As a matter of restating the obvious, growing up in Zuru surrounded by the hills of hope and ritual inspiration and mentored by a people proud of their heritage, culture and tradition of exuding manliness, bravery and exceptional brilliance of artistry of warfare was the encompassing inspiration package that I needed to succeed in life.
Completing my secondary education and at once proceeding to University of Sokoto was a journey of revelation, challenges and triumph.
This was during the golden era of Universities and I must confess that the experiences then were representative orthodoxy of what education meant.
After my registration as a fresher, I settled down for the business of pursuit of golden fleece that will enabled me to harvest the prospect for an enduring prosperity and happiness during this clearly defined period of divine restrained excursion on this mundane planet.
As expected, when the journey began, I made friends both within and without my Faculty of Study and most importantly, I was exposed early enough to a healthy and genuine intellectual culture anchored purely on academic brilliance and logic of superior intuition, without recourse to either toxic intellectual opportunism or theology of extremely destructive religious demagoguery. As students, the University as the epicenter of universal knowledge exposed us to the ritual of learning and baptism of ideological leaning and fraternity amongst our dearest array of LECTURERS who aligned themselves with the left leaning ideology of Marxism while on the other hand, there was the unrepentant and unrestrained militant radical religionists names respectfully withheld. It was a fascinating period of University exploration, lest I forget, there was also the orthodox conservative bourgeoisie intellectual group. As a result of that exposure to universal intellectual tradition through the cocktail of intellectual brilliance, we were not ready to be left out of the ideological feast and sooner, we were baptized by the holy fathers of the very side of the ideological oblast. Thus, we set out to explore and acquire in-depth knowledge of our ideologies of preference. Despite young age, we were not dwarfed in the epic competition for knowledge and thus ,was my epoch love and admiration for the Soviet Union and their governing ideological philosophy. During that period of ideological studentship, week in week out we had the honour and privilege of attending Departmental and Faculty Seminars where we listened and learned with passionate tears of palpable admiration. From the lineup of these formidable intellectual force of nature, we had thus; Dr. Sanusi, Department of Political Science, Dr. Kuna now Professor Kuna of Department of Sociology, Dr. Gusau Local, Department of Sociology, Dr. Tukur Baba, Department of Sociology, Dr. Hakim Baba Ahmed, Department of Political Science, Professor Sule Ahmed Gusau London of the blessed memory, Department of Economics, Dr. Rafi Augie of the blessed memory, Department of History, Dr. Shehu Lawal Giwa of the blessed memory, Department of History, Professor B. Swai of the blessed memory, Department of History , Mr. Mande Faru, Department of history, Mr Mahmud Jega, Department of Biological Sciences, Dr. Aliyu Tilde, Department of Agronomy, Professor Nuhu Yaqub, Department of Political Science And of course, the god of King’s Language Dr. A. T. Adamu, the quintessential prince of exceptional intellectual brilliance whose ethos and choreography of life exemplified the glamour and razzmatazz of material being. He would stand unapologetically tall in his illuminating Babbar Riga Aska Tara to the admiration of even his arch opponents who were usually left quieted by the his command of English, he would proceed majestically to mesmerize the audience with the poetry and paranormal eloquence of his Language. Additionally, we also hosted intellectual pilgrims with enormous capacity for Seminar Room fireworks from ABU Zaria. In particular, those who came on intellectual evangelism to present public lectures in the bid to enrich the melting pot of our collective ideological consciousness were within this revered category; we were overwhelmed with profound gratitude that we met, listened and learned from the revered icons of class struggle like; Professor Patrick Wilmot and Dr. Yusuf Bangura. As for the ideological holy father Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman, we only felt his intellectual vibe through his numerous published publications ( may you rest in peace, of course, you will rest in peace) In the hubris of a twisted irony of fate, Sir, it was a good thing that you did not live longer to witness the despicable betrayals and ignominious class suicide of many of your disciples. And of course the present decadence of the once revered and respected ivory tower. It was from this perspective of the reson de’ta of the Soviet ideological philosophy that I became an avid student of the history and politics of the Soviet Union which remained the building blocks of the present Russian Federation. Your history of warfare and particularly your epochal decisive defeat of the Nazi Germany still serenade every honest conversation about the very foundation of the current World Order. Permit me to say that, throughout the history of Soviet Union, apart from Joseph Stalin and Nikiti Khrushchev the greater homeland of Russian Federation have never had pan Russian patriotic leader who understood the devilish machinations and the diabolical calculus of the post Soviet axis of evil imperial global empire like President Vladimir Putin. The love letter to tragedy was neither the collapse of the Berlin Wall nor the despicable disintegration of the Soviet Union but rather, how the Soviet structure of power allowed the emergence of treacherous swines lacking in Pan Soviet nationalism like Mikhail Gorbachev who presided over both the fall of the Berlin Wall as well as the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. The final nail on the coffin of Soviet era strength of character, the seriousness of politics of global power competition and domestic purposeful leadership was the emergence of Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin as the leader of the post Soviet Russian Federation. Thus, there is no thanks for his nomination of you as the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation in 1999. The truth of the matter is that, as a decorated KGB Officer and one time the head of the Russian National Security Council, you resurrected the Russian glory from the ashes of the disintegration of the Soviet Union which to your very painful admission was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. With your preeminent repositioning of the Russian Federation as global power with enormous capacity to project raw power in the inter continental strategic geopolitical competition, Russia has compelled the reorganization of the unjust and skewed structure of the world order hitherto. The West wished and hoped hopelessly for another Mikhail Gorbachev or a sweeter symphony of an immensely dysfunctional character like Boris Yeltsin but, the God of justice and strategic moral equity rejected their wish for an enduring unipolar dominance of global power and brought you to power, thank you Vladimir Putin. Thank you for the strategic alliance with China the undisputed global economic power house and a rising military power with an awesome military industrial complex that can compete within the global defense market space. And can exude devastating military power with the ability to deliver a suicidal Nuclear death punches when the fundamentally changed international circumstances required just that. What is clear from this strategic alliance which has increasingly rendered the global imperial center of power impotent and irrelevant is that, against the oddities of strategic plot of the dark forces and the ferocious disimpactiful campaign of traditional superiority over Russia, you have completely changed the matrix of global power. And the Western Europe, Canada, Australia and their leaches within the former Soviet Union have been left with the comfort of serial denial. The truth about Russia is that, despite your special operation in Ukraine which is ongoing, you never had territorial ambition albeit, pundits would be quick cite the evidence of the current Ukraine war and the Soviet occupation of the Eastern Europe during the Soviet Union. But, the reality is that, in the context of the vantage bigger picture, that was an accident of the spoils of war arising from your decisive defeat of Nazism in the Eastern Europe and the larger Caucuses during the 2nd World War. Let it be said emphatically that, without the Russian defeat of Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe, probably, just probably, there may not have been Countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and even Ukraine itself today. Therefore, it was only a natural common sense that those Countries would automatically belonged to the Warsaw Pact just like NATO for reasons of a strategic collective defense umbrella that was undeniably provided by the Soviet Union. For Africa, thank you, thank you for the genuine love and affection, Russia was always there as the counterbalanced force for GOOD, without your support perhaps, Pan Africanism anchored on African Liberation Struggle for Independence would have been a mirage. According to late, Julius Nyeyere, Kwame Nkrumah, Kennet Kaunda and Robert Mugabe, Sir Tafawa Balewa, Patrice Lumumba, Amilca Cabral, Samora Machel and a whole host of others constrained by space to mention here, “ ….after God to us next was Russia, in the words of Kaunda in his published memoir Zambia Shall Be Free…. In the beginning was Russia and in the end will be Russia “ In the words of Madiba ,( the Die Hard Nelson Mandela )“ the mistake the west and America was making was that of assuming that their enemies in international affairs must be our enemies, as for us Africans, our morality does not permit us to abandon our friends “ During the Nigerian Civil War, Russia came through for us, in the service of your philosophy of common humanity, you supplied us Arms and trained the Nigerian soldiers to prosecute the war to victory. Albeit our political leaders appeared to have suffered from reprehensible imperial amnesia, the men of honor across Mother Africa not yet ambushed by the gamut of neoliberalism and neocolonial brand democracy, still remember with profound admiration and gratitude the role of the Soviet Union during Africa’s Liberation Struggle and post colonial history Africa. I remember vividly that you Mr President personally got involved during the Soviet socialist evangelism in Central and Eastern Africa out of your patriotic zest to liberate Africa from the grip of imperial occupation. It is my passionate urge that Russia should kindly disregard the current African Leaders who have demonstrated their despicable betrayal of history, there is tremendous torrent of goodwill and admiration for Russia across the Continent, the Mother Land. On the ongoing war of attrition in Ukraine, which going by its content of cutting edge murderous technology bears the rainbow of the third world Armageddon, you have accomplished a supper human feet. The truth is that, beyond the contention of any prognosticator, there is no Country on surface of this planet that would have survived the torrent of 16 000 smart economic sanctions and called the bluff of the imperial masters of the universe but you did. And there is Country today that would have survived the current gang up of the world leading technologically advanced Countries of the West and America with stupendous sophisticated war machine for a bloodied two months record but you did with a clinically defiant supremacy of patriotic resolve. As we worship the horizon of your spectacular victory in Donbas and Luhansk with concurrent resounding decisive repellent operation in the Kursk, I will like to declare on behalf of all progressives of this beloved Continent that, Thanks to the Soviet before you, Thank You Mr President, Long Live the Russian Federation. Thank You
