Sir Muaz Ahmad

 What the ANC in South Africa and the PDP in Nigeria Have in Common  “In 1912, after the British handed over power to the white minority, the kings and commoners from all over Southern Africa, came together to form the African National Congress—the oldest national liberation movement in black Africa and one of the greatest liberation movements in the modern world”.—Maitama Sule observed. The sudden death of General Sani Abacha, which was highly tragic, made the most senior military officer, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, anxious to hand over knowing in full the anti-military storm that his predecessor had elicited. The single most significant party that eventually came into being was People’s Democratic Party (PDP)—a party that had remained the increasingly ruling party for 16 years until 2015 with the election of APC into power.  In the light of what many Nigerians are seeing now under APC, it is becoming abundantly clear that PDP must have done more good than harm. You ca...

 How Sacrifice Improves Nations and People Among many factors, capitalism is believed to have brought about the first and second world wars—the most deadly wars in modern history. But in the first world war, Soviet Union had no idea of any of the war’s consequences, when compared with the rest of Europe. This was due to its rapid industrialization. Stalin, in Moscow on February 9, 1946, made a remarkable speech. In his speech, he called for equally arduous ‘sacrifices’ on the part of the Soviet People to recover from the damage the last war had effected, and to prepare for the next war that the contradictions of capitalism were sure to bring about.  Aside from the 400 years of struggle and sacrifice men and women exerted in the present day South Africa, let’s look at a recent history compared to the aforementioned centuries; in 1907 the idea of the creation of African National Congress came—the oldest political organization on the continent. This idea and the struggle that ens...

  The Withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali And Niger from ECOWAS And Its Impact on the Sub-Region     By Muaz Ahmad    For West African sub-region, 28th January, 2024 was a “Tale of Genji”—mistakes always have lasting consequences that often cannot be foreseen till far later. Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali have announced their exit from the sub-region body without deeply reflecting on the outcome it might bring to them individually and to the sub-region in general.   Toyin Falola in his book “A History of Nigeria” recounts some of the reasons why the then head of State, Yakubu Gawon—the brainchild of the formation of ECOWAS—formed the organization in concert with the rest of its founding member countries, on 28th May 1975, Lagos; and that’s to promote economic integration, but more significantly, to strengthen the security of the area. Because, after the end of the Nigerian Civil War, studies showed that Nigeria should unify the countries in the sub-region for it...