Category: Features

Nigeria: Massive destruction, deaths from military raid

Satellite images, witness accounts raise concerns of cover-up Satellite images reveal massive destruction of civilian property from a military raid on April 16 and 17, 2013, in the northern Nigerian town of Baga, undermining the military’s claim that only 30 houses were destroyed, Human Rights Watch said today. The Nigerian government should thoroughly and impartially [...]

Achebe: A non-romantic view

brahim Bello-Kano punches claims of Achebe’s superiority in African Literature, arguing that the author of Things Fall Apart, who died in the U.S. last Thursday, was an ethnic nationalist, Biafran apologist, anti-colonial writer, and a post-colonial apologist of British rule. “in our romantic rush to venerate” Achebe, we should not forget his unconcious prejudices, he [...]

Lessons from the life and times of Sheikh Nasiru Kabara (III)

Continued from yesterday 6) This was accomplished partly by extending Qadiriyya from an elite base to a mass base. In this process, the support of wealthy Hausa merchants was essential. On the mass level, Reformed Qadiriyya was also a reduction of emerging Kano nationalism which demanded that religious authority be shifted from Sokoto and North [...]

Lessons from the life and times of Sheikh Nasiru Kabara (II)

Continued from yesterday Sheikh Nasiru Kabara did not travel outside Kano and continued his position as legal adviser under emirs Abbas, Usman and Abdullahi Bayero. He was also the personal malam of Emir Usman. Ibrahim did not write books, although he did possess his own written commentaries on the Mukhtasar.  His home in Kabara ward [...]

Late Sheikh (Dr.) Muhammad Nasiru Kabara in his ceremonial regalia during the Annual Maukibi (Waliyyai) celebration at Filin Waliyyai, Kano, in 1996. It was his last outing for the occasion.

Lessons from the life and times of Sheikh Nasiru Kabara (I)

Sheikh Nasir Muhammad Umar Kabara, a noted Islamic scholar and philosopher, was born in 1912 in Guringawa village, outside Kano. His grandparents came from Kabara, a town under Timbuktu kingdom. His third generation grandfather – also from Kabara in Timbuktu -  Malam Umaru, also known as Malam Kabara – was the only one from the [...]

Governor Yakowa visits a bomb blast victim at a hospital in Kaduna

Yakowa Na Kowa: Governor for all

Governor Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa of Kaduna state, who died on Saturday, tried to balance the contending forces of politics, tribe and religion in a complex socio-political milieu with great dexterity. IBRAHEEM MUSA narrates how he did it In politics, his promise was a tall order but Sir Patrick Yakowa, as governor of Kaduna state, tried [...]

Oil bock: New bid procedure may cost Nigeria $48bn investments

A bid procedure adopted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) may cost the nation investments in the oil and gas sector about $48 billion, Bloomberg reports has said. The report said the process had disregarded due and standard procedures in conducting bids for assets development in the industry. “It was learnt that NNPC ignored [...]

From right:  Dy Comdt AFCSC, rear Admiral Duke Osuofa, former  Comdt AFCSC, AVM AT Mu’azu, former Comd Infantry Corps, Maj Gen MD Isah, and other senior officers in Jaji

Fallen, not forgotten

Recently, the Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC), Jaji, unveiled a cenotaph in honour of 166 military officers who died on the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) C-130 plane that crashed at Ejigbo, Lagos, 20 years ago. Jibrin Baba Ndace took a tour to Jaji, from where the officers departed for Lagos, and to the [...]

Governor Shettima a presenting educational materials

Gov Shettima’s untiring quest for education in Borno

It is universally accepted that only education can help eradicate illiteracy, reduce poverty and bring about sure development in any given society. That is why the Borno state government is presently bending over backwards just to make education attractive and appreciable to its teeming youth. Proposing an egg-based meal for each and every population of [...]

Abandoned steel smelting shop of ASCO

AJAOKUTA: Still standing, but standing still

No industry in Nigeria has received as much attention as the Ajaokuta Steel Company (ASCO), yet it has remained moribond as a result of various governments’ lip services to it. The question making the round is that if given another opportunity, will the Ukranian company, (which originally designed and began the construction of ASCO interventions), [...]