22-11-2025.

SO Katsina State has been FORCED by the BANDITS to give an abrupt ‘HOLIDAY’ to all boarding students in its Secondary Schools. The rag-tag UNTRAINED outlaws are, in the words of Hausas, ‘CIN KARENSU BABU BABBAKA’. Roughly translated, the expression means ‘FEASTING ON THEIR UNCOOKED DOG’.

THE schools’s closure was announced by the Governor himself, Dr. Dikko Umar Radda, PhD, in a brief broadcast to the people of the state.

THE abduction and CALLOUS MURDER of the 25 ALL MUSLIM female students and the EQUALLY Muslim COURAGEOUS Vice Principal of the Kebbi State female secondary school, was done in the PASSION of the CHIBOK secondary school abduction in 2014, where 276 (MOSTLY Christian) FEMALE students were abducted by BOKO HARAM OUTLAWS.

HOWEVER, the Katsina Closure of ALL the BOARDING Schools owned by the state, as far as the powers that-be in the state are concerned, has NOT INTERFERED with the POLITICAL ambitions of those who want to be VICE PRESIDENT, and those who want to be next GOVERNOR in the state of Heritage and Hospitality.

NEITHER has it DONE any damage to the BANK BALANCE of those who are currently on a JAMBOREE in European lands, in the name of training some selected few (Local Government Chairmen, and members of the state’s created security task force on security), OSTENSIBLY to ‘learn’ the ART of securing the state from the regular ATTACK, SCOURGE and RAMPAGE of the North Western state.

TO be fair to it, Katsina is a state where to be a person standing TRIAL for CORUPT self enrichment is ‘REWARDED’ with a top notch appointment in an Ivory Tower institution, simply because such a person belongs to the ‘CORRECT’ political party, NOT because he stands heads and shoulders above the rest of those seeking to occupy the position.

IT is supposed to be the same KATSINA that produced the world-famous Al Kashinawi some hundreds of years ago, or gave accommodations to some famous sons and daughters of the country known for their INTEGRITY. These include icons of the First, Second, Third, and the current Republic (4), including the first and only Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the first and only Premier of Northern Nigeria and Sokoto prince, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the novelist who wrote GANDOKI and the pioneer Editor of the  Jaduna based vernacular Newspaper, ‘Hausa Tafi Kwabo’, Malam Imam.

OR contemporary RELIGIOUS ICONS like late Shiekh Jafar, Shiekh Aminu Daurawa, Dr. Ahmed Filin Samji, and many of their leaned kind.

IN 1667, Al Kashnawi STUNNED the world with his groundbreaking MATHEMATICAL and SCIENTIFIC INVENTIONS as well as his many religious and secular SCHOLARSHIP books and papers.

IN his early days as a child, he started his Islamic tuition at the famous ‘GOBARAU MINERATE’, under teachers who included Malm AbdurRahaman Fodio,  the father of the FAMOUS  Islamic reformer, Usman Bin Fodio, who led the Islamic Jihad (Islamic revival), of the 19th Century.

AL KASHINAWI emigrated to EGYPT after his journey to MECCA and MEDINA. He schooled, studied, wrote his greatest works and gave up the ghost (died) in Egypt. He was an intellectual of GREAT standing from Katsina State of Nigeria, from whose name the name of KATSINA was coined. 

MEANWHILE, a duplicitous smooth operator and LEACH of sorts, whose passion is to acquire houses even at the expense of his comfort, with money ‘earned’ from any which way, once warded off my innocent observation that a certain politician could be interested in contesting a visible office in his state.

The politician had, early in the days of the present regime, distributed materials and money totalling over N1 billion in his Senatorial Constituency. But the smooth operator quickly told me that the politician “has made it clear that he is not ever going to contest for that office”.

WELL, the chicken has finally come home to roost, with the POSTERS and ‘RUMOURS’ of the future aspirations of the politician flooding and swirling around the state, respectively.

MAY God Give Nigeria leaders who have INTEGRITY in 2027, and beyond. The God Who has 99 BEAUTIFUL names, Who sent Angel Jibrin to the BEST of creations of ALL TIMES with the MESSAGE that BEGINS with; “READ”, Who DESCRIBED Himself as OMNIPOTENT and OMNIPRESENT in Chapters 255 of Suratul Baķra, and ALL the Suras of Al Ikhlas, as well as the GREAT ALLAH, who saved Prophets MUSA and HAROON from the angry pursuit of, before HE Destroyed, the ABSOLUTE TOTALITARIAN leader, the Pharaoh of Egypt. 

AND the ONE and ONLY God, who PRESERVED the corpse of the PHARAOH for mankind as a lesson, IS CAPABLE of doing MORE than that.

Malumfashi wrote from ABUJA.