He’s a Prince, a direct descendant of the Sokoto Caliphate Royal Dynasty, yet unassuming. He is a detribalized Nigerian, so passionate about Africa’s most populous nation moving forward. He is a workaholic, a very focused personality who loves everything about Nigeria: from culture, politics, sports and the people. Alhaji Yusuf Suleiman, a-two time Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is an endowment to Nigeria since in every generation, nature creates few people who positively transform the lives of the people.
Alhaji Suleiman, as a practitioner of political history, can be likened to event of 1979 elections where the Great Nigerian People’s Party (GNPP) presidential candidate Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim had nurtured advocacy for politics without malice appealed for participation without the normal ‘do or die’ or “make-it-or-break-it” mindsets of the political class where he had tendered a new dimension to approach towards politics as it is in any civilized society, Suleiman surely believes in this principle and philosophy. This soft spoken Harvard University graduate once told me: “It is Almighty Allah who decides who leads the people, not man.
May Allah be praised.” That was why when he received the outcome of the Sokoto Gubernatorial election in 2015, his spirit was not broken, he remains standing like the Rock of Gibraltar, which the Spanish and Latino communities call Peñón deGibraltar, sometimes called by its original Latin name, Calpe,) being a monolithic limestone promontory located in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, off the southwestern tip of Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. It is 426 m (1,398 ft) high-ever reliable and dependable.
Like Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim, an apostle of politics without bitterness and good governance in a remarkably pervasive schism that is normal in Nigerian politics, he strongly believe politics can be practiced without having to soil integrity, reputation, family name and image.
This cerebral politician and businessman with B.Sc Degree in Business Administration from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU, Zaria) 1986 and MBA from ABU 1989 has helped, still helping, empowering Youths in Sokoto State through various youth empowerment schemes which has added value to the workforce in the state even without being in political power. He believes in service to humanity.
It is a man like this that Nigeria and Nigerians need with sound economic leadership, entrepreneurial prowess without discrimination ever willing to help Nigerians, passionate about sound economic policies for the nation in a pragmatic way that will facilitate Nigeria’s economy out of the woods.
-George Elijah Otumu, a Nigerian top journalist sent this piece from USA
