Deep Thought

 Ahmad Babba Kaita: Former Senator with a Difference By Prof M.K. Othman At the height of the 2015 political campaign, Katsina State APC governorship candidate Masari decided to spend a night in each of the 34 local government headquarters as a strategy to interact with the local people and indicate he was one of their kith and kin. Many of us blindly following the Buhari campaign train were not only in support of the strategy but also expended our limited resources to advance it. When it was the turn of Bindawa Local Government to host Masari for a night's sleep, many people were afraid of hosting him to avoid the wrath of the then-governor Shema. I was then approached to provide my house to accommodate Masari, which I promptly did with enthusiasm against the advice of my friend, who felt I should not be seen opposing the Shema's government. Bindawa and 11 other LGAs are located in the Daura Senatorial Zone, with six LGAs each under Katsina and Daura emirates, respectively. Th...

 Emergency on Food Security: Policy Dereliction, Consequences and Possible Solutions By Prof MK Othman President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) declared a state of emergency on food security on July 14, 2023, to cushion the effects of the fuel subsidy removal and address the precarious food shortages and hunger that have defied all efforts and continued ravaging the country with reckless abandon. BAT is the only President to have made such a declaration on food security, the most critical security for human survival. I can imagine BAT's feelings when he declared a state of emergency on food security as a quick fix to address the monster of hunger and squalor. He was virtualizing every hand to be on deck to make agrarian Nigeria achieve food security in a matter of months with excess for exports. He was so confident that we all thought his aggressive strategy could trigger the transformation of the agricultural potential into reality. Now, food insecurity is worse than a year ago, and the ...

 Inaccessible Democratic Dividends: Unwieldy Power and Sins of State Governors By Prof M.K. Othman Three months before the demise of Dr Abba Sayyadi Ruma of blessed memory, the former Minister of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources invited me to his Kaduna residence and sighted his digital empire, which he was about to deploy to achieve his lofty dream of revolutionizing Nigerian agriculture. Abba was an ideologue of digitizing agriculture and supporting services to boost productivity and remove poverty from smallholder farmers altogether. I was so fascinated listening to his splendid idea that I did not know when I requested that he vie for the position of governor to uplift people's livelihoods. He pretended not to hear me, but I persisted with my request. Ruma said, "Prof, aspiring for governorship requires huge financial resources; the delegates for the primary election are like a bag of potatoes, when you buy it from the market, transport it, and take ...