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World history is replete with accounts on men and women who brought in their exceptional bravery and guts in the defence of their society and community at critical times of danger and despair. In Nigeria, our primitive history has many hunters, as individuals or in groups, who waved off marauding wild and dangerous animals attempting to invade villages. We do not lack as well those brave warriors and rulers who fought to protect their communities from external aggression and invasion, or imposition of external influence or will by warlords from other distant or nearby community.  The early time narrations of acts of gallantry extensively centred on wars and community defence mostly dominated by the male species of the homo sapiens. In this fold, stories around great men like Napoleon Bonaparte of France were so rampant.  Shaka Senzangakona de Zulu of South Africa and other successful warriors in human history like Ozolua of Benin Empire, and Mirambo and Zaude featured frequent...

  By Wole Olaoye It is impossible to ignore Sheik Ahmad Gumi’s attempt to divide the Nigerian armed forces on religious lines. There are already so many discordant tunes at play on the national stage, but this undisguised ploy to destroy the only institution believed to still have a modicum of national cohesion is frightening. Gumi, a medical doctor, is a cleric, scholar and former captain in the Nigerian Army. He is the eldest son to late Sheik Abubakar Gumi, who was once Grand Khadi of the Northern Region of Nigeria, and head of Sultan Bello Central Mosque in Kaduna. He is credited with paving the way for the founding of the Izala sect in Jos, Plateau State, in 1978. Izala has since grown in influence and number in most parts of northern Nigeria and spread to countries like Niger, Chad and Cameroon, where Boko Haram also operates. He has, over the years, jealously courted controversies under the pretext of defending the rights of Muslims. When he appointed himself the negotiator-...