Joe Biden

By Nura Jibo MRICS

The man, President Barack Hussein Obama, will never cease to amaze me. In 2008, when Obama was campaigning for his presidential bid against John McCain, I was in the Sudan Savanna region of Northern Nigeria, managing a N6 billion redevelopment of the Yankari Animal Game Reserve Holiday Resort and Safari Project in Bauchi State.

At that time, the 2i/c in my office, Dr Aminu Bashir, was scheduled to visit the United States. He asked me if there was anything that I needed him to buy in America. I humbly requested two (2) books: The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father, both written by Barack Obama.

Indeed, it was a joyous moment for me the very day I laid my hands on the two of Obama’s international bestseller books. 

For those who are not aware of what qualifies a book to be labelled a bestseller, any book that its publishers sell an average of more than 10,000 copies within a week is automatically considered a bestseller under US standards. Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” immediately qualified for the New York Times bestseller list because of its profundity.

Today marks exactly 18 years since Barack Obama made history in the United States of America. And today, which marks the day of another victory with the launch of the Obama Presidential Centre on Juneteenth 2026, is not only a win for the US Democrats and democracy, but also a day when consistency meets sincerity and the ability to reemerge.

Chicago has been home to Obama, his wife Michelle, and their children, Sasha and Malia.

The lessons I learned from the Obamas are not only about courage and conviction but also about inspiring me to rise and do more with my life.

1. Personally, Obama’s personality (behaviours and appearance), as defined in simple psychology, inspired me to write my first book that debuted in 2010, which I sent to him and his wife, Michelle, one copy each-in 2010, via the US Embassy in Nigeria. At that time, my aim was not really to practice quantity surveying as a meal ticket. My dream was to immerse myself in the study of global literature and novels by renowned authors, such as the Russian Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky and the Chinese Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. I sincerely cared less about studying physics and chemistry books because I believed they offered less to humanity, as they contributed more to inflicting havoc on the scientific world via bombs, drones, and missiles. 

I deeply thought that science was never favourable for me. I was quite surprised when I see myself today practicing a segment of it and excelling in quantity surveying at an appreciable speed and awe, because my thinking was to one day appear in a global debate with world leaders such as Barack Obama to discuss the West and Africa and seek an explanation from my Kanoonline super writer friend, Dave McEwan Hill’s candid observation, who averred that: “If we want to keep our best people at home we have to provide a better country for them to operate in. If Nigerian leaders were honest, progressive, and ambitious, they would have rewarded high achievers rather than multibillion-dollar thieves.” McEwan Hill believes that many of our best brains would have stayed at home to build the nation.

However, most of them have gone overseas to be in more satisfying and more remunerative employment in better-run communities.

While I can’t agree with Dave as little as he does, his double-decker challenge was just like the way the Obamas challenged the late McCain and Trump, with his trumpeting of our cosmopolitan world in a George Galloway manner. Indeed, Dave McEwan Hill acknowledged what he described as my impressive contributions that nonetheless read like special pleading to ignite curiosity that the “blacks” are any less intelligent than the “whites. ” To which the question is more complex than that, as he asserted elsewhere that all members of all races function just as well as each other when placed equally in advanced environments. The key question is why some environments get so far ahead of others. 

So far, I have repeatedly featured and succeeded in debating the world at the United Nations Conference of the Parties level for umpteenth times.

2. Hence, anytime I listen to Obama, I come away with something new and extraordinary, not in my professional field, but outside my constituency. For example, before the birth of Obama’s Presidential Centre, I established a 3-hectare tree shelterbelt and two high-powered solar boreholes as a community organiser and climate change advocate in Nigeria. In my shelterbelt, biodiversity has already been restored for the people of Asayaya village across a comprehensive 3-hectare area, with a grant of no less than £70,000 from the BCDA.

3. After succeeding in biodiversity restoration, I looked up to the United States of America to leverage the establishment and registration of a segment of my NGO: the African Climate Change Research Centre (ACCREC), which I affiliated with the UNFCCC Secretariat in Bonn, Germany, as its climate observer organisation for well over sixteen years now. Prof. Bello Makama–an African American Chemist of all time, painstakingly registered ACCREC in New York and became its first US Country Director at SUNY-ERIE, courtesy of following the Obama legacy.

4. Now that Obama has launched his Presidential Centre in Chicago, with Presidents George Bush Jr., Biden, and Clinton in attendance, only God knows what is going on in my mind regarding what I will come up with in a couple of months. I will not digress, but I take a huge lesson from the veracity of Obama’s amazing construction, which cost well over $850 million, with Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates as its landscape architects; the centre is designed to receive an average of 1,666 visitors every week. They will enjoy learning, sports, entertainment and music to the zenith.

5. Indeed, anytime I read and watch the Obamas, rest assured I will come up with something new, especially when I reflect on their times as a husband and wife in perfect harmony.

6. The time they spent in Chicago, with Michelle as an Associate Dean and Obama as a professor of law, often reminds me of the days I traversed and visited nearly fifty countries for my international career. I lived in Europe, North Africa, South America, West Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, sharing ideas and presenting my case studies to the international community, my immediate community and African neighbourhoods.

7. Anyone who wants to know more about what I am up to in a couple of days can watch this space for my open letter to President Obama. This letter is certainly going to be different and very unique from the one I wrote and sent to President Donald John Trump at his house in Mar-a-Lago!

By Sabiu Abdullahi

Former United States President Joe Biden has condemned the killing of two people by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis and has called for full, fair, and transparent investigations into the incidents.

In a statement shared on his X handle on Tuesday, Biden described the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good as actions that run contrary to America’s core values. He said the country is “not a nation that guns down our citizens in the street” and “not a nation that allows our citizens to be brutalized for exercising their constitutional rights.”

“We are not a nation that tramples the 4th Amendment and tolerates our neighbours being terrorized,” the former President said.

Biden also commended residents of Minnesota for what he described as their strength and unity in the face of hardship. He said Minnesotans have continued to support one another and speak against injustice despite difficult conditions.

“The people of Minnesota have stood strong — helping community members in unimaginable circumstances, speaking out against injustice when they see it, and holding our government accountable to the people,” he said.

“Minnesotans have reminded us all what it is to be American, and they have suffered enough at the hands of this Administration,” Biden added.

The former President stressed that violence has no place in the United States, especially when it involves state authorities.

“Violence and terror have no place in the United States of America, especially when it’s our own government targeting American citizens,” he said.

Biden urged citizens to protect democratic values and insisted that the foundations of the country cannot be destroyed by one individual.

“No single person can destroy what America stands for and believes in, not even a President, if we — all of America — stand up and speak out. We know who we are. It’s time to show the world. More importantly, it’s time to show ourselves,” he stated.

He concluded by extending condolences to the families of the victims.

“Jill and I are sending strength to the families and communities who love Alex Pretti and Renee Good as we all mourn their senseless deaths,” Biden said.

Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen and registered nurse, was killed during an immigration enforcement operation on the south side of Minneapolis. Colleagues described him as a healthcare worker known for caring for critically ill veterans.

His death has intensified scrutiny of federal law enforcement actions and has widened mistrust between frontline healthcare workers and federal authorities.

The incident is the second fatal shooting linked to federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in recent weeks. It has sparked protests, renewed debate over enforcement methods, and growing calls for accountability.

The shootings occurred during a weeks-long deployment of immigration enforcement and other federal agents in Minneapolis. Authorities have intensified raids in the city as part of President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.

Minneapolis has also seen daily protests since the January 7 killing of Renee Good, a 37-year-old resident who died after an ICE officer fired into her vehicle. In a separate incident last week, U.S. security operatives also shot a Venezuelan man in the city.

By Muhammad Abubakar

Matthew Miller, former spokesperson for the U.S. State Department under President Joe Biden, has said Israel has “without doubt” committed war crimes in Gaza.

In a recent interview, Miller pointed to the targeting of civilian infrastructure, the high civilian death toll, and the ongoing blockade as clear violations of international law. His remarks mark a significant departure from the official U.S. position, which has largely avoided directly accusing Israel of war crimes.

Miller’s comments come as independent investigations into alleged violations by Israeli forces continue. He also criticized the Biden administration’s support for Israel, warning it risks enabling serious breaches of humanitarian law.

By Muhsin Ibrahim 

Republican Congressman Joe Wilson has proposed introducing a $250 bill featuring President Donald Trump’s face, citing economic struggles under former President Joe Biden.

In a post on the social media platform X, Wilson wrote, “Bidenflation has destroyed the economy, forcing American families to carry more cash. The most valuable bill for the most valuable president!”

The proposal has sparked debate, with supporters praising Trump’s economic policies and critics dismissing the move as political grandstanding. 

The US Treasury has not commented on whether such a bill is under consideration.

By Sa’adatu Aliyu 

As the US election approaches and President Joe Biden steps aside for Vice-President Kamala Harris to run as president in 2024, questions swirl within both White and Black communities about Harris’s recent declaration as a Black woman. Despite her long-standing identification as a woman of Indian and Jamaican descent, Harris has only recently begun associating herself with the Black community. However, this sudden shift doesn’t surprise me, as politicians often use false identities to win popular support.

Can one simply claim a new identity without shared experiences and cultural heritage? Well, in the woke 21st century, perhaps. Is Harris’s declaration a genuine attempt to connect with the Black community or a calculated move to garner support? The timing of her proclamation, coinciding with her presidential bid, only fuels doubts about her authenticity.

But honestly, I am not in the least surprised by this sudden cross-dressing because it’s not uncommon to see politicians taking on false identities and doing strange things just to win popular support among the people, which will serve them during elections. I mean, among many others, I recall Joe Biden reciting a prophetic Hadith during the 2020 elections, attempting to prove his commitment to Muslim interests. This tactic is a familiar ploy to rally specific communities and secure votes. 

However, he was only using the strategy that every politician employs to rally Muslim communities to vote for him, and some bought it. Gullible and naive as they were, they had thought he was the man who wouldn’t see colour, let alone religion. However, Biden’s term turned out to be one of the regimes in which Palestinians suffered heavy persecution at the hands of his Israeli allies.

Now, I fail to understand the reason behind former President Donald Trump and the Republican Presidential candidate’s surprise that a dogged opponent is simply employing a political strategy to win the sympathy of the Black community, who, to a large extent, may determine the outcome of the US election. This is similar to how Trump capitalises on white supremacy and “America First” idiosyncrasies. Thus, it’s surprising that anyone is shocked when someone magically signs up to be a Black woman overnight as if we do not live in a world where our mere utterance and public declaration of being something automatically makes us that thing. I mean, take gender, for example.

I was born a boy, but I felt and wanted to be a girl, so I showed up and simply made a formal declaration. Isn’t gender, after all, a social construct? Perhaps Vice President Harris thought it was enough to be Black by merely making an official declaration of being Black, even though she’d always flaunted her Indian and Jamaican heritage with pride. And I don’t blame her. If Kamala Harris one day wakes up and says, “I am a Black woman and belong in the Black community,” so be it. She could just as easily choose to argue that she’s a white woman by simply being married to a white man or by saying she’s white. It’s easy to be a chameleon these days, changing into the colour that best fits our situation to achieve our desires.

With reference to Mrs Harris, who suddenly feels and declares herself a Black woman, and in relation to Simone de Beauvoir’s notion in her famous feminist book The Second Sex that “One is not born but becomes a woman,” perhaps it’s time to put the issue of race behind us. Let’s consider race, like gender, a social construct and integrate everyone irrespective of colour, as long as they feel and make the formal proclamation: “Although I was born Black, I feel I am white, and therefore, I am what I think I am.” Just like transgender people, who are increasingly being accepted into their desired gender community, we should similarly accept individuals who self-identify with a particular race. After all, we’re all one.

To that effect, if race is perceived as a social construct, then one is not born black but becomes black, and one is not born white but becomes white.

 Let us remember that for several decades, Black people have struggled for full acceptance into the world of white people. Some have straightened their hair with hot irons and a range of relaxers, worn contact lenses to have the “bluest eyes” to be accepted “under Western eyes”, and gone as far as bleaching their skin. However, this has not made them white nor granted them full acceptance into the white community because, despite all these efforts to change into somebody else, they are simply not that person.

Just because I say I am a doctor and put on a doctor’s uniform, parading myself as one, does not make me a doctor when I am a writer. The pen and scalpel are not interchangeable just because I say they are. And if, as a writer, I insist on performing the duties of a doctor, we’ll sure be heading for disaster. 

Therefore, if one is not born but becomes a woman, how about we stop seeing colour? How about we think of race as a social construct, too, and integrate everyone into one big, happy, peaceful family? Why is race still an issue? If some people recognise gender as a social construct, why haven’t the same group of people wholly recognised race as a social construct?

Perhaps it’s because cross-dressing doesn’t change certain realities. 

Sa’adatu Aliyu is a writer from Zaria. She is pursuing an M.A. in Literature at Ahmadu Bello University and lecturing at the university’s Distance Learning Centre. Her writing interests include prose fiction and international politics.

By Uzair Adam Imam  

American actor and wrestler Dwayne Johnson, widely known as The Rock, has declared his decision not to endorse President Joe Biden for a second term in the upcoming presidential election rematch with former President Donald Trump. 

Johnson had previously thrown his support behind Biden in the 2022 presidential election, lauding him for his qualities of compassion, heart, drive, and soul.  

However, in a recent interview with Fox News, Johnson indicated a change in stance, stating, “Am I going to do that again this year? That answer’s no. I realise now going into this election, I will not do that.” 

Back in September 2020, The Rock endorsed Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, praising their experience and leadership qualities. 

However, when asked about a potential repeat of his endorsement, Johnson expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of America, saying, “Am I happy with the state of America right now? Well, that answer’s no. Do I believe we’re gonna get better? I believe in that – I’m an optimistic guy. And I believe we can do better.” 

While stating his goal of uniting the country, Johnson asserted that he would keep his political views private, stating, “It is between me and the ballot box.”  

He expressed trust in the American people’s decision, asserting that whoever they vote for will be his president, whom he will support wholeheartedly.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari.

President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, fell off his bicycle on Saturday, June 18, 2022. The incident happened at Cape Henlopen State Park near his beach home in Delaware.

A video from the White House pool report confirmed the incident. The video showed the 79 years old president immediately getting up after he fell. He then said. “I am good”

Biden was biking with First Lady Jill Biden at the Rehoboth Beach and had stopped to talk to unlookers when he fell.

According to the White House, the president did not need any medical attention after the bike accident.

The President had fallen in March on the stairs of Air force One. His falls are raising concerns on whether the president would be fit to contest the 2024 US presidential election, which Biden and his allies assured Americans he would contest.

By Muhammad Sabiu

President of the United States, Joe Biden, is set to travel to Brussels, Belgium’s capital, amidst the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia.

President Biden is expected to hold a physical meeting with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) leaders in a show of support for Ukraine.

Press secretary of The White House, Jen Psaki, has confirmed to reporters on Tuesday that the meeting would be held on March 24.

Ms Psaki was quoted as saying, “The President will travel to Brussels, Belgium, later this month, where he will join the extraordinary NATO Summit on March 24 to discuss ongoing deterrence and defense efforts in response to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified attack on Ukraine, as well as to refer reaffirm our ironclad commitment to our NATO allies.”

“He will also join a scheduled European Council summit to discuss our shared concerns about Ukraine, including transatlantic efforts to impose economic costs on Russia, provide humanitarian support to those affected by the violence and address other challenges related to the conflict.”

This is coming amidst condemnations and concern expressed by NATO allies as Russia continues to advance its invasion in parts of Ukraine.