Muslims

By Muhammad Abubakar

Since I came to France for work, I have been extremely cautious about criticising Israel or Benjamin Netanyahu. Often, though wrongly, people conflate criticism of an entity or a person with criticism of an idea or of an entire ethnic or religious group.

Soon after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, I felt driven to write about the unresolved conflict. It was difficult to ignore the subject. Yet I was also concerned that expressing my views might affect my employment or even my residency status in France. To be certain, I reached out to our Human Resources department for guidance.

We essentially agreed on an important distinction. Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu are not the same as the Jewish people or Judaism. One can criticise the policies of the Israeli government or the actions of its prime minister without expressing hostility towards Jews or the Jewish faith. The same principle applies elsewhere. A person may criticise Saudi Arabia or Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman without being an Islamophobe or an enemy of Islam.

This distinction is fundamental in any society that values free expression and intellectual honesty. Democracies depend on the ability of citizens to question governments, leaders and public figures. If every criticism of a political leader is interpreted as an attack on an entire religion or ethnic group, meaningful public debate becomes impossible.

I was reminded of this principle after listening to new songs released yesterday by the Nigerian political singer, Dauda Kahutu, popularly known as Rarara. The songs appear to criticise an opposition politician in Gombe State, Sheikh Ali Isa Ibrahim Pantami, who is also a respected Islamic scholar.

Unfortunately, I have seen some people make the same mistake that often appears in discussions about international politics. They have framed criticism of Pantami as though it were criticism of Islam itself.

Pantami does not represent Islam. He is a Muslim and an influential public figure, but he remains an individual whose political choices, public statements and actions are open to public scrutiny, just like those of any other politician. Defending him is entirely legitimate, but such a defence should be based on facts, evidence and reason rather than on the assumption that any criticism directed at him is an attack on the religion he professes.

By any definition, both the singer and the governorship candidate he appears to criticise in his songs are Muslims. Neither of them represents Islam. Their political disagreements should therefore remain political disagreements. Turning them into religious disputes serves neither truth nor the public interest.

This tendency to wrap political figures in the cloak of religion is dangerous. It discourages accountability and deepens unnecessary divisions within society. Once religion becomes a shield against legitimate criticism, it becomes difficult to separate public responsibility from personal belief.

Nigeria’s diversity demands greater care in the language we use. Political competition should not be transformed into religious confrontation. Citizens should be able to disagree with politicians, governors, ministers or scholars without being accused of attacking an entire faith.

The lesson is simple. We must distinguish between people and the principles they claim to represent, between governments and the nations they govern, and between political leaders and the religions they practise. Failing to make these distinctions only fuels misunderstanding and polarisation.

Criticise ideas. Debate policies. Defend people if you wish. But let us avoid presenting political disagreements as battles for religion. In the long run, both politics and religion are better served when we keep that distinction clear.

By Zayyad I. Muhammad 

One of the gubernatorial ambitions generating the most intense debate and public interest ahead of the Gombe State 2027 governorship race is that of Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami.

From the outset, Professor Pantami’s reported interest in contesting for the governorship attracted attention far beyond the borders of Gombe State. This is largely because he is not regarded as a conventional politician. Rather, he is an accomplished academic, Islamic scholar, technocrat, and former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy whose tenure earned him national recognition for driving Nigeria’s digital transformation.

Pantami’s potential candidacy appears to enjoy support from three distinct constituencies.

The first consists of those who genuinely believe he has something significant to offer the state. They draw inspiration from his performance as minister, citing his reforms in the digital economy, the expansion of broadband infrastructure, the growth of digital identity enrolment, and his emphasis on innovation, transparency, and public sector efficiency. To this group, his administrative record demonstrates that he possesses the competence and vision required to govern Gombe State.

The second group is found within the opposition in Gombe state, particularly elements of the PDP, who view Pantami as one of the few personalities with the political profile, credibility, and public appeal capable of mounting a serious challenge against the APC’s candidate-Dr. Jamilu Isiyaku Gwamna. Whether they support him or not, many acknowledge that his entry into the race would significantly alter the political equation.

The third constituency comprises sections of the religious community who see his ambition as an opportunity for one of their own to demonstrate how religious scholarship, intellectual depth, and public service can translate into effective democratic governance. For many within this group, his candidacy represents more than a political contest; it is an opportunity to test whether the values he has consistently preached can be successfully applied in elective office.

Like every major political figure, Pantami also faces opposition from different quarters.

The first group consists mainly of career politicians who believe he is entering a political space traditionally occupied by established political actors. To them, he is an outsider attempting to disrupt existing political calculations, alliances, and structures that have been built over many years.

Perhaps more surprisingly, the second group of opponents comes from within sections of his immediate religious constituency. Some clerics and religious associates reportedly believe that during his tenure as minister, he did not sufficiently carry them along or extend the expected level of inclusion and patronage. Consequently, while they may respect his scholarly credentials, they remain reluctant to support his political ambition.

Another dimension that has attracted considerable attention is the political dexterity with which Pantami secured the PDP gubernatorial ticket. The manner in which he navigated the party’s internal dynamics and emerged as its flagbearer suggests careful planning and strategic preparation rather than mere political ambition. His decision to align with the Nyesom Wike-led faction of the PDP, a bloc widely perceived in political circles as maintaining a cooperative relationship with the APC-led Federal Government, has further strengthened his political positioning. The goodwill and support he reportedly enjoys within that tendency of the PDP could prove to be a significant advantage as the campaign unfolds.

In addition, Pantami could benefit from protest votes originating from within the APC. Some influential APC stakeholders and their supporters who believe Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya has not done sufficient justice to their political aspirations or interests may choose to channel their dissatisfaction by supporting Pantami. While it remains to be seen how substantial such a shift could be, the possibility of cross-party protest votes is a factor that political observers cannot ignore.

Whichever way one chooses to examine it, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami’s potential governorship candidacy is in a class of its own. What initially appeared to be little more than speculation or a distant aspiration has steadily evolved into one of the defining conversations in Gombe State politics. official campaign has yet to commence, but the discussions surrounding Pantami’s governorship ambition have already reshaped Gombe State’s political landscape, making him a force that political stakeholders can no longer afford to ignore.

The ultimate test, however, will not simply be the enthusiasm surrounding his candidacy but his ability to convert goodwill into an effective political structure, sustain broad-based alliances, and persuade the electorate that his administrative achievements at the federal level can be replicated in Gombe State. Regardless of the eventual outcome, Pantami has already ensured that the Gombe 2027 governorship contest will be one of the most closely watched political battles in the state’s history.

Zayyad I. Muhammad writes from Abuja via zaymohd@yahoo.com.

By Muhammad Abubakar

The Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria (SCSN) has cautioned against the proposed creation of state police, saying it should not be seen as a quick solution to the country’s security challenges.

In a press statement issued on July 30, 2026, the Council acknowledged Nigeria’s worsening security situation but argued that the problems facing the nation’s security architecture are rooted in inadequate funding, corruption, poor welfare for personnel, weak intelligence, obsolete equipment and ineffective coordination.

The Council called for comprehensive reforms of existing security institutions rather than an immediate transfer of policing powers to state governments. It also expressed concern over what it described as the apparent haste in pursuing constitutional amendments on the matter, urging broader public consultations and national consensus before any decision is taken.

SCSN further warned that without strong constitutional safeguards, independent oversight, transparent recruitment and accountability mechanisms, state police could become instruments of political intimidation and abuse of power.

The Council appealed to the President, the National Assembly, state governments and other stakeholders to ensure that the concerns of Nigerians are adequately addressed before proceeding with the proposed reform. The statement was signed by the Secretary General of the Council, Malam Nafi’u Baba Ahmad, mni.

By Muhammad Sulaiman

A Nigerian lawyer and human rights advocate, Faisal Manir, has called on the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to immediately review its registration policy that allegedly compels married female Prospective Corps Members (PCMs) to adopt their husbands’ surnames.

In a letter dated July 30, 2026, and addressed to the Director-General of the NYSC, Manir argued that the policy violates the constitutional rights of married women by overriding their choice to retain their maiden (father’s) names during online registration.

According to the letter, female PCMs who indicate that they are married are prompted to provide their husbands’ details. While the registration portal appears to offer them the option of retaining their maiden names, Manir alleged that the system ultimately requires them to accept their husbands’ surnames before completing the registration process.

He contended that the practice is inconsistent with Sections 37, 38(1), and 42 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), which guarantee the rights to privacy, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and protection from discrimination.

The lawyer further argued that the policy disproportionately affects Muslim women, noting that Islamic teachings emphasize preserving a person’s lineage through the father’s name. He cited Qur’an 33:5 and a Hadith to support his position that adopting a surname other than one’s father’s is contrary to Islamic principles.

Manir also referenced a Supreme Court decision, Lagos State Government & Ors v. Asiyat AbdulKareem (SC/910/16), stating that it affirmed citizens’ rights to practise their religion and uphold their beliefs in matters of personal identity.

He called on the NYSC to discontinue the practice immediately and to amend its registration system to allow married women to retain their maiden names without coercion or additional justification.

In addition, the lawyer demanded that the NYSC reissue, free of charge, certificates to women who were allegedly compelled to adopt their husbands’ surnames during the scheme.

The letter serves as a pre-action notice, warning that failure to address the demands could result in legal proceedings seeking a declaration that the practice is unconstitutional, an order directing the NYSC to issue corrected certificates, and compensation for affected women for the psychological distress and inconvenience allegedly caused.

As of the time of filing this report, the NYSC had not publicly responded to the allegations or the demands contained in the letter.

By Muhammad Abubakar

The Institute of Islamic Cogitation, in collaboration with Markaz Khulafa’irrashidin Sharada, will host the 4th Annual Summit on the Life and Legacy of Sheikh Ja’afar Mahmud Adam on Sunday, July 12, 2026, at 9:30 a.m. at Usman ibn Affan Mosque, Kofar Gaya, Kano.

The summit will focus on the theme: “Rethinking Islamic Scholarship, Leadership, and Societal Transformation in Contemporary Nigeria.”

According to the organisers, the event aims to examine Sheikh Ja’afar’s enduring contributions to Islamic scholarship, leadership, and social reform. Scholars, researchers, students, and members of the public are expected to participate in discussions on seven approved sub-themes, including Qur’anic exegesis, jurisprudence, theological education, youth engagement, institutional development, and strategies for sustaining his intellectual legacy.

The annual gathering is intended to promote informed academic discourse on the late scholar’s teachings and their relevance to contemporary Nigerian society while encouraging reflection on the role of Islamic scholarship in national development.

By Ibraheem A. Waziri

Moses E. Ochonu, Boko Haram: The Past of the Present Upheaval, University of California Press, Oakland, 2026.

There are books that inform, books that provoke, and, rarer still, books that compel you to interrogate not merely their subject but the assumptions through which it has long been misread. Moses E. Ochonu’s Boko Haram: The Past of the Present Upheaval belongs, in large measure, to this last category. It is a serious, learned, and often illuminating work. It is also, at a foundational level, a work that mistakes genealogy for inheritance. In a region where the stakes of historical narrative are measured in mass graves rather than academic citations, that error deserves honest reckoning.

Let me be clear from the outset: Ochonu is no lightweight, and no serious reviewer should pretend otherwise. His central argument, that Boko Haram did not emerge in a historical vacuum but must be situated within a long tradition of Islamic reform, dissidence, and theological contestation in Northern Nigeria, is not only defensible but necessary. His four-phase map of postcolonial Muslim dissidence, from Sheikh Abubakar Gumi’s pragmatic shiga a gyara (enter to reform) politics, through the revolutionary “Islam Only” radicalism of the 1980s, to the Salafi fence-sitting of the 1990s, to the full-blown jihadism of Muhammad Yusuf, is genuinely useful. His insistence that Boko Haram be studied as a rational, calculating actor rather than dismissed as inexplicable barbarism reflects an intellectual courage sorely needed in the debate. All of this deserves acknowledgement. 

But respect for a scholar’s craft does not require silence about where it occasionally leads him astray. After sustained engagement with this book, I find that Ochonu’s historical genealogy – meticulous and intellectually compelling as it is – ultimately commits the cardinal error of confusing proximity with equivalence. That the Fodiawa jihad and Boko Haram invoke similar texts, deploy similar vocabulary, and emerge from overlapping cultural landscapes does not make them participants in the same civilisational project. Resemblance is not identity. And a genealogy is emphatically not a pedigree.

The fact that Boko Haram claims Dan Fodio does not mean Dan Fodio claims Boko Haram. Throughout history, movements of radically different character have invoked the same ancestors. Revolutionary France invoked Rome. Such invocation tells us about the claimant; it tells us nothing reliable about the legacy claimed.

The Missing Dimension: What the Genealogy Leaves Out

Ochonu’s framework operates almost entirely along the axis of theological and political dissidence, the reformist impulse, the grievance against corrupt rulers, and the appeal to textual authority. What it leaves almost entirely out of view is the civilisational dimension of Northern Nigerian history: the long, patient, and extraordinarily durable process by which the Hausa-speaking world built not only political orders but also moral architectures, shared systems of meaning, obligation, hierarchy, and dignity that survived dynasties, empires, conquest, and colonial transformation alike.

That moral architecture did not originate with Dan Fodio. It was already ancient when the Fodiawa arrived. The old Hausa city-states and the Kanem-Bornu, which Ochonu himself acknowledges as a sophisticated Islamic civilisation predating Sokoto by centuries, had already created the conditions for a complex society organised around recognisable concepts of hierarchy, obligation, and social responsibility. The Fodiawa did not create this order. They found it, deepened it, gave it sharper Islamic articulation, and codified it in law and administrative structures. This is the real achievement of the nineteenth-century jihad, not that it overthrew the existing order, but that it built upon and consolidated what was already there. The Caliphate succeeded because it was, in the deepest sense, continuous with the civilisation it reformed.

At the centre of that civilisation lies a concept absent from every reformist movement Ochonu analyses, whether in the Fodiawa corpus, the MSSN anthems, or a single Boko Haram sermon. It is the concept that the late Anthony H. M. Kirk-Greene famously described in his landmark essay, “Mutumin Kirki: The Concept of Good Person in Hausa.” Mutumin Kirki, The Good Person, is the civilisational ideal at the heart of Hausa moral order.

The Mutumin Kirki ideal captures something no purely theological analysis can adequately convey: that social legitimacy in Hausa society derives not from ideological purity or reformist credentials, but from kirki, the cluster of virtues encompassing mutunci (dignity), kunya (shame as a moral conscience), responsibility, restraint, and recognition of one’s obligations within the social order. The framework placed duties on Sarakuna and Malamai alike, gave meaning to the roles of Attajirai and ordinary farmers, and even extended its logic to those society defined as marginal. Everyone knew where they stood. Everyone knew what was expected. Dignity required discipline. Power required restraint. And knowledge without wisdom was understood to be incomplete, even dangerous.

Colonialism, for all its violence and extractive logic, largely preserved the structure within which this framework operated. Indirect rule in Northern Nigeria worked precisely because the existing institutions already possessed legitimacy. The Emirates, the Alkali courts, and the hierarchies of office were incorporated into, and in some respects reinforced within, the colonial administrative framework. The resulting order was imperfect, as every historical product is. But it remained broadly legible to the moral universe the Kirki framework had constructed over centuries. In this sense, each successive political order, from Kanem-Bornu to the Sokoto Caliphate to colonial administration, can be understood as a successive tenant of the same civilisational operating system, adapting it, straining it, but ultimately operating within its logic.

The Verdict: Why Boko Haram Is Different, Categorically

Against this backdrop, the comparison between Boko Haram and the Dan Fodio jihad does not merely strain; it collapses. The Fodiawa jihad, whatever its human costs, was oriented towards institution-building. It produced a legal system, an administrative hierarchy, an educational network, a scholarly tradition, a literary culture, and a deepened moral framework that placed obligations on rulers and ruled alike. It expanded the universe of the Mutumin Kirki ideal; it did not attack it.

Boko Haram has done the exact opposite, systematically. It has attacked schools, murdered scholars, destroyed markets, abducted children, and reduced entire communities to rubble. It has not built a single institution that a future generation will inherit with gratitude. It has not produced a single scholar whose work will outlast the insurgency. It has not deepened the social hierarchies in which dignity and obligation are mutually reinforcing; it has weaponised those on the margins of society and enslaved those it was supposed to protect. Whatever else this represents, it is a direct assault on the civilisational operating system that both Kanem-Bornu and the Sokoto Caliphate spent centuries constructing.

Ochonu acknowledges this divergence; he explicitly notes that Boko Haram’s positions “directly contradict major aspects of the Fodiawa reformist creed and statecraft.” Yet within his framework, these divergences occupy a subordinate position. Structurally and rhetorically, the main assertion is the connection. And it is that connection, Boko Haram as participant in Northern Nigeria’s reformist DNA, that lingers in the mind and provides precisely the legitimacy Boko Haram’s ideologues have always craved. This is not a small risk. It is the central vulnerability of an otherwise admirable intellectual project.

Those of us who have observed Northern Nigerian politics, society, and intellectual life across decades, including pundits and commentators who know this civilisation not only from the archive but from the inside, find this framing, however sophisticated its execution, essentially uninitiated. It reads like the work of someone who has mastered the grammar of Northern Nigerian Islamic history with enormous care but has not quite absorbed its spirit: the civilisational confidence, the deep institutional memory, and the quiet but unmistakable recognition shared by virtually every segment of Northern Nigerian society not affiliated with Boko Haram that this movement does not belong to the tradition it claims. It is not reform. It is rupture, a specifically anti-civilisational rupture that the region’s history has not witnessed in any comparable form.

A movement may quote the same texts as its predecessors and still negate them. The Dan Fodio movement built what endured. Boko Haram destroys what was built. That distinction is not a footnote to the history of Northern Nigeria. It is the history of Northern Nigeria.

Final Reckoning: The Question History Is Actually Asking

Ochonu’s book asks: Where did Boko Haram come from? It is a vital question, and the book answers it with real skill. But the deeper question, the one the civilisational history of this region most insistently raises, is: What does Boko Haram’s existence reveal about the resilience of the moral architecture it attacks?

The long view of Northern Nigerian history suggests this: the Kirki operating system has survived before. It survived the disorder preceding the Fodiawa jihad. It survived the internal rebellions of the post-jihadi Caliphate period. It survived British conquest and the dismantling of the Sokoto political order. It survived the postcolonial state’s repeated failures to honour the obligations the Caliphate tradition placed on rulers. It did so because it is not merely a political arrangement or a theological position. It is a civilisational inheritance, embedded in culture, language, social practice, and moral imagination, that no single insurgency, however violent, has yet to erase.

Moses Ochonu has given us an important, serious, and deeply researched book. He has expanded our understanding of the landscape in which Boko Haram emerged, and he has done so with intellectual integrity. But genealogy, to repeat, is not pedigree. The real story of Northern Nigeria is not the story of rebellion. It is the story of civilisation, the long, patient construction of a moral society anchored in dignity, responsibility, learning, and character. Measured against that standard, Boko Haram appears not as the culmination of Northern Nigerian history but as its most violent recent attempt at self-erasure.

And on that measure, the verdict of civilisation itself remains, as it has always been, clear: this is not our inheritance. This is our wound.

By Muhammad Abubakar

Anti-Muslim racism is widespread in Germany’s public institutions, with most Muslims reporting discriminatory treatment when dealing with state authorities, according to a recent survey highlighted by anti-racism advocates.

The findings, cited by the alliance against anti-Muslim hatred CLAIM, show that around 80 per cent of Muslims surveyed reported experiencing discrimination in their interactions with public institutions and authorities. The study examined experiences involving government agencies, public services, and other state institutions.

Researchers said the results point to persistent forms of institutional racism that affect Muslims in areas such as employment services, migration offices, law enforcement, and public administration. The study is among the most comprehensive investigations of racism within German federal institutions to date.

The survey comes amid growing concern over anti-Muslim hostility in Germany. A separate civil society report presented by CLAIM this week documented 4,096 anti-Muslim incidents nationwide in 2025, up from 3,080 cases in 2024. The incidents included discrimination, insults, threats, property damage, and violent attacks. Women accounted for nearly two-thirds of recorded cases where gender was identified.

CLAIM and other advocacy groups have called for stronger measures to combat anti-Muslim racism, including improved complaint mechanisms, better monitoring of discrimination, and expanded anti-bias training within public institutions.

Germany is home to more than five million Muslims, making it one of the largest Muslim populations in Europe. Recent studies have warned that discrimination and exclusion continue to pose significant challenges to social cohesion and equal participation in public life.

By Abdussamad Umar Jibia

On May 15, 2026, 39 school children and seven teachers were abducted from three schools in Oyo State. Since then, the incidence has been the major headline in Nigerian traditional and social media.

This is not the first time criminals have stormed a school and abducted school children and teachers. The first known mass abduction of school children in Nigeria occurred in 2014 at Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno state. It was followed by a series of similar abductions in different states of the North. This is the first time such a mass abduction has taken place in Southern Nigeria. Hence, the storm.

One piece of information that has been circulated is that the bandits have demanded the implementation of Shariah in the South West as a condition for the release of the children and their teachers. This is something I have found difficult to believe from my knowledge of bandits and their operations.

First and foremost, we have to distinguish among the different types of criminals who operate in Northern Nigeria. Boko Haram, which originated from the North East and later integrated with ISWAP (Islamic State of West Africa), claims to be fighting for Islam and has religion as part of its agenda, just like similar groups around the globe. Boko Haram/ISWAP mainly operates in the North East.

However, the bandits, as they are popularly called, who originated from the North West and are mainly of Fulani extraction, have nothing to do with religion, do not advocate it, and, in fact, most of them do not pray five times a day like Muslims do and cannot even recite the opening chapter of the Qur’an. This group, sometimes referred to as Fulani herdsmen to avoid ethnic profiling, is the group said to have abducted the Oyo pupils.

The bandits are not a single group. They are different groups, each with its leader, who live in the forest and are believed to have their informants in townships. The informants gather detailed information about their potential victims before striking. This is well known to anyone living in Northern Nigeria.

As a person who hails from the western part of Katsina State, I am one of the earliest victims of banditry. For example, in August 2016, my maternal uncle, who is the Imam of his village, was killed by bandits who shot him 11 times, injured his 10-year-old son and raped two of his daughters. In addition, more than 300 cows were rustled from the village. We reported the matter to the Katsina State Commissioner of Police, but nothing was done. 

Two months later, the government announced amnesty for all the bandits in Katsina State. The suspects were brought to the village with Police escort, and the villagers were told they must forgive them because they were “their brothers”. In all of these, religion was not mentioned. It was never an issue because the bandits were not a religious people.

After the amnesty, banditry continued as usual until 2019, when the Federal Government under Buhari asked all the state Governors to enter into peace agreements with the bandits in their states. The vividly uncomfortable Katsina State Governor held meetings with bandit leaders across the affected local governments of Sabuwa, Dandume, Faskari, Safana, Dan Musa, Kankara, Batsari and Jibia. The meetings took place in the forest under heavy security and before press cameras. The military support in the escort of the Governor was enough to crush all the bandits. Ironically, the Government decided to beg them. Videos of some of the meetings are still available online.

It is noteworthy that all the bandit leaders who attended those meetings were Fulani; they were all Nigerians, and none of them was religious. No one talked about religion, and the only complaint from most of them was that some of their gang members were in police custody and should be released. 

It is also not a Hausa-versus-Fulani affair. Some of the early victims of banditry were Fulani who refused to join banditry and refused to give their support to it. There are still many rural Fulani communities in the North West who are against banditry and do not harbour bandits. 

Now, at what point did banditry begin to be associated with religion? Different possibilities.

The Zionist entity

One of the biggest mistakes made by the General Ibrahim Babangida administration was normalising diplomatic ties with the Zionist occupation called Israel. Zionists are believed to be behind some of the crimes committed in the Northern part of Nigeria. 

The former deputy speaker of the House of Reps, Alhaji Abdullahi Wase, alleged that 300 youths from the Christian majority state of Plateau were given training in Israel and that four containers of arms were brought in by an Israeli security company to a politician’s house in Plateau state.

Alhaji Abdullahi Wase called for an investigation by the government. The investigation was not conducted. It is thus not out of place if Zionists, through some hirelings, introduced religion into the discussion of banditry in order to cause further internal crisis or use their American boys to attack innocent Muslims in Nigeria.

Sheikh Ahmad Gummi

The involvement of Dr Ahmad Gummi with bandits leaves more questions than answers. Gummi is an Islamic scholar who views issues from an Islamic perspective. Did he ever tell the bandits to shift their focus to religion rather than remain common criminals? I have no answer to this question. Only the Government and Sheikh Gummi have.

Elements in the Tinubu administration

A young Islamic scholar, Sheikh Munir Koza, once claimed that he was among the many influential young Islamic scholars invited to a meeting by some defence officials of the Tinubu government not long after the Government took over. With a financial reward, they were asked to emphasise three things in their preaching. 

One. That banditry by Fulani groups is justified because Fulani have been subjected to neglect and injustice over a long period. 

Two. Call on the government to engage in dialogue with bandits and offer them political appointments. 

Three. The Governors of Zamfara and Katsina are wrong to have set up security outfits to confront bandits. 

According to Sheikh Koza, he was the only person who expressed his disagreement at the first meeting and was thus not invited to subsequent meetings.

If Sheikh Koza’s claim is true, it means there are bandits’ sympathisers in the Tinubu Government. One would ask, is Mr President not aware? Did he appoint them because he believes insecurity is a Northern Nigerian affair, and he has thus appointed Northerners to go and eat themselves? Now that it has spread to the South, is he ready to make amendments?

Or, who actually introduced religion into it?

Professor Abdussamad Umar Jibia wrote from the Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Bayero University, Kano. He can be reached via aujibia@gmail.com.

By Khadijat Abdulrasheed

Not every pain is loud. Some are hidden behind smiles, silent prayers, and eyes that have cried when no one was watching.

The book Tears They Never Saw is a deeply emotional and faith-driven story that explores the unseen struggles people endure in silence. It reflects heartbreak, emotional wounds, family trials, and the kind of suffering that the world often ignores but Allah never does.

At the heart of this story is a powerful message: the strength of dua (prayer) and its life-changing power. It shows that even when situations seem impossible and when hope feels lost, sincere prayer can rewrite destinies. Tears that fall in secret are never wasted when they are poured out before Allah.

Through compelling storytelling and relatable characters, this work reveals how faith becomes a lifeline in the darkest moments. It reminds readers that healing, mercy, and change can come in ways that human understanding cannot explain.

Tears They Never Saw is not just a story; it is a reflection of real-life struggles, silent battles, and the unseen strength of those who keep going despite pain. It carries a message of patience, hope, and divine intervention.

This book is for readers interested in a full emotional and spiritual journey that blends reality with faith. Anyone interested in reading the complete work can reach out directly for access.

Because sometimes, the tears no one sees… are the ones Allah answers most.

Khadijat can be reached via abdulrasheedkhadijatkuburah@gmail.com.

By Hadiza Abdulkadir

The Governor of Abba Kabir Yusuf has approved a special Eid-el-Kabir goodwill package of N20,000 for civil servants in the state and across the 44 local government areas.

The gesture, announced in a statement issued on Sunday by the Press Secretary to the Office of the SSG, Musa Tanko Muhammad, is intended to support workers ahead of the Sallah celebration. Beneficiaries include civil servants on Grade Levels 01 to 14 in state ministries and local government councils.

According to the statement, the intervention comes shortly after the payment of May 2026 salaries and reflects the administration’s commitment to workers’ welfare amid current economic challenges. The governor said the package is intended to ease financial pressure during the festive period and enable workers to celebrate with their families in comfort.

Governor Yusuf also reaffirmed his administration’s dedication to improving workers’ welfare and maintaining a productive public service, while extending Eid-el-Kabir greetings to the people of Kano State.