Ahmed Dodo

Look around and you might notice the disgraceful sight of various ethnic social cultural groups parading themselves as serving the interest of their tribes and people. They come outside in the open to advocate for unity, but hide under the cover of their tribes and religion to secretly preach ethnic jargons at their meetings. This is Part of the problem with my dear country Nigeria, and part of why we still fight over indigene ship and breed the reprehensible settler syndrome.   Try dating or marry a woman from anywhere in Nigeria, the first question that is bound to confront you is where are you from? Wish tribe are you? And what religion do you belong?   Many young men and women have been denied their rightful privilege to choose and wed their heartthrobs based on these feeble excuses of tribe and religion differences. Yet, we all go to the same markets to sell and buy, without discriminating against the tribe or religion of the person spending the cash. How many ...

    To set the record straight, I am very proud to be a Nigerian any day, anytime and anywhere. in fact, I won’t trade this big rich country for any other on earth. I love my country no be small. But, I have, just like many other citizens of this great giant of Africa long been aware that there are some problems confronting this beloved nation. To be honest, most of these hitches are ordinary man-made lacuna created by my fellow country men and women over the years since our freedom from our colonial masters who unwillingly imposed themselves and their ways of life on us. How else should we describe a country as big and rich like ours, with abundant human and capital resources, but still lag behind in this 21 st century, despite our abundance. Part of our problems over the decades has always been as a result of greed, self centeredness, myopic reasoning, ethnic sentiment and religion bigotry. I tell you this, go anywhere in Nigeria today, the story is the same ever...

The history of Abuja was originally the south western part of the ancient Habe (Hausa) Kingdom of Zazzau (Zaria). It was populated for centuries by several semi-independent tribes. The largest of these tribes was the Gbagyi. Other areas where they are predominantly found are in Niger and Kaduna states, and also in Nasarawa, Kogi and Kwara states in central Nigeria. The Gbagyi’s are the most populated ethnic group in the FCT and their major occupation is farming, pottery and hunting. They are the original settlers of Abuja the federal capital city of Nigeria, and the Gbagyi language is the most widespread. They are known to be noble, peace loving accommodating and warm. Their hospitable and cordial nature earned them the phrase ‘ Muyi shi Gwari-Gwari’ ( Which means let’s do it like the Gbagys). Interestingly the word Gwari, which the Gbagyi are famously called, is the name of a particular yam in Gbagyi. The Gbagys are culturally soaked people, who despite the over-whelming forc...

You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again.- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn                  Sometimes it seems those selected or elected to rule us are more of aliens than human beings like most of us. This is so, because of their inhuman and unsympathetic attitudes to their fellow countrymen and women as they carry out their myopic policies, especially in the federal capital territory Abuja, where Nigerians are daily tormented, brutalized and dehumanized in the name of land swap and demolition. This same capital that was supposed to be   home to all Nigerians have since been hijacked by a greedy few, not even the indigenous inhabitants of this city have been spared from this insensitivity and madness, all purported to bring out a man-made master plan –the Abuja master plan. What about the God’s made master pl...