My wife came home with a story that struck a deep chord in me. She had visited her younger brother, her family’s lastborn and my little brother-in-law, to tell him his UTME result. He scored 214, a respectable mark considering the wave of mass failure reported in the news. She greeted him with a warm smile and words of encouragement: “Abba, you did well! You made us proud.” But instead of relief or pride, what she got in return was a burst of frustration. By Bagudu Mohammed “You people never believed I was reading,” Abba snapped, visibly agitated. “You wouldn’t…
Author: TheStories
The visit of U.S. President Donald Trump to Doha, Qatar for the second leg of his four-day Gulf tour underscores the importance of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations in American foreign policy. As President Trump engages with leaders in Qatar, the discussions are expected to revolve around critical issues such as defense, regional security, economic ties, and the ongoing situation in Gaza. By Abdul-Azeez Suleiman One of the primary focuses of President Trump’s visit to Qatar is likely to be defense cooperation. The Gulf region has long been a pivotal area for U.S. military presence, with Qatar hosting the…
In the history of modern diplomacy, few spectacles have been as grotesque as Donald Trump’s tour of Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Doha. This journey, cloaked in the guise of statecraft, is not diplomacy in the traditional sense; rather, it is a meticulously choreographed theatre, staged in gold and fueled by the insatiable greed of power brokers. The applause that Trump receives from Gulf rulers is not a testament to his diplomatic acumen but rather a reflection of their own complicity in a sordid arrangement that prioritizes wealth over humanity. As children in Gaza face starvation and violence, the leaders of…
The ACUF Initiative for Policy and Governance (ACUFIPOLGOV) has called for urgent reforms and candidate support measures following the confirmation of systemic technical errors that affected the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in multiple centres. The group’s position comes after the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) released its 2025 UTME Technical Review Report, which revealed that the integrity of the exam results was compromised for over 379,000 candidates across 157 centres—mainly in Lagos and the South-East. According to the report, a critical system update meant to support answer randomization and validation was mistakenly omitted from server clusters in…
When the legendary Bongos Ikwue—musical sage, lyrical philosopher, and master of mellow rebellion—sat for an interview with Channels TV, few expected a metaphysical bombshell. But there he was, with a voice as soft as velvet and words as sharp as divine chisels, declaring: “Zero is not nothing. Zero is only zero. And the power of zero is the ultimate power.” By Prof. Chiwuike Uba, Ph.D. Wait—what? Most of us were told in school, with all the confidence of a chalkboard tyrant, that zero is nothing. But Bongos flipped the script like a master griot. He took that “nothing” and turned it into…
In a time when Nigerians are yearning for leadership that truly connects with the people, Yakubu Garba shines as a rare example of what it means to lead with heart, humility, and purpose. From his humble beginnings in the communities of Shiroro, Niger State, Garba’s journey has remained grounded in the values that matter most: honesty, empathy, and service. Leading with heart, not just a title For Yakubu Garba, leadership isn’t about power or position—it’s about people. It’s about being present, listening, and making real, tangible differences in everyday lives. Whether he’s backing youth-led initiatives, fighting for the rights of…
The Coalition of Shiroro Associations (COSA) has raised concerns over what it describes as a deliberate campaign of intimidation against its members by certain politicians in Niger State. In a strongly worded statement issued on Friday by its Publicity Secretary, Abdulrahaman Babafada, COSA alleged that some political figures are exploiting state resources to harass and silence members of the coalition, especially following its recent media engagements. COSA had held a series of press conferences to voice the discontent of Shiroro residents over the imposition of a chairmanship candidate by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the local government, citing constitutional…
Following the mounting pressure from education stakeholders, parents, and civil society groups, who were loud in condemning the depressing performance of candidates in this year’s examination, the registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, did something unprecedented yesterday. Yes, unprecedented in the sense that, for the first time, a public officer in charge of a powerful arm of Government has come publicly to admit error, under which he took responsibility and had emotionally apologized. At a well-attended press conference, Professor Ishaq Oloyede went sobbing because he felt JAMB, under his watch, had failed some students…
For anyone conversant with the conversations coming out of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, the narratives are mostly negative. Stories about the activities of the commission, popularly referred to as NAHCON, are regularly undistinguished. Yes, the reports in the last couple of years have been undesirable and unpleasant to the ear of the patriot. Going back to the time when Barrister Abdullahi Mukhtar Muhammad was the Chairman, the commission has been regular in the news for bad news. It took the court to settle the issue of terrible allegations of impropriety put against Abdullahi by an activist called I.…
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at will change.” ― Wayne W. Dyer. Also, Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher said, “The only constant in life is change, and no man ever steps in the same river twice”. On the motivation of the above quotes, and inspired by the saying of something similar, by the former Governor of the former Kaduna state, late Alhaji Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa, that: “We are living today in times of great changes. The old order is crumbling fast and new systems of life are emerging. Our task is to understand these…