Columns
UNMASKING PROF. DILLI DOGO, NEW VC OF NILE UNIVERSITY.

UNMASKING PROF. DILLI DOGO, NEW VC OF NILE UNIVERSITY.
By: Inuwa Bwala
He is a man with a tall CV; as tall as his person and as tall as his name implies. Time and space may not permit a full rundown on the story of Professor Dilli Dogo, who many might have heard about but never crossed his path.
It may no longer be news that Professor Dilli Dogo has been appointed the Vice Chancellor of NILE University, Africa’s foremost Private University: south of the Sahara.
It is not in doubt either that it is deserving, just as it is not surprising.Owners of NILE University seem to know their onions so well, and went for the proverbial rejected stone to be their own cornerstone.
It may seem to have taken a long time to come, but I suppose it is better late than never. This truism is reflected in my brief chat with Professor Dilli Dogo, when I called to congratulate him and to tell him that his appointment is long overdue, and he told me; it is God’s time and it is the best.
Professor Dilli Dogo could pass by and everybody will think he is just another man, because of his humility and frugal nature, but everytime I see him, I picture a great scholar and surgeon, who left his mark at every scene.

He traversed the scholarly and medical space with candour and everywhere he worked, he left behind a nostalgic yearning amongst people who crossed his path in one way or the other.
His landmarks in the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital remain indelible and the open yearnings for Dogo’s presence could be seen and felt.
Although a mite older than me, which denies me the privilege of witnessing him play in the sand with his peers, those who grew up with him told me that Dilli Dogo exhibited traits of excellence since his youthful days, as he was never pushed to the second position in class from his primary school days.
He came out as the best graduating student from the GSS Maiduguri, with a distinction in all subjects and so, when he graduated with another distinction in Medicine from the University of Maiduguri, those who knew him felt it was a confirmation of his dodged approach to scholarship.
Professor Dogo took up appointment with the University of Maiduguri immediately after his graduation, and his rapid but meritorical rise to the rank of a Professor of surgery: one of the most delicate areas of medical practice was further testimony to his intellectual endowment.
A summary of his academic and professional attainments indicate that Professor Dogo graduated with a distinction in Bachelor of Medicine/ Bachelor of Surgery, MBBS in 1984.
By 1991 he was already a Fellow of the Medical College of Surgeons, FMCS, and in 1992 Dogo had gone International when he was made Fellow of the West African College of Surgeons, FWACS. He was awarded Fellow of the International College of Surgeons
FICS in 1996 and Fellow of the International Society of Surgeons FISS by 1998.
Apparently conscious that growth in academics and medical practice is based on studies and research, Professor Dogo strived to add to his general Surgery qualification, in 2008 when he sat and obtained a Diploma in Laparoscopic Surgery: a rare field of study even amongst Medical Doctors and later capped it with a certificate in Endoscopic Urology in 2011.
Dogo had earlier sat other examinations and passed in flying colours, leading to yet another recognition in 2018 with the American College of Surgeons conferring on him the Fellow of the College.
Many people were already thinking Professor Dogo was a potential material for the Vice Chancellorship of the University of Maiduguri where he taught and practiced. He held diverse positions at the sub Saharan Center of Excellence and beyond, which prepared him for even greater tasks.
Professor Dilli Dogo held the position of member Governing Board of Management of the University of Maiduguri since 2018 to date.
Also Read: NPC trains over 200 personnel on updating EAD in Zamfara
He was Provost College of Medical Sciences of the University and Chairman National Association of Colleges of Medicine, NACOM, now APCOM.
Professor Dogo also served as Chairman and member of Council, Faculty of Surgery, National Medical Postgraduate College of Nigeria, in 2015, where he presided over the day to day running of the faculty.
It is also on record that, while performing his academic and professional duties, Professor Dilli Dogo has been serving as honorary Special Adviser to the Borno State Governor on Health.
I stand to challenge anybody who can match Professor Dogo’s service to the Marama Community. I recall being his foot soldier in rendering some of the services to our community, which includes lobbying to have projects executed in Marama to wit roads, water, hospital and school. He organized the first ever merit award to deserving sons and daughters, without prejudice and he brought onboard willing indigenes to unite in community services.
Every year, Professor Dogo doles out food, money and clothing to widows, the aged and the weak and sick.
Today, he is a patron of the Marama Community Development Association, a position he uses to rally support for community based projects and for the staging of the annual Bura Culture Day celebrations.
A Professor of Surgery, and academics, a humble intellectual, go-getter, Knight of the Catholic Church, a socio-political mobilizer, and leader par excellence, Professor Dilli Dogo is today the Vice Chancellor of NILE University.
UNMASKING PROF. DILLI DOGO, NEW VC OF NILE UNIVERSITY.
Columns
In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)

In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)
By: Balami Lazarus
In the quite beautiful town of Zhimbutu, where men held sway, lording over their wives, some with brutality, few with love,
care and romance others in different ways. While some women are also lords over their husbands with impunity. Fear of getting married gripped young ladies seeing the ways their mothers were being treated and relegated to the background in the affairs of their homes as married women.
The home of Mr. and Mrs. Kwanchinkwalo Xhosa is full of regrets, anger, and bitterness, where Mrs. Xhosa has been treated as an object in the marriage partnership. The red spots were obviously fermented with bubbles ready for brewing.
Similarly, some good number of marriage homes are full of regrets where love, peace, and understanding
and harmony are strangers rejected and kept in a labyrinth of doom where one of the parties is placed in a perpetual tan of unhappiness surrounded by fear in the thickness of smoke, a forced resident.
Long before, now as a young man, a legitimate product of marriage. I took marriage as a mere secular social contract of partnership bounded in love and understanding where two have agreed to live together as husband and wife in matrimony.
However, I have never taken marriage to be a do-or-die affair, which has been the stock of some persons, even when and if the two—husband and wife—can no longer live together, having exhausted reasonable avenues to no avail. Here I am.
for outright divorce as a panacea for the final dissolution of the marriage.
To this day, I have been asking myself, why did I even get married in the first place? For sex, procreation, companionship, norms, tradition, or obligation? While marriage to a larger extent has deprived me and many others of some air of freedom and liberties to do or not to do at any space of time, I suppose. Moreover, the enterprise called marriage has taken away the ‘who’ in many men and
women and made them something else. It has further forcefully taken the lives of many spouses who ignored the red flags and fear of divorce. And besides, many have taken upon themselves to live or die in an unhappy/venomous venture of marriage that is infested with ‘dysentery’ and ‘cholera,’ where death is lurking because husbands or wives lack the guts, will , ability, and/or capacity to invoke the dead-end solution.
Let me now punctuate the work with some questions: Were you forced into it? Was it under duress? Was it at gunpoint? I believed the answers were all no. What will then prevent an individual from liquidating his unprofitable marital interest in such an intense business called marriage to be free from wahala that may likely result in crime?
In such a situation, I advocate for divorce as the only and final panacea, which has a comfortable place as a clause in my dictionary of marriage. Divorce is rarely used in some quarters, no matter what. While my wife and I have sincerely agreed in the course of our marriage journey that at any point in time, with or without any reason/cause, either party can quietly and peacefully walk out of the marriage to avoid who knows what?
In the history of failed marriages and crime findings, it has been shown that one of the parties is forcing his/herself on the other spouse because one of them has a profound and compounded emotional or spiritual attachment to the marriage. The case of the late Mrs. Osinachi Nwachukwu (2023), the gospel singer, was a classical example. Patience and excessive spiritual attachment led to her being killed by her husband, one Mr. Nwachukwu. The same is also applicable to men who fall victim in the hands of their wives. This situation has created two prime suspected killers living in a marriage cocoon.
Balami, a publisher/columnist. 08036779290
In Marriage Nest, Spouses Are Dying, Ignoring Red Flags, and The Panacea (1)
Columns
Birthday Celebrations: Ageless Plus One They Puke

Birthday Celebrations: Ageless Plus One They Puke
By: Balami Lazarus
As I write this piece, I was caught between the beautiful literary works of two great African poets and not knowing who to quote because they say the same thing poetically in different ways, going by their subject matter. As the writing progresses, I will definitely make reference to one of them to qualify this discourse.
The “Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead” I read recently has explicitly expressed our individual differences exhibited by man in lifestyles and even in death. The book written in spell said that even in death, individuals are different.
I hereby believe that some persons are battling with parents, relatives, friends, and acquaintances who are trying to impose their ways of life and styles on them, refusing to accept the fact that likes and dislikes make us different as humans. When I got to understand myself as an individual adult who has a mind of his own, making me positively different, that was the beginning of my journey to self-freedom as an individual.
As humans, we are physically the same, but we easily forget that you and I are entirely different. I have always tried to single myself out from the crowd to make a difference in terms of things that are personal and not against the law. With this in mind, I have developed a very strong, self-independent mindset, which has made me principled, and I don’t play to the gallery. That has also made me stand out like an inselberg mountain. However, for the purpose of family, collective responsibilities, and public interest, I must stoop with love and understanding for the sake of progress, growth, and development.
Therefore, my dislike for birthday celebrations makes me different from you or anyone out there. Moreover, it is of no value to me as I live. With this, I recalled when a young school pupil was asked at a children’s program, Would you like to be like Aliko Dangote ?
He answered and said, “No, we are different.” For me, that was a brilliant answer, for it entails so many things.
I have long disciplined and have control of my mind, body, and soul to outgrow so many things that are not necessary or important for me to either have , do, or use. This has helped me to brush aside and ignore so many things. Perhaps for the purpose of association or friendship, I might like or admire some things about the individual concerned, but the fact remains I will not and shall never be you nor do as you do because even in death—funeral/burial—we are different.
Most birthdays are celebrated empty of how old the celebrants are because they are ageless. What is the rationale behind this?. Does it make sense? . My father, of blessed memory, was good at record keeping. He taught us, as his children, to be mindful of important dates and years for future use and documentation. He further reminded us that “your birthday has been properly celebrated during your naming ceremony. Why another birthday celebratio”n?
I have seen where some people took birthday celebrations as if they were a personal achievement, and some even took offense when you did not identify with them by either phone calls , text messages, or other social media handles. Shamelessly, few among these individuals confront you with the anger of a black mamba showing all over them as if it were an obligation to celebrate with them on this self-meaningless and childish glee, which I see as generational encroachment because as a mature adult, you no longer need such celebration. This is my opinion.
I will not conclude this article without telling readers that I do attend ceremonies like Thanksgiving, graduations, award presentations, marriages, namings, and funerals, among other important events, but not birthday celebrations; that is always Plus (+) One, year in and year out. What is a burlesque? And this brings me to where I will have to quote one of the two African poets, Wole Soyinka and John Pepper Clark (Abikus). Suffice to say, Plus (+) One is like the Abiku in Wole Soyinka’s poem “I am Abiku calling for the first… repeated time , ageless though our puke.” This is the way of many birthday celebrants .
Finally, I smell the spoor of some readers saying in their minds that this writer is out of date , a bushman, socially bankrupt, and does not belong. I guess I am right . Well, in recollection, calmness, and stillness, I stand to say we are different.
Balami, a publisher/columnist 08036779290.
Birthday Celebrations: Ageless Plus One They Puke
Columns
RE: SDP ‘now Nigeria’s new bride’?

RE: SDP ‘now Nigeria’s new bride’?
By: Dr. James Bwala
This caption drew my attention as I woke up this morning. “SDP is now Nigeria’s ‘new bride’; we’re ready to unseat Tinubu in 2027.” Mr. Dogara, an official, described the SDP as “the new bride of Nigeria,” claiming the party’s membership is growing rapidly across the country. “I was supposed to be surprised, but I laughed so hilariously knowing the political landscape we are operating in and how some people can turn in their dreams and hold on to a belief that they are still kings as they were in that dreamland.
The metaphor of a “new bride” in political discourse often symbolizes freshness, hope, and transformative potential within a political landscape. In Nigeria, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) emerged as one such entity purported to represent renewal and progressive change. However, despite this symbolic promise, the SDP lacks substantive impact in Nigeria’s complex political environment. The party’s existence does not translate into genuine institutional reform or meaningful democratic consolidation. Instead, Nigerian politics remains marred by entrenched issues such as corruption, ethnic divisions, and electoral malpractice that hinder any new political actor from effecting substantial change.
Moreover, the SDP’s inability to distinguish itself from established parties suggests that it fails to embody the qualities associated with a “new bride.” Rather than offering innovative policies or an alternative governance model, it appears as another participant in Nigeria’s cyclical political stagnation. Consequently, while multiple avenues exist to identify a “new bride” politically—such as ideological novelty or reformist zeal—the SDP conspicuously lacks these attributes in contemporary Nigerian politics.
Despite its initial allure, the SDP’s platform lacks the ideological clarity and policy depth necessary to challenge Nigeria’s entrenched political norms. In essence, the SDP’s failure to articulate a distinct political vision or leverage grassroots support further underscores its inadequacy as an agent of change within Nigeria’s entrenched political system. Furthermore, the SDP’s lack of strategic alliances and failure to galvanize a broad-based coalition further diminishes its potential as a transformative political force in Nigeria.
The party’s lack of a coherent strategy to address Nigeria’s pressing socio-economic challenges further exacerbates its inability to resonate with the electorate and establish itself as a credible alternative. Without a compelling narrative or a robust grassroots engagement strategy, the SDP remains ill-equipped to navigate and influence the complex political terrain of Nigeria, leaving them in stark contrast to what one might expect from a truly revitalizing political entity.
The SDP’s inability to distinguish itself from the existing political framework further limits its capacity to attract voters seeking genuine change. Moreover, the absence of a clear and compelling policy agenda not only hinders the SDP’s ability to differentiate itself from established parties but also limits its appeal to a populace yearning for substantive political reform. Without a clear vision or innovative approach, the SDP’s efforts to engage with Nigeria’s diverse electorate remain superficial and largely ineffective.
READ ALSO: https://newsng.ng/the-plight-of-farida/
The party’s failure to articulate a clear stance on key national issues, such as corruption and electoral reform, further alienates it from voters who are desperate for meaningful progress and accountability in governance. The SDP’s struggle to resonate with the electorate is exacerbated by its lack of charismatic leadership.
Compounding this issue is the party’s inability to effectively leverage grassroots movements or build a robust network of support at the community level. Moreover, the party’s outdated strategies and lack of engagement with Nigeria’s youthful population further diminish its appeal as a viable alternative to the entrenched political entities. This is further compounded by the SDP’s failure to articulate a clear and compelling vision that distinguishes it from established parties, leaving it adrift in a sea of political sameness.
SDP’s inability to leverage its historical significance and past achievements has rendered it almost invisible in a rapidly evolving political environment. Lacking the dynamic qualities and fresh perspectives typically associated with a ‘new bride,’ the SDP struggles to captivate the electorate’s imagination or promise substantial change in Nigeria’s political discourse. In a political landscape where the electorate is increasingly seeking genuine transformation and innovative solutions, the SDP’s inability to adapt and present a forward-thinking agenda leaves it struggling to remain relevant.
Without a strategic overhaul and a willingness to embrace innovation, the SDP risks fading into irrelevance as voters gravitate towards parties that offer tangible solutions and visionary leadership. The SDP’s inability to resonate with the aspirations of a diverse and dynamic electorate underscores its struggle to remain pertinent in Nigeria’s competitive political arena.
Despite these challenges, the SDP continues to participate in elections, albeit with diminishing influence and limited success. Such circumstances underscore the necessity for the SDP to undergo a transformative renewal, one that prioritizes innovative policies and embraces the dynamic energy of Nigeria’s younger generation. Engaging with the youth through meaningful dialogue and showcasing a commitment to addressing their concerns could potentially revitalize the party’s image and reconnect it with a demographic that is pivotal for electoral success.
By fostering an environment that encourages the participation of emerging leaders and by aligning its policies with the progressive aspirations of the populace, the SDP could potentially redefine its role in Nigeria’s political future. By doing so, the SDP may not only rejuvenate its appeal but also position itself as a credible alternative capable of driving meaningful change in Nigeria’s evolving political landscape. For now, contrary to its claims and dreams of unseating President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027, according to Abubakar Dogara, the party’s national vice chairman for the North-Central Zone, the party needs to look inward and look at the vast grounds they are dreaming of breaking to make an impact in 2027.
*James Bwala, PhD, writes from Abuja.
RE: SDP ‘now Nigeria’s new bride’?
-
News1 year ago
Roger Federer’s Shock as DNA Results Reveal Myla and Charlene Are Not His Biological Children
-
Opinions3 years ago
THE PLIGHT OF FARIDA
-
Opinions3 years ago
POLICE CHARGE ROOMS, A MINTING PRESS
-
News1 year ago
EYN: Rev. Billi, Distortion of History, and The Living Tamarind Tree
-
Columns1 year ago
Army University Biu: There is certain interest, but certainly not from Borno.
-
ACADEMICS1 year ago
A History of Biu” (2015) and The Lingering Bura-Pabir Question (1)
-
Opinions1 year ago
Tinubu,Shettima: The epidemic of economic, insecurity in Nigeria
-
Politics10 months ago
Kashim Shettima: Of Sentiments, Their Opinions, and the 21 billion Naira VP’s Official Resident