Of Journalists’ deaths, Security lapses and cut-throat Taxes

By hassan GIMBA

Last week was a dark one for journalism in Nigeria. The light of two of its bright stars, Amina Alhassan Ahman and Haruna Dauda Biu dimmed and blew out. Amina was cast in the print section of the profession, while Haruna was a star in broadcast journalism.

I first noticed Amina in 2014 at a Leadership Newspaper editorial meeting for editors and senior editorial management staff. The meeting, held every Monday, had each editor defending their paper comparatively against its counterparts from other media houses. Friday Leadership, for instance, would be compared against every paper around the country published on the same day.

Amina was a striking lady with a queenly pose who had a masterful command of English, spoken with the inflexion of the British tone. If you were in another room and overheard her speak, you might assume a Briton was speaking next door.

As a diplomat’s daughter, she had the opportunity to study at Kuwait English School (KES) when her late father, Yahya Alhassan, was an Ambassador in the country. And in her gait and carriage, you would know she was a polished individual.

Haruna, the Voice of America (Hausa Service) Reporter for Borno and Yobe States, was a gentleman of the first order. And humble, too. I would call him “maci gauta”, or “garden egg eater”, because the Babur, the tribe he belonged to in Biu Local Government in Borno State, are known to consider the small bitter types of garden eggs a delicacy, sometimes eaten with pepper. He always answered respectfully.

In life, only Allah knows how every one of us will end our lives. A seemingly inconsequential sickness, thought to be high blood pressure, escalated into something else that caused him partial paralysis. The last time we spoke, he told me he had just returned from a Cairo hospital facilitated by the Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum.

Amina’s case differed; she did not tell close friends about her ailment. I am still at a loss as to why she hid it. Being the considerate and kind-hearted person she was, was it that she did not want to bother people or be seen as a liability? She must have been seriously bedridden six months ago, as the mammary cancer spread to her brain about that time. According to one of her sons, she was diagnosed with it about three years ago, but she would not go for chemotherapy until it spread.

After her death, I went through our chats to see if she had left me any hints, and I saw our SMS chat of 12 September 2022. I sent her a message that a man with a so-and-so number had called me from Alliance Hospital regarding her request for an interview on something related to cancer. And she replied to me, “Oh, yes. That must be the MD. I’ll call him, thank you.”

That was the closest I came to associating her with cancer. At the time, she was my staff. She was an editor and rose to become Neptune Prime’s chief operating officer because of her diligence, dedication, and loyalty. She was the type who was ready to take the flak for others if anything went wrong.

As the publisher, you could understand if I assumed she wanted to interview the MD for our paper because she drove our newspaper's content direction and editorial policy. After her death, I realised that she wanted to consult a specialist.

As I said, we first met at Leadership Newspaper. She was a features editor, and I was the stable’s Friday title editor. In 2014, I became the spokesman for Dr Abdu Bulama, minister of science and technology, and she was made acting editor in my place. She also rose to become editor of the weekend edition and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board.

Our paths crossed again when I floated Neptune Prime, an online newspaper, in 2016; she was no longer with Leadership. The rest, as is often said, is history.

While I was not very close to Haruna, who was Maiduguri-based, from my few interactions with him and the testimonies of friends, journalism has lost a gem, and humanity has lost a part of it.

As for Amina, I knew her as a very compassionate, thoughtful, considerate, morally upright lady who was chaste and mindful of how God and society would look at her. Her British-intoned “assalamu alaikum” rings in the ears always. She is not just a loss to journalism but to humanity at large.

May Amina Alhassan Ahman be in Jannatul Firdaus with her late father and beloved husband, and may Haruna Dauda Biu find favour with Allah (SWT).

Insecurity, Our Immigration, Our Airports

Last week, many Nigerians heard the news that the wife and mother of Ado Aleiro, a bandit kingpin making life a living hell for Nigerians in the Zamfara axis, were apprehended. Please wait for it; the arrest was made in Madina. No, not Gusau! Not at any of our airports. Not by the Immigration officers who processed their passports and were at the airports to monitor travellers. Our NDLEA officials were napping. DSS? No, Patrick Utomi has taken their attention. Where were the police, NSCDC, FAAN and NAHCO officials?

But that is not even the worst part of it. Wait and watch. No heads would roll. And so, there is no “medicine” against future occurrences.

Don’t Tax Us Out of Business

Last week, at the 2025 Taraba International Investment Summit, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, disclosed that foreign investors would come without invitation if local investors were treated well, that is, “if they were making a good profit to offset the cost of production.”

He said that for every ₦1 he or any investor made, 52 kobo went to the Federal Government as tax. He should know because, last year, the Dangote Group and its subsidiaries paid over ₦402.3 billion in taxes, making them the highest taxpayers in Nigeria.

Surely, there would be serious problems in our economic development if entrepreneurs who invest their resources to create employment opportunities for our teeming populations are taxed out of business. What of the wise saying not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?