Columns
ZULUM: Trending about an alleged N2 billion monthly feeding program for Boko Haram fighters in Borno
ZULUM: Trending about an alleged N2 billion monthly feeding program for Boko Haram fighters in Borno
By: James Bwala
The occasion for day of humanitarians and the actions that accompanied the day has passed. But not without the controversy surrounding the comments made by President Muhammadu Buhari during a courtesy call at the residence of the Shehu of Borno, His Eminence, Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Al-Amin Elkanemi, which is currently trending on social media. For those who want to buy into such naughty claims made by troublemakers, it is perfectly acceptable to take home the facades of the fifteen billion naira purportedly already spent on Boko Haram’s surrender and the two billion monthly followers, questions about which they claimed the governor of Borno state, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, might need to respond.
Due to what I know to have actually occurred in terms of the prudential administration of the governor of Borno state in improving the capacity of the people he controlled, I am personally moved by such unimaginable assertions emerging on social media. The systems in place and his dedication to addressing insurgency-related concerns, particularly the meticulous efforts made to ensure the welfare of Boko Haram fighters (Surrendered) who had or presently overrun three camps in the state.
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I don’t need much reminding about the address delivered by His Eminence, The Shehu of Borno. The summary of prayers focused on the resumption of government activities in the Lake Chad region, the construction of the road connecting Maiduguri with the local governments of Dikwa and Marte, oil exploration, and praise for Borno State Governor Professor Babagana Umara Zulum’s humanitarian efforts as well as the support shown to the state’s residents by former Governor and APC Vice Presidential Candidate Senator Kashim Shettima.
ZULUM: Trending about an alleged N2 billion monthly feeding program for Boko Haram fighters in Borno
The governor of Borno state made the decision to publicly acknowledge the President’s support for the earlier-mentioned figure in order to show his gratitude. This illustrates the impassioned display of transparency and the college of leadership style in Zulum. No one might have known or understood the level of support the Buhari administration provided to the Borno state government if he had remained silent.
Due to the quantity of fighters who are witnessing the governor’s worry and effort in restoring Borno state to its former glory, I recently followed the governor’s concern and plan to establish another camp. I had previously written on the governor’s cooperation with the Nigerian military in the northeast over the recent influx of seasoned combatants who are now en route to peace negotiations.
My point is that, even if two billion naira were released each month to support the efforts being made in the northeast, as those fortune tellers want to cry over, one can only imagine the weight of responsibility on the Borno state governor’s shoulders in managing such a massive situation with two billion in light of the current difficulties and economic situation in the nation.
I spoke with colleagues who covered the event and received audio and video clips of the visit in order to find out the truth about what President Muhammadu Buhari said or did not say regarding the support from the federal government. In his persona, the President avoided mentioning any figures; instead, the governor was speaking about the approval by Mr. President of the government’s budget for dealing with the issues in Borno and the Boko Haram fighters who are being housed in camps.
ZULUM: Trending about an alleged N2 billion monthly feeding program for Boko Haram fighters in Borno
I also discussed the trend with Senator Kashim Shettima’s former political advisor. Alhaji Yusuf Adamu shared his thoughts following a personal encounter he had as the chairman of the local government of Biu. He claims that because of what he reads in the newspapers, a closer relative once approached him about subvention concerns.
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He emphasized that people frequently failed to reconcile realities from theory, whether out of malice or ignorance of the specifics of government operations. He claimed that by the time he requested his relative to deduct the wages of local government employees from the amount he saw on paper, his so-called kinsman was left snoring out his earlier assertions based on the images he brought.
Adamu continued by saying that since it is election season, the opposition may not be aware that the governor of Borno state, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, attempts to restore the glory of the state that has been lost over the years due to terrible situations. He asserted that their arguments might be supported by the fact that the governor has accomplished a great deal, and that the only way to surpass those accomplishments is to cause trouble.
Although I agree with his beliefs, I can’t say if that’s how they think and feel when they make such outrageous assertions, I want to assume that this time they haven’t brought anything up for discussion. Instead, they have held their tongues while attempting to sell a bad egg on a well-known street. The reason for their claims is ineffective since they were unable to substantiate the allegations, and the presidency has backed up this claim by pointing out that Mr. President did not cite any numbers to support his statements regarding the support given to Borno state thus far.
ZULUM: Trending about an alleged N2 billion monthly feeding program for Boko Haram fighters in Borno
Columns
University Courses: Marketable and Non-Marketable Courses—How True?
University Courses: Marketable and Non-Marketable Courses—How True?
By: Balami Lazarus
Let me make it clear hereinafter that I am not against any academic course or the role of guidance and counseling for good career choice, provided that our young men and women will be guided properly. Not long ago, I visited a friend who teaches at one of the universities. It was interesting to be with him, having spent years without seeing each other.
My friend and I took time out and had a long discussion on national issues concerning our country in an attempt to proffer verbal solutions that will only end and stop as mere talks, which most Nigerians are good at doing, including this writer.
In furtherance to our discussion, I was very particular about education and how to improve the sector in terms of standards, academic excellence, and skills. I also raised the issue of corruption in the system. In the process I immediately recalled what some parents and guardians are peddling around saying: “There are marketable and non-marketable courses in our universities.
“For me, I know that for hundreds of years, universities are known to be great centers of teaching, learning,learning and research, contributing to arts, science, and technology for the purpose of national development. My friend was quick to add that “the academic corruption is perpetrated by some lecturers and students, monetarily and sexually.”
Having discussed the corruption bug. I asked the university Don if there are any courses as marketable and non-marketable courses in our universities. This one question gave the Don a good laugh. He looked at me and said, “I have spent years as a teacher in the university academic department. I have never heard of any course(s) known as marketable and non-marketable academic disciplines or any faculty/department that run such courses.
As young secondary school students aspiring to go to the university to study courses of our choices where our interest lies and looking forward to becoming either political scientists, engineers, lawyers, historians, or doctors, and so on. In this regard, we had never heard or been told by our teachers or parents that there are marketable and non-marketable academic courses. Therefore, we should study the marketable courses.
The question I always asked myself was, where are these courses? What we have in our universities are courses leading to different human endeavors. Whatever one decided to call these courses, what is obtainable today is the need to have to add skills to your academic training; employers of labor are today skills-oriented for those who are hoping to be employed.
Balami, a Publisher/Columnist, 08036779290
University Courses: Marketable and Non-Marketable Courses—How True?
Columns
With Fury of a Tempest, Alau Dam Flood
With Fury of a Tempest, Alau Dam Flood
By: Balami Lazarus
Who wants to be a millionaire? a television quiz program anchored by one Frank Idoho, which I hardly missed. I recalled a question once asked: Where is Lake Alau? In the options, there was Borno state among other states. The young man on the hot seat gave a wrong answer. I believe because Lake Alau was then not popular, unlike its cousin, Lake Chad.
Not much is known about the Lake, Alau, and the dam known and called Lake Alau Dam put together. Let me first start with the lake as a natural geographical feature, a large body of water surrounded by land. However, and to the best of my findings, there is no available written document on the history of this lake in question. But it held that the Lake was there many years traceable to the period of the Kanem- Borno Empire. While the present Alau was a small settlement that emerged during the formative years of Shehu’s dynasty from 1846 to the present day. It later grew into a village with people of Kanuri extraction.
Alau is today part of the Konduga Local Government Area of Borno state, some few kilometers away from Maiduguri city center. For the purpose of providing portable drinking water and to improve agriculture through irrigation farming and fishing, a dam was constructed by the past administration of the state from 1984 to 1986. The project was tagged as Water for Borno. Thereby, Lake Alau Dam has become part of the people’s lives, for its importance cannot be quantified.
The recent Alau Dam flood that nearly swept away the city of Maiduguri came with a raging fury of a tempest in September 2024 I will liken to one of the works of William Shakespeare—”The Tempest.”TheTempest”. That of the play was simply and deliberately raised to humble palace traitor Antonio and his co-conspirators, who ousted Duke Prospero, whom they marooned on a deserted island, leaving him to his fate. But ours came with devastating destruction and killing with ravaging effect from head to tail, which has caused unestimated damage.
The flood was not because of the heavy rainfall experienced last season but from the overflow of the dam and subsequent breakoff of its decks. My last visit to Lake Alau Dam with some friends was years back. What was observed and saw were obsolete facilities that were outdated, old, and weakly decked. There was nothing to show that the dam is being cared for. But while growing up in Zaria as kids, we were so used to seeing Kubani and the University (ABU) dams being opened up to let out large quantities of water to avoid overflow and flooding. Has Alau Dam ever experienced that? Has it been dredged?
Therefore, the 13-man committee led by Mr. Liman Gana Mustapha, a professional town planner, may wish to consider these questions as an inroad to finding a lasting solution to the flood matter.
Balami, a Publisher/Columnist. 08036779290
With Fury of a Tempest, Alau Dam Flood
Columns
The Rise and Fall of Garkida, a Social Decline
The Rise and Fall of Garkida, a Social Decline
By: Balami Lazarus
In my recent visit to see my aged mother in Shaffa, a small rural town. In a chat with some of my peers, Garkida came up, and one of us immediately informed the group that the town is socially dredged. I made some findings, and you may wish to agree. I believed students of history my generation were once taught about the rise and fall of great empires, kingdoms, rulers, warriors, and other historical events during our secondary school days. In the cause of those lessons, our imaginations were always taken far to other lands.
We never thought that someday there would be a fall or decline of our own, which could be a town, village, or settlement, but never like the fall of the known historical empires/kingdoms of Oyo, Jukun, Fante/Ashante, Kanem-Borno, Songhai, etc. To rise is a difficult task in life or in the course of growth, be it individual, town, or city. But to fall is easy. Garkida has rose and fallen, or, to say, declined socially. Once a bubbling rural town in Buraland, being in Gombi Local Government Area of Adamawa State has nose-dived from the social ladder.
As a historian, I will not subscribe to the use of the term fall; it will defile my histo-journalistic sense of reasoning because Garkida is a proper noun and is there real. So it will rather go well with me and perhaps some readers of this essay to accept Declined as a better use of historical language for the purpose of this work. I am not a native of Garkida and have never lived there, but it was the home of my cousins and nieces long before now.
As a young man, I had it well with friends when the town was in her social chemistry and apogee. In spite of her decline, the arrears in our kitty, notwithstanding the flow of time, are the mutual friendship, an indelible mark in our social life. I remember clearly as a holiday-maker with my grandmother at Shaffa, Garkida was the in-thing in our youthful days because of the mass social activities that used to take place there.
There were social interactions with friends and relatives from different places, parties of all kinds—a social front burner. And to most of my peers, it was the center of today’s mobile social handle—Facebook, where you meet and make new friends. That was Garkida for us. As a rural town, it flourished with glamour, elegance, and pride, triggered by the social engineering of Who is Who? The creme de la creme of her sons and daughters who made nane in their vocations or professions that promoted and spread the name of Garkida as social lighthouse.
It was the abode of top military brass in the ranks of generals. Her businessmen once made the town tick as a cluster of has. It was the nerve of vogue and socialites in Buraland. There was declined in this capacity. Historically, Garkida came to the limelight and appeared on the colonial map of Nigeria in 1923, when the white Christian missionaries of CBN/EYN first settled there and made it their home on the 17th March of the aforementioned year. The beginning of her social mobility started in the 1970s, through the 1980s, to the dawn of the 1990s, her zenith.
I doff my hat for the united daughters of Garkida; credit goes to them; their exposures, taste, beauty, love, elegance, sophistication, unity of purpose, and social agrandisement made them wives of husbands of men from far and near who are of different walks of life. The women of Garkida were a central force, once the venus de milo of the town before its social decline. I cannot conclude this article without appreciating the fact that Garkida was the center of learning and vocational training and once the hold of good and efficient healthcare services in Buraland and its neighbors. Today, Garkida is no longer in the vantage position.
Balami, a Publisher/Columnist, 08036779290.
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