I was excited and honored to be personally invited to the launching and public presentation of “Being True To Myself”, the autobiography of Hs Excellency, Sule Lamido a former Governor Jigawa State. A personal I deeply respect and admire. I came close to him some years back while he was still the Governor and I was among the academicians requested to critique his administration. The condition was that none of us should be from Jigawa State! That event was my first time meeting him up and close. We forged a mutually respectful relationship long after his tenure and during my tenure at NOUN. I had always jibed him about writing his memoirs which he said was in the works.
Well, now it is here! The event took place at the NAF Conference Centre, Abuja on Tuesday May 13, 2025. It was a gathering of political heavy-weights in the country, cutting across party lines. Having met His Excellency on arrival and congratulating him on the book, I retired to the row of seats reserved for “Academia.” Except for the repeated power outrages that kept interrupting the speeches, the event was smooth. I will not bore you with the details of the speeches made – I am pretty sure you can find them somewhere online.
The book was launched with milamilan kuɗaɗe! And they were pouring in! Onsite the book cost ₦40/₦30 HB/PB. Before I could whip out my card to purchase the cheaper version, Hon. Faruk Adamu Aliyu graciously purchased a HB copy for me! I am sure you will read the reviews at a later stage from early readers.
Books like these are critical to our further understanding of the political ethnography of northern Nigeria’s pollical cultures. Activist, and a master of radical politics from youth, Sule Lamido, to my understanding, has remained one of the very few PDP members to stick to the party since he entered with the return of party politics in 1999. There is certainly need for more retrospective books like this to provide a map to the future and to avoid the mistakes of the past.
I am pretty sure an Acibilisian copy will surface, sooner or later, from the Mariana Trench of cyberspace! As for me, it’s a mug of Turkish coffee, sprinkled with brown sugar, a plate of donuts and relaxing read.
