The Learner

By Muhsin Ibrahim Decades after gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria remains a complex country in every sense. It is a nation of abundance and poverty, exceptional brilliance and widespread illiteracy, and much more. With a population of over 220 million people of diverse characteristics and backgrounds, Nigerians are found across the globe. Nigeria has the good, the bad and the ugly. Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel laureate, recently celebrated his 90th birthday. Aliko Dangote, also from Nigeria, has been the wealthiest black man for over a decade. However, Nigeria is also known for having some of the most wanted fraudsters on the FBI list. The country also overtook India as the so-called capital poverty of the world, with 71 million people living in extreme poverty today. Like many countries with petrodollar economies, Nigeria has had to contend with a plethora of socio-political crises occasioned by long years of corruption, social neglect, prebendal politics, political exclu...

Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 This is a Herculean job. I have read and listened to several political commentators saying that Donald Trump’s triumph is a logic-defying, demystifying puzzle and a record breaking event in the political history of not only the US but the world in general. For those not very familiar with this character, Trump is a bigot, racist, protectionist, misogynist, an Islamaphobic, and, above all, a very ignorant billionaire businessman. That is why, perhaps, almost all pre-election opinion polls indicated that his opponent, Hillary Clinton would win the election, but he did. A particular disgruntled analyst, Tom Freeman, has gone to the extreme in his quest for meaning of Trump’s victory. He wrote an article that contains only a word all through: F**k . The writer couldn’t be more descriptive and rational, for this is just it. Yet, curses, yells, despair, etc. cannot change the reality that Trump is the president-elect of the world’s super power, the might...

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 Astrologists would want me to believe that June 1 is my lucky day. I will however not take them serious, as I don’t believe in that pseudoscience. But no doubt, the day stands unique in my life. At least two life-shaping incidents happened to me. First, I assumed duty as a Graduate Assistant at the prestigious Bayero University , Kano in 2012. Second, exactly a year later, I got married to the lady I have always appreciated being with. For anything, the day cannot go by like other days. I think it deserves a particular remembrance and commemoration, though not in any ritualistic manner. This year was unlike the previous one. I had then wanted to give a tantalizing treat to my wife, which was subsequently marred by some chilling and killing incidents in both Nigeria and India that do not bear repeating here.  I had not planned to do anything special for this year, nor write a single word until about an hour or so ago. I had had, t...

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 Without digging deeper into the history lane in the Nigerian politics, many people know that last-hour relinquishment, nay betrayal, by swayers in a political journey often results to the success or failure of a particular candidate. For instance, Kano people saw that in 1999 when a comparatively more popular Engr. Magaji Abdullahi lost governorship election to Engr. Rabiu Kwankwaso. There was a similar scenario in 2011 at the presidential election. General Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) entered into an ill-advised alliance with Action Congress of Nigeria  (ACN) at the last minute of the eleventh hour . It didn’t work as feared. ACN and its south-western supporters dumped CPC and the party’s candidate, too, Nuhu Ribadu for President Goodluck Jonathan (and his party, PDP). Yesterday, a well-informed Yoruba friend of mine posted on Facebook that an experienced friend of his feared that opposition might yet again giv...

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 I wrote an article  about a year or so ago on the sweeping spate of dirty politics taking the centre stage of my state Kano , Nigeria . It solely focused on the two leading archrivals, the present governor of the state, Engr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and his predecessor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau. Their politicking forays into the daily lives of Kano people. Often, loyalty or otherwise to one of them defines our identity. No matter how hard one tries to reconcile the two, he or she is bound to fail. They are practically seen as totally the opposite of the other like fire and water; loving both is believed to be incompatible. Whatever, I stand to defy this fallacy. It’s my humble belief that both did something for the state; both deserve some respect; both are humans, not demons; and neither performed to a T. A few days ago, a very good, elder friend of mine awkwardly described my behaviour of what he calls ‘proving people wrong’ as chil...