An end and a new beginning
JUST a few minutes past eleven in the morning last Wednesday, I received a telephone call from Nigeria’s Information Minister, Lai Mohammed. He congratulated me and told me that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved my appointment as the Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC).
Of bread, cinema, photos and Ilorin reminiscences
I HAVE spent the weekend in Ilorin, after a week’s visit to Maiduguri. And that included my birthday, September 5th, which meant that, for the umpteenth time, I was away from my family, on the eve of my children’s return to school for the new session. When I tell my friends that I carry the gene of travel as a good Fullo, the fact that I always seem to travel just underlines the issue.
Aliko Dangote: Cementing Africa’s economic development
ON Thursday, August 27, 2015, I joined a long list of Nigerians in Lagos, for the hour-long flight to Douala, Cameroun, a city and country I have not visited in about 21 years. A few days earlier, I had received an invitation from Aliko Dangote to the commissioning ceremony of the $250 million dollar, 1.5 million metric ton cement plant, located at the Base ELF, Douala.
Delightful D’Tigers, African Basketball champions
ON Sunday night this week, in Tunis, Tunisia, Nigeria’s national basketball team, D’Tigers, defeated the Angolan national team, to become African champions for the first time.
Consolidating a steady pace of progress
FORMER President, General Olusegun Obasanjo, was obviously caught up in a moment of effusiveness last weekend, while receiving a delegation of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), at his Abeokuta residence.
Alhaji Zannah Umar Mustapha, 1966-2015
MALAM Ahmed is one of the drivers in the Government House pool in Maiduguri. Whenever I visit the Borno state capital, he was almost always the driver that carried me around. Last Saturday afternoon, just after noon, Ahmed called from Maiduguri to inform me that the Borno state Deputy Governor, Alhaji Zannah Umar Mustapha, had died in Yola, Adamawa state. I was stunned and immediately placed a call to Kashim Shettima, the Borno state governor.
