Education

Otto Orondaam

So, 10 years and 8 months ago, I met a little girl who challenged me, inspired me and eventually shaped my life and the lives of thousands of others. This week, we paid her a surprise visit in Abuja. I hope her story will inspire you.

In December 2011, we met a little girl in Makoko paddling a large canoe, 10 times her size. She was 8 years old and never been to school. We were overwhelmed by her strength, so we trailed her to her house by the waterside. Why is a smart girl like her not in school? We wondered!

She jumped off the boat and went to the back of the hut where she was drying fish. She would later take the smoked fish to the market with her mum to sell. She was such an inspiration, but we knew she needed to be in school.

One of the conversations that challenged us was hearing that girls weren’t meant to go to school and this was a myth we had to dispel in the community. So, we asked her parents to give us a chance with her and that was how our journey began.

While we didn’t have a favorite child, Sisianu was smart, always happy and we took Sisianu as our special child. I genuinely wanted to see her succeed. We eventually got her family to allow us to enroll her into school. This was such a great win for us.

The negotiation process wasn’t easy, but we did it and that was one of our first recorded successes at Slum2School. This became our springboard, propelling us to speak to more families and eventually enrolling 114 kids into school in 2012. The community celebrated and so did we.

Sisianu was so passionate about being in school. She would arrive at school before 7am and help clean her classroom. She eventually became the best in her primary school class. She went on to win trophies in athletics and represented us at various sports competitions. We were so proud of her. “Can you see that girls can achieve great things?” We would brag about her during advocacy campaigns.

Her inspiring story inspired many caregivers to allow us enrol their kids in school. So in 2013 we enrolled 220 additional kids to school and 350 in 2014. Sisianu became our little ambassador and we didnt want to see her fail. But her journey from 2016 wasn’t linear, it was filled with ups and downs. She excelled at many points and also failed at some. What’s happening to Sisianu? We were very worried.

Being a girl isn’t easy, but being a girl having to take care of all your younger siblings while helping your mothers fish business, in an environment where education isn’t regarded as priority, is even more difficult. Sisianu’s education became threatened.

In 2016 her performance dropped and she started missing classes regularly. We got our counseling team to work with her and a lot was recommended. There were several distractions and responsibilities she had besides her education. In 2018, she lost the motivation to go to school.

That year her grades were reallly poor. She missed most mentorship sessions, and we observed several social patterns that led kids to eventually drop out of school. At this point we knew that she needed to leave her community and go far away where she could focus on her education.

We packed her bags, bought her a 1 way flight ticket and flew her to Abuja to join our kids on Scholarship at Word Of Faith Schools but she failed the scholarship exam.

She scored 34% and was not offered a scholarship. We knew she would perform poorly but we had no alternatives. At this point our option was to either send her back to Makoko or pay the annual school fees which was about N1,000,000 per annum asides her upkeep and travel costs every quarter. In the end we would spend over N1.4m/year and this wasn’t something we had ever done.

We could also take her to a less expensive school but we didn’t want to isolate her from others and further damage her self esteem. But how do we pay such amount of fees for one child when it could support 30 other children? We were faced with a tough decision.

We had meetings and eventually decided to enroll her in Word of Faith School Abuja together with our other kids while working towards raising funds for her fees, travel expenses and her upkeep. It was a very tough decision but that was the only option we felt Sisianu truly deserved.

3 months later, she wrote her first term exams & from scoring 34% in her scholarship exam, Sisianu aced all her results with 8As and 4Bs. I was shocked and so was everyone. This was the first time since 2017 we saw the shining star that we had always known. How did this happen?

I remembered the day we all saw the results of her scholarship exam and she saw that she had failed. She cried bitterly. We also cried. She didn’t want to go back home so she promised that if she was given another chance she would do her best and make us proud. We trusted her!

In February this year, while I sat in the library preparing for my exams one snowy evening in Boston, I got a call from a random number on WhatsApp. It was very unlike me, but I picked up and I heard a voice screaming, “Uncle it is Sisianu”, “Oh how are you Sisianu” I responded.

She said, “I haven’t seen you since 2020 and you haven’t come to visit me since last year. You promised to visit us every year.”
“I am in school and I haven’t been around since last year.” I responded
“But you taught us to always keep to our promise.” She replied.

Those words felt quite heavy to respond to, so I paused and reminded her “but your mentors uncle Ekene, uncle Aaron, aunty Hauwa, aunty Ajibike and many others visit you often right? “Yes”, she replied, “we would be graduating from school this year, please try to visit us”
“I am using my aunty’s phone to call you and I have to give it back to her. Goodbye Sir.” The phone went off.

It was so tough to continue reading so I packed my bags and walked out of the library. It was indeed a long walk back home that night as I had a lot to reflect on.

At that point I had so much going on, and wasn’t sure when I was going to be back but I promised myself that I would visit her and our other kids before they graduated. Last month Sisianu completed her WAEC, passed her JAMB and this Wednesday she completed her final NECO exams.

Together with our leadership team in Abuja, I paid her a surprise visit at her school right after her final NECO exam. She spotted us from afar and this was what her joy looked like. She told me that she is the General Secretary in her school and shared all her achievements.

She shared her plans for the University and her gratitude to everyone who supported her. Reflecting on her journey left me truly speechless and teary, seeing that through her we’ve made a complete circle.

I am so thankful that we didn’t give up on her throughout the last 10 years. I am thankful to everyone who believed in her and in us.

Since 2019 after we took 4 of them out of Lagos to Abuja, Deborah has graduated and is a first-year student in Benson Idahosa University. Mariam is the deputy senior prefect; Mustapha is one of the best graduating students and Sisianu, she remains our shining star, ready for a new journey in the University and continuously inspiring everyone across her community. 

Our goal is that she attends one of the best Universities in the world we ask that you join us to make this dream possible for her.

Written by Otto Orondaam, the founder of Slum2school Africa.

By Muhammad Abubakar

I believe that the government are entirely to blame for the incessant ASUU strike. This is because it’s their responsibility to provide all that the ASUU members need and pay them handsomely. The government should look into this so long as they want the development of this country. It’s widely known that if there are no teachers in the nation, there will be nothing in that nation but quite a bunch of problems. And ignorance will continue to increase rapidly — which we are not praying for.

A popular saying has it that “Teachers are the backbone of the society”. So, if this is true, why won’t they be respected by all and sundry?

Whoever knows how negatively this strike affects the students (the biggest victims), he would sympathise with them.

“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” This Malcolm X’s saying implies how bleak our future is!

Truth be voiced out, I completely don’t know the specific role those politicians, who are elected as the leaders of our dear country play in their respective offices. This is because they reluctantly failed to offer a helping hand to the students of public universitie out of the mess they are in. Why are they acting like this? Is it because of the fact that most of their children are not studying here in Nigeria, but rather abroad? In other words, is it they are not part of the victims of all this menacing issue? The answer is ‘yes’ I guess!

Indeed, we should pay attention to this issue. It’s clear now that there is no any public university student that is not affected negatively. For example: a student who supposed to have graduated since last year, as written on his/her ID card, is unfortunately still in the same position. Although I’m a higher level student, frankly speaking, it baffles me whenever I think about this. Why is our country like this for goodness sake?

The government should, therefore, do the needful and fulfill the demands of the ASUU members for the strike to stop. We hold the government responsible for whatever happen to us, our behaviour, our wellbeing and our development. They should also remember that we are also their children and one day, we may become leaders of the country and their children and other family members may be under our care!

By Fatima Usman

The saying, “when two elephants fight, the grass gets to suffer,” is nothing but a fact. But unfortunately, in the case of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the federal government (FG), the students are always at the receiving end, and students suffer the consequences of the fight.

At last, ASUU members will get paid and return to classes. What then happens to the students?

In 2020, when ASUU embarked on a strike that lasted for a good nine months coupled with COVID19, what did the students get in return after everything? Nothing! We only got expired rent, a disrupted academic calendar, and some items stolen from our various lodges.

After the 2020 strike, we never knew that another bigger one would await us soon. However, on February 14, 2022, another strike loomed again with the same demands the government failed to fulfil for nine months. This time around, only God knows our fate; five months strike and still counting, yet no positive response.

The Federal Government does not care about whether the poor masses get a quality education. They deny us our right to education by not providing enough equipment that students are supposed to use, not enough classes for lectures, and the teachers do not get well paid.

The ASUU strike has done more harm than good to the students. Some students don’t always get to serve their father’s land due to the age limit placed on NYSC. Once a student is 30 years they can no longer go for the one-year compulsory service. So many disadvantages come with embarking on this strike.

Because of these endless strikes by ASUU and the negligence of the Federal Government, we now have more cybercrime everywhere (Yahoo-Yahoo!), and some girls are now into prostitution as a means of survival.

We want to be compensated too after everything by increasing the age limit one can do the one-year compulsory service if we can’t get other compensation. At least this should be done.

Fatima Usman is a 300-level student of mass communication at IBB University, Lapai. She can be reached via usmanfatima499@gmail.com.

By Nasiru Tijjani

The role of guidance, counselling, and mentoring in our interaction remains strategic and fundamental for achieving one’s goals and objectives. Doubtless, none of us is perfect enough not to be mentored, guided, counselled or nurtured at one point or another. Therefore, mentors, parents, counsellors, teachers and the likes are vested with the power of educating the teeming youth on the implication of age in one’s life.

Honestly, age is one of the problematic issues that need to be treated with extreme caution. But unfortunately, the problem appears to be common even among the students of tertiary institutions, civil servants, corp members and business people. Initially, the issue cannot be divorced entirely from ignorance, carelessness, poor mentorship, parental attitude toward learning, policy review and implementation, selfishness and what have you. Therefore, age is needed in every situation to meet a particular requirement for admission, job or anything.

In Nigeria, as we grow older, our services are no longer needed in some institutions. Accordingly, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has classified ‘date of birth’ as one of the fields in the data of a person to be non-updatable and non-modified unless an approved fee of ₦15,000 is paid. Meanwhile, the country’s birth certificate is issued to the citizens by the Nigeria National Population Commission. However, until recently, ‘date of birth’ has not received proper attention from the youth, parents, teachers, mentors, etc. UNICEF (2016) has reported that only 30 per cent of  Nigerian children under the age of five (5) have their births registered. Meanwhile, the country had one of the highest average birth rates in the world between 2010 and 2015.

In the academic arena, date of birth has denied many people access to secure admission into higher learning institutions at national and international levels. For instance, a friend of mine was recently denied admission to an undergraduate programme in Sudan. The university management told him that was due to his age.

In addition, the National Examination Council (NECO) has reviewed its policy in 2020 and mandated that ‘date of birth’ be written on the candidates’ results. Furthermore, the National Youth Service Corps has introduced a new policy in the year 2020, which states that the date of birth must be written on the national certificate to guard against age falsification. Before this, the NYSC  policy had mandated that graduates should not be or exceed 30 years of age to be enrolled on the scheme. Therefore, with this mandate, many graduates end up collecting exemption letters.

Returning to civil service, ‘date of birth’ has sent many civil servants to early retirement. I discussed with someone who lamented that he had unceremoniously and unduly retired from service due to the age written on his documents. In contrast, his colleagues are still in the system, for they have no problem with age. I trust you have a lot to say on this case. In Nigeria, for example, the retirement age of civil servants is 60 years by birth and 35 years in service. However, on January 20, 2021, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved a bill to increase teachers’ retirement age and service years. With the bill in effect, teachers are now to retire at 65 years by birth and 40 by service.

Furthermore, no one can deny that banks attach value to the topic of discussion, and due to this, many people, including the writer of this piece, have suffered the pain of having dual dates of birth. Without hesitation, I can attest that many accounts have been restricted and closed due to irregularities in age. Equally, many transactions have been denied, cancelled or withheld by the banks’ managements. I trust you can give an example of the victim of the problem.

In sum, the issue of ‘date of birth’ should not be treated slightly…Therefore, one will be at an advantage if one pays attention to the date of birth. Because of this, the following recommendations will be helpful:

• One should ensure they have a unique and standard date of birth.

• Parents should be cautious by avoiding anything that will jeopardise their children’s future, such as negligence to NIN enrollment.

• Parents should endeavour to register the birth certificates of their children in time or right at a tender age.

• Birth certificates or date of birth should be committed to memory so that forgetfulness and what have you will not strike between what is and what ought to be.

• No reason, or whatsoever, will warrant you to allow your friends to use your dates of birth.

Nasiru Tijjani writes from Gwaram Tsohuwa, Jigawa State. He can be contacted through tijjaninasiru@gmail.com.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has returned to the classroom.

In photos posted on Gbajabiamila’s Facebook page on Tuesday, July 26, he was seen in a classroom alongside other students at the Harvard Kennedy School in the United States of America. 

However, the House of Representatives Speaker’s post did not go well with many Nigerians. Many opined that the Speaker should not be schooling abroad while Nigeria’s public universities are on strike. 

“ASUU is on strike, and you’re there posting pictures of being in class. Shame on you,” Ibrahim Abubakar Musa commented.

“Aren’t you aware that university students back in your country are still at home? I don’t wish you luck.” Hassan Muhammad Yahaya, another Facebook user, commented. 

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, embarked on strike on February 14. This has crippled academic activities across Nigeria’s public universities.

By Abdul Mutallib Muktar

It is with excruciating pain that one starts writing something of this nature. It is akin to the pain that hits an inmate upon the renewal of his terms of years in prison. Studying in a Nigerian public university comes with a series of frustrating issues. But for necessity, I seriously doubt if any student would wish to spend more than a year in these problems-wracked public universities.

ASUU has been on strike for about 200 days, and nothing seemed to be wrong until this week when loud voices started roaring in protest of the lingering strike. When ASUU embarked on strike in 2020, Nigerian students spent eight months at home, which sadly prolonged their stay in the university by one year. As ASUU called off the strike that year, students thought things had once again become normal because of the temporary stability of academic activities. On 14 February 2022, the strike news hit our ears while we were receiving lectures in our respective classes. The shock of that news is still in us!

The hope of the final year Law student in public university to make it to the Nigerian Law School this year reached its crescendo before the ASUU strike began. Some of us had already started writing our final year project, while others had even finished. One can imagine the pain of staying for additional two years in the university with no certainty of even rounding up in 2023. It is even more painful when we look at our school ID cards and realise they bear “2021”, our graduation year—seven years for a five-year programme.

As the new session of the Nigerian Law School begins in October this year, Law students in public universities have nothing to do except look at the graduates of private universities and foreign institutions marching into the Nigerian school, most of whom are the children of our leaders. Whether ASUU calls off the strike this month or even backdates it to June, public university students cannot make it to the Nigerian Law School. The year is a waste for us!

What if a miracle would make the public university students make it to the Nigerian Law School this year? And how can this miracle occur? The answer is multifaceted.

Firstly, the Federal Government must be unprecedentedly serious in negotiating with ASUU, showcasing strong sympathy for the condition of service of lecturers and utmost concern for the future of education in Nigeria.

Secondly, the Nigerian Law School’s management should extend its calendar to accommodate candidates from public universities.

Thirdly, after the strike is called off, the management of public universities should rushingly round up the session with some level of leniency to the students.

Lastly, the students must be relentlessly prayerful for the occurrence of this miracle. May these challenges become some form of blessing in disguise.

Abdul Mutallib Muktar is a law student at ABU, Zaria, and can be reached via abdulmutallib.muktar@gmail.com.

By Salisu Yusuf

Musa Abubakar, 29, was born a full-sighted child in Daura, Katsina State. He came from a low-income family, though his mother teaches at a primary school. Her job helps her support a family that lost their breadwinner 18 years ago.

At 9, Musa started feeling some discomfort and strain in his eyes. When his mother took him to a hospital, he was diagnosed with “retinitis pigmentosa,” a rare inherited degenerative eye disease. Initially, he witnessed vision decrease and impairment, especially at night or in low light. While Musa went through this predicament, his father was bedridden with a terminal illness. So, he was loaded with the dice at a tender age.

At 11, he lost his father and, later, his sight. Life had taken its toll on him as he grappled with going to school, looking for a guide and contending with walking with a blind cane. Musa felt lonely, isolated and disillusioned; he needed a company that proved elusive. Sometimes he would want somebody beside him with a gentle nudge, but nobody was around to whom he could unburden and escape from his loneliness. So he started meditating on an escape route.

Later, Musa discovered that education was the only antidote against loneliness, boredom and disillusionment. So he went back to school. In the beginning, his classmates served as his guides. However, social stigma forced him to opt for a blind cane as his guides were insulted or maligned daily. Whenever he reached class, his classmates would take notes and dictate to him. His mother had attested to his precocious talent; he demonstrated extra guile and quick-wittedness during his childhood.

After his primary education, he also joined another conventional junior school, obtaining a junior school certificate with flying colours. His potential was realised when in 2015, he joined Katsina School for the Blind. He learned how to use his “embosser typewriter” to take braille (a form of written language for the blinds, in which the characters are represented by raised dots that are felt with the fingertips). He also learned to use his emboser printer to convert conventional texts into braille for easy manual reading. He artfully mastered the skill of manual reading. Whenever I visit him, I am bewitched by the power, beauty and manual dexterity of his tactile reading. 

Musa Abubakar completed his ABU diploma in English Education at the College of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Daura, with a merit pass in 2020. 

His academic activities were wonderfully exceptional; he didn’t only surpass many full-sighted coursemates, but he mastered a good command of English during class presentations.

While studying for his diploma, Musa proved exceptional and combined conventional and unique learning methods. He used the braille writer to take notes, a recorder to record the lecturer’s voice,  and would later use the braille printer to write his notes and unorthodoxly use the braille writer to convert longer texts into braille for easy manual decoding. 

Musa is currently a 200-level undergraduate of English at an NTI degree satellite centre in Daura. He weaves baskets and local chairs to earn his daily bread and support his education. He can teach and perfectly write on the board. He can also assess his students by converting their works into his embosser and grading them. He’s also computer literate. 

Katsina State Government should not leave this talented blind man to waste. Instead, he should be employed so that his intellectual treasures are explored. His likes shouldn’t be left to beg. They should, like his braille, be converted to help the human cause. 

Salisu Yusuf wrote from Katsina via salisuyusuf111@gmail.com.

Usama Abdullah

Following the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board’s (JAMB) announcement of this year’s cut-off mark for joining Nigerian public universities, many people have taken to various media to poke fun at the board as well as disparage the entire country for the continued decay in its education sector.

Obviously, what informed the board to reduce the cut-off mark to a minimum of 140 is the terrible performance of the students in the University and Tertiary Education Matriculation Examination this year.

Even though the reduction calls for sympathy for the nation, those commentators have gotten it wrong by deriding the board and gloating over the students’ poor performance. 

We cannot get it right when we only decide to laugh off this dysfunctional system. We are clearly, experiencing the outcome of an embarrassing failure in our education sector, and this will take us a long time before recovering.

Some people believe that students nowadays don’t read hard. And that they usually “cheat” their way to tertiary institutions. This could be true to a certain extent, and I agree with them. However, I also agree that the teachers are also quite blameworthy. 

It would be a grave injustice to attribute the failures of the students to their teachers. But there’s a point we all must consider before leaping to conclude that the blame lies with the students alone.

Like I have said earlier, students may have been faring below the expectations of their parents and teachers today, thanks to the advent of TikTok, Snapchat, and Facebook Reel, among other online and offline distractions.

Yet the parents and teachers are partly the causes of such poor performances. The reason is that some teachers don’t deserve to teach because they are either not properly trained or unfit for the teaching profession.

Many of them lack teaching methods. While some of them just got themselves into the profession accidentally. You often hear of accidental teachers; we happen to be in large number at our public and some private schools.

No thanks to our politicians who have fouled up the recruitment system. This kind of teachers don’t teach to transform the students, but to get the chicken feed they usually take home as salaries.

When you go to those schools in which those unqualified teachers work, you will find them wearing fancy clothes and flaunting expensive phones in front of their students, and that nonchalance promotes unlawful student-teacher relationships.

Unknowingly, such a prodigal and nasty attitude help compromise the young impressionable students. The problem associated with this is that the students would be seen emulating what they saw those teachers doing. Within the blink of an eye, the students would be wild and tough to tame. 

On the other hand, many parents seem to exhibit a kind of devil-may-care attitude toward the upbringing of their children.

They mollycoddle their children to the extent that they begin to forgive and forget all that the children do, be it good or bad.

Well, this type of parental neglect is another major cause of the backwardness of the children at school and in society. Because when they get home, the parents won’t care to ask them about their studies, nor find out how they’re really performing.

When some parents are invited to PTA meetings to discuss important things and chart the way out to help improve their children’s educational standards, they barely attend or give out frivolous excuses for their irresponsibility.

These are the things parents need to correct in order to prevent their children from descending so low or getting petty scores in their results. 

In the same vein, the government too contribute hugely to the retrogradation of our education sector. It’s sad and painful that we’re cruelly ruled by people who are apparently unconcerned about what has become of the nation.

The leaders are only good at forcing half-baked policies on the regular citizens, which will only favour them and their families. 

Looking at the precarious state of our public educational institutions and the prolonged but unresolved ASUU-FG debacle, you will understand that the government is doing nothing to refine our rotten education sector.

Instead of making noise or taunting the students for their low performances, we should assist in our own little ways and hope for the best.

Usama Abdullahi writes from Abuja. He can be reached at usamagayyi@gmail.com.

By Muhammad Aminu

Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has settled outstanding fees for Kano State students undergoing postgraduate studies in universities in Cyprus and France.

The Governor has also awarded another N3m reward to a student, Suyidi Sani, for his sterling performance in the just concluded Young Nigerian Scientists Presidential Award.

Suyidi, an indigene of Nasarawa local government area of the state, emerged 7th and was the only northerner among the first 10 participants in the competition.

While presenting the money, Kano State Commissioner for Higher Education, Dr Mariya Mahmud Bunkure, said the student had gained admission to study at Bayero University Kano after scoring 303 in the Joint Matriculation Examination.

She said Kano State Government has assured that it will sponsor his postgraduate studies after completing his first degree programme.

She maintained that the state government is committed to uplifting the standard of education to global standards.

The commissioner for youths and sports, Alhaji Kabiru Ado Lakwaya, said the state government was committed to the development of education.

He added that the government had set up a committee to compile a comprehensive report on bursaries where millions of naira had been set aside to clear outstanding internal payments.

While receiving the cash, Suyidi Sani said he would continue to put more effort and do everything possible to be among the best students at Bayero University Kano.

He applauded Kano State Government, the entire state executive council, his parents and teachers for encouraging and supporting him.

By Uzair Adam Imam

Jobseekers in Nigeria have opened up to The Daily Reality on how some institutions in the country are degenerating into a kind of ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’, where officials allegedly request ‘sodomy’ in exchange for a job offer or promotion.

The job seekers decried how they suffer in the hands of corrupt officials who ask for a bribe in exchange for job offers or, worse, sex from female and even male job seekers.

However, they alleged that most of these ‘gay’ officials are important office holders that nobody would ever think will indulge in such heinous acts as they look and act responsibly in public.

The job seekers decided to narrate their harrowing experiences after we reported on buying and selling of job offers in Nigeria, published on March 2, 2022, which went viral.

The Daily Reality reported how the sale of job offers decimates graduates’ chances of securing jobs in Nigeria, where the national economy has remained increasingly stagnant.

According to a recent report by Bloomberg, unemployment in Nigeria has surged to the second-highest on the global list, jumping to 33.3%.

Professionals have argued that there is a need for urgent intervention to save the country from an impending danger posed by the exponential increase in unemployment.

Register with the Gay Zone Pyramid; Get Employed

Isma’il Muhammad (not real name) recounted how one Managing Director of an organisation in Kaduna wanted to sodomise him and his friend for a job offer in November last year.

He said, “In November 2021, we got a connection to meet the Managing Director (MD) of one big organisation in Kaduna State. When we arrived, we were introduced to the man in his office.

“The man promised to get us employed. He said we look very young and charming. So we were very excited to hear that from him, unknown to us that the man was gay. So he brought out job offers. But he requested we had to offer him something in return.

“We were all surprised. We thought this man meant we had to buy the offer or, at least, pay him a certain amount of money. But, to our utmost dismay, this man said we had to register with the GAY ZONE PYRAMID.

“However, we declined, and that was the end. We left his office mouth agape and without being employed,” Muhammad said in dismay.

Another job-seeker, who swore to God that he would rather die hawking than commit such evil, confided his 2020 experience in our reporter.

He said someone who pretended to care about his condition and wanted to find a better place for him sent him to a particular organisation for an interview in Kano.

He said, “Fortunately, I have all the requirements. While I thought I would be automatically employed, the man invited me to his office and confessed that he was “gay”.

“Angrily, I insulted him. I still regret knowing him. Thus, I forgot about the job.

Another source, Hashim Tijjani, said someone who promised to employ him and send him overseas had wanted to sodomise him, but God saved him from the man.

He said the man often bitterly complained that he did not use to call him as a way of showing concern to a boyfriend, the development that the guy said had confused him.

He added, “The man used to invite me to the Mai Rabo Hotel in Sabon Gari, Kano. He used to give me money to lure me. He once accused me of not being that romantic to him.

“As things escalated and I feared I might fall into his trap, I decided to give my phone to one of my friends, who told him I passed on. Since then, he stopped calling my line,” he added.

Workers seeking promotion in the same trap

According to a source familiar with the incident, the sodomy was not only limited to job-seeking. Workers seeking promotion also suffer a lot.

He said bosses nowadays ask their subordinates for sodomy before they promote them in various workplaces across the country.

He said, “My friend working with a Nigerian security agency confided in me that he failed to get promoted for declining his boss’s request for sodomy.”

He stated that his friend is still yet to be promoted. However, he had decided that he should rather die without promotion than compromise.

I declined my aged-nurse political ambition over sodomy – politician

Also, a renowned politician in Kano disclosed how he threw his aged-long political ambition over sodomy.

The politician who preferred anonymity revealed that he wanted to contest for a certain political position during the 2015 General Election after he retired from his civil service but was forced out after his political godfather solicited for sodomy in exchange for the ambition.

He confided that he was pretty perplexed and could not help but quit the race as things went beyond his imagination.

He said, “I nursed this ambition over the years, but I can’t help but withdraw from the race as my political godfather confessed that he is gay. But I see no reason to ruin my image for a so-called worldly political ambition.”

The man said he had met all the requirements and was economically stable to contest, but he would instead give up and concentrate on a business.

According to a source, who claimed that he was requested for sodomy to get a job back in 2020 in Kano, the issue of gay officials terrorising workplaces and institutions is known to many people, but they are only afraid to speak.

He stated, “You know things like this are known to many we are all pretending as if nothing goes on. Our bureaucratic system is utterly flawed.

“So, I am no longer looking for any job or favour from anybody anywhere. That is why I confidently expose the bad elements.”

‘Sodomy leads to mental disorder’

A psychiatric doctor from Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH), Dr Mubarak Haruna Idris, raised concerns that the act of sodomy may lead to mental illness.

In an exclusive interview with our reporter, Idris said that people who prefer the same sex might suffer from anxiety, depression and psychosis.

He stated that the behaviour “leads to other mental illness. For example, usually, these kinds of individuals tend to hide it [what they do] from others that they have a preference for their same sex.

“So, they tend to have this kind of fear and whenever it revealed. The kind of difficulty they get from their family and how people see them will make them get a mental illness like anxiety, depression and if care is not taken, psychosis.”

They are at risk of anal cancer, HIV other sexually transmitted diseases

Dr Idris also cautioned that the behaviour is associated with many health risks such as anal cancer and HIV, among other sexually transmitted infections.

Idris said, “This behaviour is associated with some health risks. One of the commonest is the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, hepatitis, syphilis, gonorrhoea and other sexually transmitted diseases. In fact, the risk of getting such diseases is higher when compared to normal vaginal sex.

“So, therefore, there is a high risk of sexually transmitted diseases. And this is due to the nature of the anal canal, which is not designed for such activity, and it can’t resist such activity that usually takes place during intercourse.

‘And then another thing is that there is a risk of getting an injury to the anal area. And when there’s injury, an infection can quickly set in, so one can end up having an infection at the anus, which, if care is not taken, can even spread to other parts of the body. There is also a high risk of anal cancer.

University don frown at the act

In an exclusive interview with our reporter, a lecturer at the Department of Business Administration and Entrepreneurship, Bayero University, Kano, Dr Mu’az Hassan Mu’az, lamented the development.

Mu’az, who frowned at the revelation, lamented that the demand for carnal knowledge to give a job offer is a serious problem that needs to be eliminated.

He also decried how the Nigerian polity is experiencing a painful decline in most of its economic activities, which may not be far from poor governance in recent years. 

“It’s unfortunate that the unemployment rate is skyrocketing in Nigeria like never before.

“Many youth graduate year-in-year-out, but without jobs to lean on. Thus the labour market has become so competitive, where only the connected get jobs.

“It’s this trend that ushered us into the era of job offer sales and other unscrupulous demands for carnal knowledge of both genders for job offers and promotion in the workplace.

The issue is alarming

Dr Mu’az also stated that if the trend continues unchecked, it could lead to numerous problems. He stated thus:

 “1. employment of people with mismatched qualifications for the job requirement. By extension, it will affect productivity.

“2. It will also lead to unprofessional development of the crop of future leaders in organisations. You may realise that those employees who are sidelined because they don’t comply with the demands of their superiors may rise to the ranks without the experience and expertise of leadership.

“3. It creates a corrupt society. As people get employed through the window, they’ll continue the gospel of corruption in their job undertakings.

“4. It will create an unserious atmosphere for students right from the university because nobody would bother to study for good grades since the jobs are for sale and not good qualifications.

“5. People’s sexual orientation might be affected due to the incessant demands for carnal knowledge of young men and women. This situation exposes people to diseases that can cause death.

“There are many adverse effects of sales of job offers and sexual demands for promotion in the workplace.

Way out

Dr Mu’azu proffers the following solutions:

“1. Job opportunities should be advertised in the dailies and electronic media;

“2. There should be equitable salaries in the country depending on the level of education of workers. This will discourage people from struggling to get white-collar jobs.

“3. A law should be enacted to address culprits, i.e. the person paying and the one receiving the money for job offers.