Bauchi State

By Lawan Bukar Maigana 

Maimunatu Suleiman, 21, stabbed her husband, Aliyu Mohammed Gidado, to death on July 5th, 2023, in their residence at Kofar Dumi in Bauchi State, Nigeria. 

Since then, I have read different narratives about the tragic incident. Some said she killed him because it was a forced marriage, while others said she murdered him because of his willingness to remarry. 

As a trained journalist and fact-checker, I needed to investigate the narratives’ source, save the public from being misled by merchants of misinformation and fake news, and feed the crowd with authentic information.  

Using Facebook, I identified his neighbour and demanded that he send me his phone number so we could talk about the incident, and he did. He told me that Aliyu and his wife married in January 2020 and have one child—a boy. 

“Their marriage was out of love. Everybody knows them, and most people in their area have admired them because of their love for each other which culminated in their marriage. 

“And they never had any serious issues until recently when Aliyu realised that Maimuna had been going out without his permission as her husband.

“Aliyu returned home three days ago and expressed sadness about her deviant conduct, which later resulted in a serious misunderstanding between them that nearly broke their marriage, but his father and older brother intervened”, the neighbour explained.

On the day the incident happened, Gidado’s father saw Maimunatu’s friend coming out of their house after they spent hours in her room holding her plasma TV, but he didn’t talk to them. 

It is a tradition in their house that the last person who comes in after 10:00 pm ensures everyone is around before closing the gate. 

Wednesday night after 10 pm, his older brother called his name and asked if he was around so he would lock the gate, but Aliyu didn’t answer. His brother asked thrice but to no avail. 

Worriedly, his brother approached his room and observed that he was gasping for breath. He quickly got back to his room and took a touch and entered the room and saw his brother soaked in blood while his wife, the prime suspect, was facing him. 

That was when he quickly called their father to see what happened and subsequently sought help from their neighbours to rush their brother to the hospital. Unluckily, Gidado died before they got to the hospital. 

Out of patience, concern, and resilience, they rushed his wife to the hospital, thinking she was stabbed. The doctors informed them that she was safe and had only sustained bruises on her stomach. 

After she regained consciousness, Gidado’s father asked what had happened, and she told them that thieves had jumped over the fence and killed her husband when she went to the toilet to pour her child’s urine. 

She even told them that the thieves ran with her plasma TV, unknown to her that the bereaved old man saw her friends going with her plasma TV hours before the unfortunate incident but didn’t argue with her. 

Curiously, the victim’s father told her that there was no way thieves would jump over the fence without being seen by a tea seller beside their gate, whose place is always busy with people. 

After discovering that she was suspicious, they called police on her. 

The cops took her to the station, where she confessed that she stabbed him twice in his chest because of a misunderstanding in the evening. 

It was also reliably confirmed that she has a three-month pregnancy for Gidado. 

Therefore, those who said the murderer was forcefully married to him are just lying to the public. Their marriage was out of enormous love. 

Similarly, an Abuja-based lady Maryam Sanda mercilessly stabbed her husband to death on November 2017. 

Many media outlets, largely online alongside social media influencers, had disseminated unverified chronicle stories about the tragic incident without confirmation from the parties involved. 

Sharing unfiltered and fabricated information is seemingly becoming a norm in Nigeria among media outlets and internet users to manipulate people’s perceptions of facts. 

It is necessary to call on spreaders of information and netizens to please desist from sharing unverified information and cultivate the habit of digging into stories before publishing them. 

Please pray for the repose of Gidado and his mother. She died in early January 2023. 

Lawan Bukar Maigana writes from Borno and can be reached via email:lawanbukarmaigana@gmail.com.

By Nasiru Manga

Anytime Nigeria’s myriad problems and challenges are raised in a discussion which also involves how to turn around the country’s fortune, it more often than not leads to a fascinating argument among intellectuals as to which is more important between establishing a solid institution which produces successive good leadership or having a leadership of strong men to engender strong institutions. In that instant, I find myself vacillating between the two opinions. I find both of them valid and very difficult to be disputed. It’s a case of a chick and an egg dilemma regarding which must have existed first, the chick which laid the egg or the egg from which the chick was hatched.

Reasoning with either of the points, I reflected on my teenage experience in secondary school more than two decades ago. I then relate the arguments with the leadership of five or six successive principals in my secondary school, Government Arabic College, Gombe. How these principals managed the school was a practical example of the validity of the two arguments depending on the side one takes.

One of the principals, in particular, stood out. He is Malam Saidu Jibrin Kwami. His exemplary leadership during his stint as the school’s principal afforded me the feeling of what good leadership can do, even in a small school environment. Before him, his predecessors couldn’t make any difference. The principal who succeeded him couldn’t equally build on his achievements. It’s also proof that without a vital institution, a strong leader’s efforts come to nought if he leaves the stage and succeeds by a weakling. For my readers to deeply appreciate why Malam Saidu Jibrin Kwami’s exemplary leadership towered above the rest of the principals, let me take you down memory lane of what was obtainable in the school.

The system was, and until we left the boarding secondary school in 2002, the principal, in addition to the daily management of the school, was in charge of students feeding. I didn’t know whether the funds for the feeding were released to the principal directly from the state ministry of education or the ministry provided the school with all foodstuffs. It released some funds to the principal for the daily running of the school and buying groceries. But I did know that the school store was getting restocked regularly.

The three square meals day in and day out consisted of mostly pap with sometimes two pieces of ƙosai served as breakfast. The pap had no sugar, and perhaps, due to how it was prepared, it had a sedative effect on students during school hours. Black tea with rumpled tiny bread was served as breakfast once a week. The lunch and supper were either tuwo made from processed maize, mostly half-done, called gabza by students or eba made from gari, served alternately for lunch and supper. The soup for the gabza or eba, mostly miyar kuka, was prepared with little to no spices and bereft of any accompanying protein in the form of meat. Rice which one couldn’t tell whether it was a jollof rice or simply white rice without soup, was served on Thursdays. The meat was served only once in a blue moon.

It is needless to say that the rations were not enough for students. Worse of it, many students used to end up not having their rations as what was given to the cooks to prepare was barely enough to go around. The service was, therefore, on a first-come-first-served basis, excluding senior students who needed not join queues. If one missed his share, that was all, and he would be told “ka bi Yerima“, an expression meaning “you have missed, there is nothing for you.” It was said that the cliché “ka bi Yerima” has its historical origin in one of the Gombe princes who sought and lost his father’s throne to then Emir of Gombe, Alhaji Shehu Abubakar. So “ka bi Yerima” means one followed in the footsteps of the prince, a loser. Ask me not about its authenticity.

To be fair to the principals of my secondary school, the situation was almost the same in all boarding public secondary schools, at least in Gombe and Bauchi states, around that time and even some years before that, as confirmed by those who attended the boarding schools before us. There were, of course, slight differences here and there occasioned by changes of different school administrators depending on their level of prudence and management of resources.

One incident I can’t forget during my first year was a riot in the school. The then-principal was unbelievably niggardly. Students’ rations which were, to start with, too little, only enough to feed a three-year-old baby, became so frequently inadequate to go around. Kun bi Yerima became the order of the day as more and more students started missing their rations at the dining hall. This was exacerbated by the fact that it was towards the end of a term when the foodstuffs brought from home by students and some money given to them by their parents to complement the school feeding programme had finished, thereby forcing many to rely on the food provided by the school which was not enough. There was also a shortage of water in the school.

So, one morning, some senior students from SS 2 and 3 woke up and said they had had enough. They took to the school’s streets chanting slogans that the principal should go and that he was a thief. After gathering, they headed to the school’s staff houses, where the principal lived. They started pelting stones at his house. He escaped by a whisker, and the school got shut down for a few weeks.

Upon resumption, we met a new principal and were informed that about seven (7) students, leaders of the protest, were expelled from the school. But still, there was no significant improvement in school feeding or academics. We only had three to four subjects maximum, out of the nine subjects we were supposed to have daily. The only exception was when we had teaching practice students from the Federal College of Education. And during that time, permanent teachers virtually abdicated their responsibilities, leaving everything to the student-teachers. Another two principals we had afterwards couldn’t effect any change. Their priorities were neither students’ academic nor their nutritional well-being.

Then came the revolutionary principal, Malam Saidu Jibrin Kwami. We were in SS 3, about five years after that principal against whom students revolted, and the fourth in the succession of principals since we enrolled in JSS 1.

The first thing he undertook was an improvement in our academics. He frowned at some teachers habits of sitting and chit-chatting in staff rooms without attending classes. He declared that he wouldn’t condone their flagrant negligence of duty. He insisted that every teacher must not miss his lesson twice weekly without a genuine reason. We then started having completed nine lessons on an unprecedented day.

How did he achieve that? He gave all class monitors notebooks to use as registers where each teacher would write their name and append their signatures at the end of their period. At the end of the class every day, the class monitors would queue up at his office, where he checked the register of each class to see if there was an absentee teacher. He also told us in the assembly that we should report any teacher we observed wasting away their period of 30 minutes or 45 minutes blabbering instead of teaching.

Malam Jibrin Kwami also introduced extra evening classes (which we called prep) daily, save weekends. Before him, there was not much importance attached to it by his predecessors. Only junior students used to attend it, and it wasn’t daily. But during his time, he supervised the evening classes himself; and he would personally go around hostels to chase out stubborn senior students who would rather stay put in the hostels while the prep was ongoing. If he sighted a student loitering about, he would shout from afar, “Who is that gardi?” He also ensured that all the classrooms and all the streets from students’ dormitories leading to the classes were fully lit so that students wouldn’t complain of darkness. There were no Discos then, and NEPA was genuinely faithful. How he achieved that, beat me.

You may be wondering what happened to our food, right? Suffice it to say that during his short period as the school’s principal, we also saw what our parents enjoyed in public schools in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He told us that he also finished in the same school in 1982, and it was unfortunate that things had deteriorated to that level.

Most days of the week, our breakfast became tea (not just black tea, but with milk) and bread as against pap. And we started feeling the taste of sugar in our pap too. White rice and stew, tuwo and eba started competing as our lunch and supper, with rice winning most times. Pieces of meat suddenly appeared in our daily meals, and the soup started having condiments.

One day, he summoned us as the school’s prefects, informed us that we would notice a change in our meal the next day, and urged us to survey and feed him about the change.  He told us the meat price was high, so he decided to alternate the meat with fish. So he wanted us to sample students’ general opinions on the fish substitute as he knew some people didn’t like fish. Such a thoughtful leader!

Unfortunately, as they say, good things hardly last; his tenure as a principal was short-lived. No sooner had we started enjoying his good leadership than he got elevated and appointed as the secretary of our state’s pilgrim board. The school was literally thrown into mourning upon hearing the news.

The man who succeeded him couldn’t properly step into his shoes. Things started deteriorating very fast. Before you know it, we were back to square one. This is the case of having a strong man without a strong institution. And the strong institution doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it has to be built by strong men.

Nasiru Manga can be reached via nasmang@gmail.com.

By Mukhtar Jarmajo 

The state of education in Bauchi state is in disarray as over 1.4 million children remain out of school, according to recent reports. This crisis manifests itself in the acute shortage of qualified teachers, inadequate infrastructure, and poor funding for education. The Gabchyari community in Darazo local government is a classic example of the sorry state of our education system.

The only primary and junior secondary school in this area, which has approximately 350 students, has just three teachers, as reported by The Nation Newspaper last Monday. This is a gross inadequacy, as it means that each teacher will be responsible for teaching over 100 students. This will invariably lead to overcrowding, poor quality of learning, and the inability of individual students to receive adequate attention and care.

The continual neglect and unwillingness of the government to provide quality education for our children is evident in the rising number of out-of-school children in the state. This growing trend should be of concern to well-meaning citizens of the state, as it poses a threat to our future and that of the nation.

The consequences of the education crisis in Bauchi state are far-reaching and multifaceted. The inability of these children to access quality education could lead to a high rate of poverty, unemployment, and a general lack of development in the state. We cannot continue to ignore the plight of these children, as they represent the future of our society, and their education is a fundamental human right.

It is, therefore, imperative that the government takes urgent steps to address this crisis. The government must invest more in education by providing adequate funding, training and recruiting qualified teachers and building more schools in rural areas where the majority of these children live.

The education crisis in Bauchi state is a ticking time bomb that needs to be diffused as soon as possible. As stakeholders and well-meaning citizens, we must continue to put pressure on the government at all levels to take education seriously as an essential tool for development and nation-building. The time to act is now before it is too late.

Jarmajo can be reached via dattuwamanga@gmail.com.

By Ukasha Rabiu Magama

The lives of the commuters passing through Jos-Bauchi road to other states in the Northeast and Northcentral regions are in precarious situations due to the gully erosion that washed away the road in Narabi, Toro local government of Bauchi state.

The affected area has already been declared dangerous by the residents. Though the site has been closed-off with stones and a red rope to serve as a warning signal to motorists, they are still managing to pass through at a low speed because there is no alternative.

Nonetheless, the Federal Road Maintenance Agency FERMA should hurriedly aid commuters by repairing the affected area before it is damaged entirely and cause havoc to motorists flying the roads daily.

It’s good for the FERMA to know that the way is the only way linking the entire north-central and northeast. Also, the Agency is aware that the road is among the busiest roads in Nigeria. Meanwhile, if FERMA refuses to fix up the ashed-away area hurriedly, it will affect and endanger the lives of thousands of commuters and stop motorists’ movement entirely. 

Similarly, it’s undoubtedly that the Bauchi-Jos road has become a dead zone for commuters because of the severe potholes along the road. This has been continuously claiming the lives of innocent commuters daily.

Annoyingly, the Bauchi-Jos highway is among the roads recording high rates of accidents in Nigeria. Given this, the federal government approved 348 billion in 2018 for the dualisation of the road from Akwanga-Jos-Bauchi to Gombe. This is to reduce the risk of accidents along the road, but more needs to be done on the ground to actualise the project.

Therefore, since the protection of the lives and property of every citizen is bestowed upon the government’s shoulders, it is significant for the FERMA to urgently intervene by repairing the washed-away area; this is to save innocent lives. Also, since the outgoing president cannot fulfil his promise, we are drawing the attention of the incoming president Ahmad Bola Tinubu to dualise the road; hence the need is to save lives and properties.

Meanwhile, we need FERMA’s urgent intervention before the new administration settles. If not, lives are at stake, and only God knows what will happen if the road is damaged completely.

Ukasha Rabiu Magama writes from Magama Toro, Bauchi state.

By Umar Sani Yakubu

“In a few weeks from now, we shall be done with the junior secondary school certificate examination, and from then on, I am done with Western education.”

Above is what my ears brought to me as it was uttered in the Hausa language after I walked past some probably junior secondary school students in the Bauchi metropolis.

This statement by a young lad disturbed me. It proves to me how true it is that Bauchi State is counted as one of the states in the country with a high rate of out-of-school children.

However, proving that Bauchi State forms part of the state in Nigeria with a high rate of out-of-school children, this development has led to much criticism from concerned citizens as to why the state would join such a demeaning but objective reality. First, some critics blame the decade-long insurgency in the Northeast, where the state emerges. While some blame the root cause on parents’ lackadaisical attitude in enrolling the children in school, political opponents of the government accuse it of not providing the needed atmosphere for learning.

 Albeit, whatever it is that led our dear state into such a situation, the state government must be at its feet to make sure things are done well.

Relatively, it was against that backdrop that I was amazed at the government’s inattentiveness to the course in encouraging the students to do better in their studies. I point out the recent remarkable performance of some students who emerged from and represented the state in a national competition and were victorious above all the remaining participating states in the country.

Those students have been celebrated and recognised by many concerned individuals in Bauchi State and beyond; unfortunately, the state government has yet to say a word about the development.

 Is it this way that the government plans to make their youngsters remain on the course of changing the blackmailing narratives?

 I don’t believe all is right. But, of course, something must be wrong somewhere.

Suffice it to say; we are all witnesses to when the government in the state recognised and rewarded mere social media actors, etc. If political and social media actors can be recognised and even rewarded, why not a best-performing student who earned respect not only for themselves and the school but also for the state in the eyes of the world?

These students from Government College (Special School) Toro who participated in the recent National Inter-secondary Schools Quiz competition organised by the Raw Materials Research and Development Council and came out first must be recognised and celebrated by every serious state government where they emerged, especially as they are trained in a government-owned school as opposed to any proud private schools.

As Bauchi State is in a dangerous situation as its youth quit education for other heinous acts like Sara Suka, the state government must be reminded that giving such recognition and even awarding scholarships is vital in encouraging children to see the light in the path of their education.

Consequently, celebrating students of the state with remarkable performance in school and even rewarding them with scholarships stands to draw the attention of the wayward to education and encourage those already in the system to put in more effort.

Finally, with my confidence in the present administration of His Excellency Governor Bala Abdulkadir Muhammed, I hope the best brains from Government College Toro will be identified and rewarded for making the state proud in the competition above.

Gone were the days in Bauchi when international scholarships were given to the best brains, many of whom are now professionals in their respective careers.

 Sani is a concerned citizen from Bauchi State and can be reached at saniumaryakubu@gmail.com.

By Mukhtar Jarmajo

In a democratic system, individuals have the right to associate with any political party of their choice. This right is enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution, and it guarantees the freedom of political association to every citizen of the country.

Recently, there have been efforts to call back Halliru Dauda Jika, a former member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bauchi state, who left the party to pitch his tent with the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) ahead of the 2023 general elections. Reliable sources close to Jika said he decamped from the APC because he felt he deserved the party’s governorship ticket, having funded the party since 2019.

However, it should be noted that the call-back efforts are unnecessary and uncalled for since the person in question has the constitutional right to be in any political party he so desires. Jika has the right to leave the APC and join another party, just as he now has the right to rejoin the party as an ordinary member.

It is crucial to understand that political parties are voluntary associations individuals join based on their beliefs, ideologies, and interests. Therefore, deciding to join or leave a political party is a personal choice everyone should respect.

The call-back movement seems driven by people who were likely his supporters while in the APC. However, if these people genuinely believe in the ideology of the APC, then they should work towards strengthening the party by promoting its values and ideals.

All should respect the constitutional right to political association, and call-back movements should cease, especially when they are unnecessary and uncalled for. Instead, political parties should focus on strengthening their values and ideals, and individuals should be free to join or leave any party without fear of persecution or intimidation.

Jarmajo wrote from Wuse Zone 2, Abuja. 

By Mukhtar Jarmajo

It is startling to learn that for most politicians and their supporters, elections are simply the means to grab power by hook or crook. Perhaps, for many politicians, politics, especially in Africa, is a power struggle for the sake of bad governance. Or better still, politics, as it is played here, is not about the promotion of the citizens’ quality of life. Rather, it is about ruling them for gaining access to excessive personal wealth and pleasure.

For this reason, politics here is hardly issue-based. It is mostly about religious, regional, ethnic or regressive political and socio-economic sentiments predicated on the desire of grappling power to rule based on personal gains, thereby subjecting the people to untold hardship.

Here in Bauchi state, the story is no different, as evidenced by the miasma of hopelessness with dead public schools, ineffective healthcare service, vulnerable women and children, moribund industries, poor housing schemes, ineffective food production system and dead civil service. Yet, all that some politicians care about is retaining power.

Sadly, this crop of politicians wants to remain in power, not because they have ever shown any propensity for making the lives of the people any better as they hold sway, but because being there, for them, is a means of survival even if that is at the expense of the masses. Surprising as this is, more surprising are the supporters of these regressive politicians who are at the receiving end of the actions and (or) inactions of their political leaders.

It beats every imagination that there is anyone out there who consciously endorses ideas that aim to reverse progress, suppress change as well as ensure social, economic and political retrogression. Maybe, this is a pointer to the fact that our people need more enlightenment on the concepts of government, governance, democracy and politics.

Jarmajo wrote from Kukadi/Gundari ward, Misau Local Government.

By Abdulrahman Yunusa 

The fact that election is the major hallmark of democracy is enough to be an apparent reason for anyone that thinks they can cheat the process under a democratic state to make it to any political seat that requires such periodic election is but an outright implausible and wishful thought.

Meanwhile, unlike other affairs, elections are conducted across the nation occasionally (after every four years in the case of Nigeria). It’s an avenue upon which the political actors compete and make it to a particular political position in government. 

Therefore, the re-emergence of Governor Bala Muhammad for the second time as the Governor-elect of Bauchi state won’t be an exception since he passed all the above required constitutional procedures during this fierce political battle to emerge the champion of the 2023 governorship poll. 

Yet, this hasn’t come to me as a surprise, for he met all the prerequisite requirements needed to make it for the second term. His handworks are there, manifesting themselves from all angles of governance. But the hurdles he went through to make this task and yet glamorous journey possible is what left me befuddled. 

Once more, I congratulate His Excellency Governor Bala Muhammad of Bauchi state for making such a historical and spectacular political breakthrough against all odds. You have indeed shown how shrewd you are political. 

For muzzling, silencing, dismantling, and burying the politics of godfatherism in the state, I can’t relent in thanking you for such a magnificent job. Hence, permit me to boldly inform your detractors that you have set precedence upon which the future generation must care to imitate in their future respective political affairs in the state.

However, without impacting the lives of your people, this feat couldn’t have been achievable by you at this tragic moment. For you have gone through all the series of political threats from friends, masters and foes, and you dismayingly thrash them down, thereby making them irrelevance in the game once more time. 

Given that Governor Bala has received his certificate of return for the second time, shall we inquire about the shallow-minded gang who, over the past weeks, has been parading and making some baseless claims that their man is coming? Coming from where to where for God’s sake?  

Is this not enough for them to bury their face in shame? Is this not sufficient for them to retreat from making other gibberish in the name of mandate reclamation through the court of law upon baseless allegations? Why couldn’t they stop making themselves ridiculous objects in politics? 

Thank God for making such a rare move, throwing such a formidable political gang un to the dungeon of history amidst a critical moment. Thus this success has genuinely reflected the outcome of your tireless effort, resilience, hard work, perseverance, dedication and, above all, the incessant prayer you stick to. 

I hope you will maintain the tempo and make the state among the top infrastructurally and economically. I further pray that the second tenure will be more productive for the state’s citizens. And may the state’s resources be judiciously utilised for the benefit of all. 

May Bauchi succeed once again under the didactic watch of Governor Bala Muhammad Kauran Bauchi.

Abdulrahman Yunusa is a social and political affairs analyst. He writes from Bauchi and can be reached via abdulrahmanyunusa10@gmail.com.

By Muhammadu Sabiu

The Bauchi State Government has suspended the much-awaited debate between a controversial cleric, Dr Idris Abdulaziz Dutsen Tanshi, and other scholars who tagged his recent comments about “seeking humanly impossible” help from Prophet Muhammad (SAW) as inappropriate.
 
The suspension, according to the state’s Sharia Commission, is until further notice.

Recall that during a Ramadan Tafsir session, Dutsen Tanshi was quoted as saying, “We don’t need help from Inyass; we don’t need help from Tijjanni; we don’t need help from Abdulqadiri; we don’t need help from Shehu Usman. In fact, even from the Prophet. That’s the end of it.

“Whose help do we need? Allah. It’s left to them to twist my words. The Prophet himself said, ‘If you need help, seek help from Allah.'”

Consequently, in a letter the Bauchi State Shari’a Commission sent to the cleric late yesterday night, it says, “I am directed to write and formally inform you of the reschedule[d] date of the interactive session earlier slated for Saturday, 8th April 2023.

“That the new date will be communicated to you accordingly, please.” 

By Mallam Musbahu Magayaki

Humanity is the only language individuals of proven hospitality and character best understand; people with big hearts are the light of society. 

The star of our community has done it again, shining and brightening people’s lives. On March 25th, 2023, the Babayo Mustapha Charity Foundation, under the chairmanship of Bello Mustapha and Kogunan Katagum, distributed over 400 bags of rice, maize flour, and sugar to the economically disadvantaged individuals as Ramadan support for them to break their fast. 

This foundation has been positively impacting the lives of the less privileged for quite some time now, ranging from financial assistance to the downtrodden to academic support to undergraduate students in different higher institutions of learning.

Also, part of his community services is furnishing mosques with mini solar inverters, a gesture that the people of our community immensely appreciate. 

Koguna is the true replica of the late Mustapha Babayo (may he continue to rest in peace) in assisting the people and wearing smiles on commoners’ faces. 

Many, including those outside the Azare community, celebrate the Kogunan of Katagum, a man of the people, the son of the soil, and the most celebrated pillar of our community.

Mallam Musbahu Magayaki writes from Sabon Fegi, Azare, Bauchi State.