By Uzair Adam Imam

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) assured to have over 1.7 billion litres of petrol in stock, thereby making it unnecessary for the citizens to fear fuel scarcity.

This was made public in a release signed by the NNPC spokesperson, Garba Deen Muhammad stating that it is unnecessary to entertain any fear of scarcity of petrol throughout the festive season and beyond.

“The general public is hereby advised not to engage in panic buying of Premium Motor Spirit, more commonly known as petrol.

“The NNPC has over 1.7 billion litres of petrol in stock, and more product is expected to arrive into the country daily over the coming weeks and months”, the national oil company said in a statement on Monday,” the statement added.

However, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) also added that: “The NNPC is advising motorists and other consumers of petrol to maintain their regular pattern of the purchase of petrol without getting into a panic situation that may send the wrong signals around the country.

“The NNPC is also engaging all stakeholders to ensure smooth supply and distribution of products to every part of the country during the festive season and beyond.”

By Uzair Adam Imam

The Kaduna State Government has on weekend held a meeting with the stakeholders to brief them on the incessant security issues bedeviling the state for a very long time and other government policies.

The governor of the state, Malam Nasir El-Rufa’i, chaired the meeting which was held at the Murtala Square, Kaduna.

The purpose of the meeting, however, was to brief the stakeholders on security challenges, adding that the security operatives have been quite successful and security breaches have been reduced.

He added that: “We are not imposing hardship on certain people but they can see the benefits of the actions we have taken.

“We got good suggestions from stakeholders which would be used to modify some of our policies. It has been a very rich and engaging conversation,“ he disclosed.

The governor also promised of the other projects would be completed before he leaves the office, adding that: ” We are pleased with the support clerics were giving to the Religious Preaching Regulatory Council.”

Recalled that the council has been established to ensure that clerics are committed to peace in their preaching and sermons.

El-Rufa’i also assured the stakeholders that number of programmes would be introduced by federal and state governments to reduce the hardship faced by Nigerians.

By Alhaja Adeola Agoro

I read Kperogi’s article with a smile playing around my lips. It brought back the contents of the second chapter of the first part of my (yet to be published) book, ‘Journey to Islam: The Journey So Far’.

While I wouldn’t say Kperogi was totally right in his submissions, I’ll say that I agree with a lot of what he said.
I was born a Christian. I converted to Islam in 2009. I have spent enough time in the Islamic religion to form an opinion about it. I can say what is right or wrong about the religion and those who practise it.

I started writing the book, ‘Journey to Islam in 2017. Then I paused. Life is a journey and you can never really capture it all until the last day, so I said, ‘Let’s see if something will change and I may have to change some things in the book’.

As Jon.Bellion said in one of his songs that I love so much, “Nothing has changed, he’s the same…” From the point of writing that book till now, let me say nothing has changed. So, let me share the second chapter of the first part of that book below:

2’Yerima and Other Influences

Long before my innocent mind began to get conscious of the fire religious strife and crisis caused by displacing people and rendering many homeless, fatherless and sending several to their early graves in Nigeria, I knew about religious marginalisation. I grew up to know about religious sentiments, influences and stigmas.

I grew up amongst a certain class of Christians who considered themselves holy. Going to church on Sunday, coming back to eat jollof rice and chicken and watching good family films like the ‘Sounds of Music’ was a way of life. In those days, we were made to believe that the Christian kids were the ones who wore crisply ironed clothes on Sunday. They were the ones who wore ‘ready-made’ clothes with socks and nice shoes to match. Looking back now, I must admit that it was the highpoint of Christianity to wear the kinds of beautiful dresses with hats to match that I wore on Sundays.

Looking that good meant I was a Christian. Or so I was made to believe. We were the sheltered ones who were not allowed to mix with just any other children in the neighbourhood. We were only heard from the confines of our homes and hardly seen. On the other hand, those who wore clothes sewed with ankara materials, who played outside, who went to Arabic schools or who chanted Arabic language as dictated by their teachers were regarded as considered to be a little lower than us.

The explanation was not really made; we just knew. I knew how the opinions of certain people about you became coloured the moment they found out your name was Mojeed or Shakirat or whatever Muslim name it was. Oh no! It just meant that you must be ill-bred. It meant that your upbringing was not all together complete. In cases where they couldn’t fault you for being half-baked because you were a Muslim, they assumed that you were aggressive and stubborn. In Ibadan where I spent my first sixteen years, Muslims were referred to as ‘Imale’ (followers of the hard religion).

To this day, there is an area in Ibadan known as ‘Imalefalafia’ literarily meaning the ‘followers of the hard religion want peace’.In the Christian family where I grew up, a Christian was more likely to be trusted for anything than an imale. By a stroke of fate, I discovered that most of the people hired for house chores and such other things in my family were Muslims. It went to show that the Muslims around us then were not educated and so had to take the lowest of jobs. I could remember that the woman who did our laundry till I grew up was called Iya Seki (Sekinat). It was just assumed that Muslim families didn’t care about educating their children beyond a certain level.

I can’t remember if anything was ever done to assist them in that regards. In a funny way, it didn’t matter if you were a Baptist or Anglican, if you came for a domestic work and it was discovered that you were a Christian, it used to elicit a level of surprise that you were not educated or that you chose to do some menial jobs. It was certain that your employer would ensure that you either went to school or learnt a vocation. All you to had to do worm your way into the minds of your employers or to get favours was to say you were a Christian. (It might matter though if you were a Celestian or aladura.

You were not quite different from a Muslim in the estimation of the holier-than-thou Christians). But things did not have that kind of colouration the moment I stepped out into the real world. From the moment I left home for my higher education till the moment I embraced Islam, it never mattered to the Muslims I met whether I was a Christian or Muslim or traditionalist before help came my way. All that mattered was the fact that I was a human being. And very much unlike what I grew up to know with somebody preaching to you that you must accept Christ to enter heaven and bearing heavily on your whether you wanted to talk religion or not, the Muslims I met NEVER tried to talk to me about their faith in a you-must-accept-it-by-force manner.

To this day, no Muslim that I met in those days condemned my religion.I would sit and dine with Muslims and we would be talking but the moment it was time for prayer, they would excuse themselves, do their ablution and quietly withdraw to pray without as much as invite you. If you visited them on Fridays, they would leave you in their house, go to mosque to pray and come back to meet you. Not only were they respectful of your religion, they trusted you with their possessions.

I wonder if there are Christians who would leave you in their house on a Sunday when going to church without pressurizing you to go to church with them – whatever your religion or sect.This was my unprejudiced observation until I met Yerima. Sen. Ahmed Sani popularly known as Yerima was the Governor of Zamfara State then.Yerima came into national prominence for the introduction of Sharia Law to Zamfara State. Under him, the Penal Code became more effective and whoever erred or contravened the law faced summary actions.

The name Yerima meant fear to non-Muslims outside his state. It was the general opinion that if you were not a Muslim, you couldn’t be safe near a fanatic like Yerima and in fact, you had no business being in Zamfara. I had started making a mark in journalism when one day, a friend I went to school with called to say she met Yerima’s ADC and discussed the prospects of me coming down to Zamfara to interview the governor. Without thinking about it for a moment, I turned down the opportunity.

Me, Yerima? No way!! As hungry as I was for good stories, I didn’t think Yerima was an area I could approach and I thought I was not the kind of journalist he would want near him for an interview. After all, I was a jean-wearing journalist with braids and totally un-Islamic in all ways.Little did I know that fate was bringing me in contact with Yerima and that was going to be an opportunity to see all Muslims in the same light – accommodating and not condemning of your religion. I met Yerima in the Summer of 2006. I was one of the panellists on a live broadcast of the breakfast show of Ben TV where Yerima was a guest. I had gone there dressed in jeans with my braids pulled up and complete with trainers and clanging bangles.

I looked a complete I-don’t-care type – a yuppy woman. After the television program, along with some other journalists, I went for more exclusive interview for my newspaper and despite Yerima’s stance on Sharia, he didn’t as much as look at me as a sinner for once.

The biggest part of it is that when I returned to Nigeria and applied to be one of his media consultants, he gave me the chance without delay. There I was, a Christian and a woman for that matter!I was treated with much respect and dignity and everybody around him respected me for what I had to offer – my brain.

Whenever I had a job to discuss with him or show him, he would attend to me but he never allowed us to be alone together. And when it was time for prayer, they would all go for prayers and come back to resume whatever I had to show him.

It was around that time that I began to feel naked by not covering my head and body. Something in me told me it wasn’t right. Yerima and those around him preached to me through their behaviours without saying a word. They accepted me the way I was. They worked with me without discrimination and they made me see what beauty there was in Islam.

In those days of surrendering to the silent and beautiful pull of Islam, I couldn’t stop asking myself if any of those I grew up with in my Christian background would be so accommodating. Would they give a Muslim woman a chance to work with them, dine with them, make money and not go to church with them?

Would they have a very attractive Muslim woman around them and not as much as make a pass at her?I doubt. Seriously, I doubt.

From Justice Babatunde Adejumo, President of the National Industrial Court to my mentor and father, Sen. Umaru Dahiru through whom I finally embraced Islam, through whom I went for Hadj, through whom I grew in faith and through whom I have learnt a lot, to Arch. Halima Tayo Alao, to Dr. Mahmuda Aliyu Shinkafi and so many others, I have been given opportunities by a lot of Muslims without any asking for anything in return.

These are all people of deep faith who never asked me to compromise my former religion till I was personally convinced. I am indeed lucky to have seen the light of Islam myself through the conducts of these Muslim people.

These people showed the way to Islam more through deep love and acceptance of everybody whatever your religion than through talks. May Allah continue to guide them in their faith and make them lead more to Him through their conducts, ameen.’

That’s that about the second chapter of the book.

I’ve not come here to say I agree or disagree with Kperogi, but I know that a Muslim will most likely accept you for a job or marriage or anything sooner than a Christian will.

Well…. I stand to be corrected after so many years of holding that belief.

Alhaja Adeola Agoro JP writes from Abuja

By Hussaina Sufyan Ahmad

The new development by Katsina State Internal Revenue Service (KIRS) has been an immediate stoppage of all cash payments and collection of revenues, taxes and other levies due.

The Executive Chairman of KIRS, Mustapha Muhammad Sirajo, on Sunday in a statement issued to journalists added:

“The stoppage of the cash payments takes effective from Monday, November 8, 2021. As part of the modernization project of its service, Katsina State Internal Revenue Service (KIRS) is reviewing the process of collection of revenues, taxes and levies due to Katsina State’s Developments.”

“The commercial banks are First Bank, Access Bank, Eco Bank, First City Monument Bank, Fidelity Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Keystone Bank, Polaris Bank, Stannic Bank, Sterling Bank, Union Bank, United Bank of Africa and Zenith Bank.”

“The public is hereby informed that all cash payments and transactions have been halted and e-payment effective from Monday 8th Nove mber 2021.”

By Hussaina Sufyan Ahmad

Lines of cars on heavy queues return to Kano filling stations on November 7, 2021, prompting some people to accuse the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association (IPMAN) of intentionally creating an artificial scarcity.

Most filling stations have been nil with no sign of activities, while motorists move about looking for the fuel.

Reports indicate that speculation of a possible increase in fuel price by the Federal Government might have resulted in the scarcity.

By Muhammad Sabiu

Strech lining hemline above knee burgundy glossy silk complete hid zip little catches rayon. Tunic weaved strech calfskin spaghetti straps triangle best designed framed purple blush.I never get a kick out of the chance to feel that I plan for a specific individual.

Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen.

On her way she met a copy. The copy warned the Little Blind Text, that where it came from it would have been rewritten a thousand times and everything that was left from its origin would be the word “and” and the Little Blind Text should turn around and return to its own, safe country.

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so happy, my dear friend, so absorbed in the exquisite sense of mere tranquil existence, that I neglect my talents.

But nothing the copy said could convince her and so it didn’t take long until a few insidious Copy Writers ambushed her, made her drunk with Longe and Parole and dragged her into their agency, where they abused her for their projects again and again. And if she hasn’t been rewritten, then they are still using her.

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia.

A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table – Samsa was a travelling salesman – and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer.

Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. “How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense”, he thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn’t get into that position. However hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was.

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections.

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar. The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen.

His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table – Samsa was a travelling salesman – and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame.

It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer. Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad.

By Muhammad Sabiu

By Ishaka Mohammed

By Hussaina Sufyan Ahmad

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Friday morning via it’s official website has announced the new toll of Covid-19 cases recording two deaths and 87 new cases of in the country.

The NCDC website said 87 new infections on Thursday was as a result of the infectious decrease from the 209 infections reported of on Wednesday.

The Public Health Institute added that the new infections were recorded across seven states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Thursday.

“Zamfara – 29, FCT – 25, Rivers – 11, Kano – 8, Bauchi – 5, Gombe – 4, Lagos – 3 and Taraba – 2.”

“While the latest report includes zero cases from Delta, Edo, Sokoto and Taraba States. Taking the country’s total confirmed cases to 212,446. However, 204,047 of those infected have recovered while 2,902 have died.