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June 12: Our New Democracy Day

Today is June 12, a date stamped in the memory of Nigeria’s democratic journey, not just as a calendar memorial, but as a symbol of what proponents of the day see as a day of deferred justice and recurring betrayal. I still recall my fierce argument in 1993, as a young student in Bauchi, with a close friend, an ardent supporter of Bashir Tofa and the National Republican Convention (NRC). I was aligned with the Social Democratic Party (SDP), drawn to the progressive promise of the leadership of the party and MKO Abiola, who we felt represented the ideals of the party. I was too young to vote, but I was politically conscious. We saw it not just as a matter of political affiliation, but a generational choice between the suffocating status quo and the faint stirrings of national rebirth. After Abiola’s victory, my friend told me bluntly “They won’t hand power to him.” I asked why. He had no logical answer, only a quiet certainty rooted in Nigeria’s political DNA. He was right. The June 12 ...
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Professor Abubakar Roko and Nigeria’s Broken Promises

In 2017, some self-appointed prophets of the Nigerian economy the #AljanunKasuwa as we call them, declared or was it a prediction [?], that private universities would dominate higher education by 2022. They were wrong — not because public universities thrived, but because they collapsed differently. Their collapse was not from market competition, but under the crushing weight of elite indifference, broken leadership, and a state that no longer invests in its people. Today, the Nigerian public university is not just underfunded, but a symbolic of a much deeper national failure. The collapse of the social protection scheme if at all it existed. To be a worker in Nigeria is to live without guarantees. There is no reliable health insurance. Salaries come late — if at all they come, they last only a day and cannot cater for family needs. Pensions are a cruel joke. To teach, nurse, be a journalist, or even serve as a civil servant is to walk a tightrope between duty and destitution. We are ...
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ASUU, NELFUND Heist and the Post-truth Era

  In 2022, during one of the longest industrial actions in Nigeria’s university history, many of us wrote tirelessly—articles, essays, and public commentary—not to defend the strikes, but to make it clear to all who cared to listen that, without sustainable public funding and institutional autonomy, Nigeria’s university system would crumble under the weight of state neglect and policy sabotage. At the time, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) took a stand, calling out the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) as a tool not just of centralised inefficiency but of systemic fraud. ASUU warned that NELFUND—the student loan scheme—would become another bureaucratic pipeline for elite looting, cloaked in the language of reform, more precisely, “yaren #AljanunKasuwa .” Rather than evaluating these claims on their merit, many Nigerians—conditioned by years of anti-intellectual sentiment and post-truth narratives promoted by selfish individuals—opted for rid...
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Dismissing the Social Sciences: How not to talk as Education Minister

  In a nation struggling with structural dysfunctions, policy somersaults, and deepening social fractures - insecurity, armed banditry, Boko Haram, phone snatchers and what have you , it is disheartening—though no longer surprising—that many Nigerian leaders have developed a casual contempt for the social sciences. They are fond of dismissing disciplines like sociology, political science, anthropology, and philosophy as intellectually ornamental or developmentally irrelevant. On Wednesday last week, the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, was quoted by the Independent Nigeria Newspaper that the country is already "saturated" with graduates who studied social science related courses. This mindset is not only anti-intellectual; it is anti-progress. This disdain, often paraded in public discourse, reveals more than ignorance—it exposes a dangerous misreading of what development truly entails. Though I am not surprised, because this is not the first time. Obasanjo as Nigeria...
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"Bokonnan duk Shirme ne": A Dangerous Narrative That Risks the Future of Northern Youths

  In recent years, a dangerous narrative has crept into public discourse: that acquiring “skills” is more important than earning a degree. On the surface, it sounds practical. But peel back the layers, and it reveals a deeper, more systemic threat—one that risks derailing the aspirations of millions of young Nigerians, especially those from Northern Nigeria who already face significant barriers to education. Recently, a video surfaced on social media showing the Governor of Bauchi State, Alhaji Bala Mohammed, Ƙauran Bauchi dismissing Boko as "Shirme". I am not sure of the context, but as a governor and one of the leading voices in north east, I was disturbed watching the video. Let us be clear: the problem in Northern Nigeria is not a surplus of educated youth or university graduates—it is the very absence of access to quality education in the first place. Insecurity, poverty, child labour, early marriage, and fragile public institutions are the real culprits keeping children...
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2027 and the Battle for Gombe Government House: Between Political Loyalty, Historical Loyalty, Zoning, and Competence.

  As Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya’s tenure winds toward its constitutional limit in 2027, the political temperature in Gombe State is gradually heating up. The race for who succeeds him is already being shaped by underground movements, historical grievances, and the quiet calculations of entrenched interests. For keen observers of Gombe politics, this is not surprising. The state has always been a paradox—calm on the surface, combustible beneath. I ignored political associations whether PDP, APC or SDP knowing fully that for a Nigerian politician, that does not matter. Since 1999, Gombe’s political landscape has been defined by two parallel forces: deep-rooted intolerance for dissent and intense loyalty to political godfathers. These are not exclusive to any single party. Under the late Governor Abubakar Hashidu, there was a little space for opposition, albeit without access to state-owned media. Then came the ascendancy of Alhaji Danjuma Goje, who turned the state into a nation...
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When the system hates knowledge

  Yesterday, I shared ASUU’s latest directive to its members that university lecturers should boycott classes if their salaries are delayed beyond three days into a new month. Predictably, a chorus of online cynics responded with mockery and disdain. Many dismissed the union as obsolete, some hurled insults at professors, and others ridiculed the decision entirely. But none of this surprised me. This society has long ceased to respect its knowledge workers. Our contempt for education is no longer hidden—it is becoming a state policy. What jolts the conscience, however, is not the ridicule, but what we choose to normalize. Just days ago, my professional colleague Ismail Auwal posted that a Professor, a man who has spent his life in classrooms, lecture halls, and libraries—went viral. Not for publishing breakthrough research. Not for mentoring future leaders. But for selling kayan miya (soup ingredients) at a roadside stall, simply to survive. Before we could recover from that shock...
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