isn’t ready for the North!

Succinctly, I want every upright individual to know that these so-called APC leaders have a hidden agenda, which I’ve termed the Northern Retardation Agenda. That’s why they’re using all the resources within their custody to oppose any reasonable individual from the North.

Kashim Shettima, Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, Nasir El-Rufa’i, and many other northern progressives are among the victims and focal points of these conspirators.

However, these are the people who have positively impacted their people. On the flip side, the opposing forces are people of very low reputation—uncovered looters, selfish, and unpopular cowards in the political space.

 

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Opinion

The Proliferation of National ‘Honours’

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By: Amir Abdulazeez

If we can recall, on 7th October, 2015 a 19-year-old student, Hassan Mohammed Damagum sacrificed himself to save others from a suicide bomber who attempted to attack a mosque during the Subh (Dawn) prayer at Buhari Housing Estate in Yobe State.

Hassan had sensed that the individual standing next to him was a suicide bomber trying to kill people. The boy was said to have confronted the bomber which blew both of them off. Again, on 25th January 2017, Yakubu Fannami, another student from Borno State who was just in SS1 died a hero while preventing a suicide bomber from entering at the Darrusalam Science and Islamic Academy in Maiduguri. Fannami tackled the female suicide bomber, preventing her from reaching the mosque and detonating her explosives, thus saving the lives of many worshippers.

To the best of my research which may be inadequate, none of the two boys were publicly given a significant national recognition. The story of Nigeria is replete with the neglect of brave and heroic citizens who had sacrificed a lot and even laid down their lives to save others. Since 1999, Nigeria has always chosen to reward and honour many lazy elites who had contributed virtually nothing, but rather became huge beneficiaries of government patronage and corruption. Every President has made it a duty to dash out national honours to his choice elites in a manner one would do with his personal property.

In line with the routine tradition of his predecessors, President Bola Tinubu used the June 12, 2025 Democracy Day to confer over 100 national honourssome of them posthumously. As expected, many awardees are members of his administration and personalities very close to him. A section of the awardees list portrays a belated compensation package to a gang of Abacha victims, who actually need justice more than honour. While people like Prof. Humphrey Nwosu (CON), Prof. Wole Soyinka (GCON), Alhaji Balarabe Musa (CFR), Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah (CON) and Femi Falana, SAN (CON) truly deserve their awards, it would have been wiser and more balanced to include people like Late Bashir Tofa (Abiolas NRC opponent), Late Abubakar Rimi and Magaji Abdullahi (two important SDP figures who miraculously delivered Kano, Tofas State to Abiola) and of course M.D. Yusufu, the presidential candidate of MDJ who was Abachas sole challenger in his bid to undemocratically transform to a civilian president, among others. Perhaps, they would be remembered by this or another President in the next set of awards, for at this rate, every political household name, dead or alive, may soon have a national honour in Nigeria by 2030.

What exactly is this national honour and who are those who deserve it? The honouring system was originally envisioned as a prestigious recognition of exceptional service to the nation and was formally established by the National Honours Act No. 5 of 1964 to inspire patriotism, reward merit and foster national unity. The structure of national honours, divided into two orders (Order of the Federal Republic and Order of the Niger) and eight ranks (GCFR, GCON, CFR, CON, OFR, OON, MFR, MON), was designed to reflect degrees of national impact. However, the systems proliferation and indiscriminate distribution have undermined these distinctions, often placing true heroes, statesmen and national icons equal or below some presidential sycophants, political loyalists and officeholders, regardless of their performance or public standing.

The early years of Nigeria’s national honours system reflected its original purpose. Recipients such as Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti were honoured for verifiable and transformative contributions.

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However, over time, the politicization and personalization of the awards diminished its integrity, giving way to an annual ritual often characterised by hundreds of questionable awardees whose contributions to the nation are neither tangible nor verifiable. In the past 15 years, things have gotten worse as the selection system itself have been incompetently reduced to a mechanism marred by political patronage, duplication and credibility crises.

Today, the integrity of this noble initiative is in serious jeopardy, with widespread skepticism about its selection process and relevance. Ideally, recipients should be individuals whose lives exemplify ethical integrity, measurable public impact and selfless service. However, the current trend favours tenure over achievement and proximity to power over merit. Politicians under corruption investigation, individuals with no tangible contributions and business moguls with opaque wealth have all made their way into the honours roll.

Prominent Nigerians have rejected national honours in protest. Chinua Achebe, Gani Fawehinmi and Wole Soyinka famously turned down honours in the past, citing corruption, misgovernance and the lack of transparency in the process. Their principled refusals sent powerful messages about the need to restore the credibility of the system. As Achebe aptly put it, ‘a government that fails its people cannot in good conscience bestow honours’.

Numerous scandals have exposed the flaws of the system. In 2022, the conferment of awards to serving ministers during a prolonged ASUU strike and the inclusion of people accused of corruption represented a new low. Even more embarrassing were administrative blunders such as conferring posthumous awards to please certain intersts and duplication of awards to the same person under different titles. Meanwhile, countless unsung heroes remain ignored.

Rural teachers shaping future generations, healthcare workers battling epidemics without protection and community leaders mediating conflicts receive no recognition.

Some few non-elitist Nigerians have been reluctantly recognized by the establishment in the past. The belated honour to Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh (posthumous OON, 2022), whose sacrifice averted an Ebola catastrophe in August, 2014, only came after sustained public pressure for about eight years. In August, 2018, then President Muhammadu Buhari and the United States Embassy honoured the Bauchi State-born 83-year old Malam Abubakar Abdullahi, a Muslim Imam in a village in Plateau State. He sheltered and fed 300 Christians for five days to prevent them from being killed in an uprising. The old man ran from one corner to the other stopping youths who wanted to break into the mosque to get hold of his guests.

Eventually, they gave up after realizing that the only way to execute their evil plan was to kill the old man. That was how he saved their lives. I am not sure whether the man was given any national honour beyond that presidential acknowledgement.

If we are to continue like this, I will suggest the renaming of the awards to Special Presidential Honours. The National Honours Act, last revised in 2004, offers the President near-total discretion, with little room for public input or institutional checks. With time, it has been turned to a presidential farewell affair as outgoing Presidents routinely populate honours lists upon leaving office to payback loyalists. Recent attempts at reform, such as the proposed National Honours and Merit Award Commission, represent a step forward but are insufficient on their own. Far-reaching legislative and administrative reforms are needed to restore the honours integrity. This includes public nominations, independent vetting panels, open selection criteria and mandatory justification of award decisions.

A critical reform must also introduce public objections and transparency mechanisms, such as publishing nominee shortlists and designing revocation protocols. Honours should be rescinded from individuals found guilty of crimes or misconduct post-conferment. The system should no longer shield disgraced figures or treat national honours as irrevocable symbols of status regardless of later behaviour. Furthermore, awards should be capped annually to preserve their exclusivity. Honouring fewer, more deserving Nigerians will increase the prestige of the titles and prevent undeserving awards Most importantly, the honours system must reconnect with the grassroots. By recognising farmers, nurses, teachers, inventors and humanitarian workers, Nigeria can turn the system into a true tool of national inspiration.

All these are by the way as ordinary Nigerians no longer care about leaders honouring themselves and their cronies. No impoverished Nigerian has the luxury of waiting to be honoured by someone whose honour is questionable himself. All Nigerians are asking for is guaranteed security to farm, stable power supply to produce, quality and affordable education to learn, reliable healthcare to survive and stable economy to thrive. When they can provide this, they can go on naming and renaming national monuments after their wives and continue with the vicious cycle of self-glorification in the name of national honours.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

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