See The Face Of The 95-year-old Trader Who Donated Her Life Savings To Buhari (Why I Donated N1m To Buhari, She Explains).

General Muhammmadu Buhari
General Muhammmadu Buhari
Hajiya Fati Maitalle Tara, made news two weeks ago when she made a personal donation of 1 million naira out of her business savings to General MuhammaduBuhari’s campaign when he visited Kebbi state. She tells YAHYA SARKI why The APC Presidential campaign to Kebbi ahead of the 2015 general election witnessed unprecedented turn out of people in Kebbi state. Thousands of people including married women and children came out and waited for about thirteen hours to catch a glimpse of the party’s presidential flag bearer, General Muhammmadu Buhari. The mammoth crowd gathered at the Sir Ahmadu Bello International Airport , Ambursa and lined the streets all the way to Haliru Abdu Stadium in Birnin Kebbi, the venue of the campaign rally.

The event was also characterised by three major side attractions which included the procession of 500 donkey riders, the procession of over two thousand people comprising artisans, hunters, fishermen, hawkers who trekked on foot covering more than 35 kilometers from their destinations in Jega to Birnin Kebbi just to catch a glimpse of the gap-toothed General that seems to have won the hearts of millions of Nigerians.
The third most striking side attraction which captivated the eager crowd took place at the airport where a 95-year-old woman, Hajiya Fati Koko popularly called ‘Mai Talle Tara’ waited for over nine hours to see Buhari and register her support for him. For the old woman, age does not matter in deciding the future of Nigeria.
Hajiya Fati, a popular business woman in Koko, Koko local government of Kebbi State, had made a personal donation of N1million to General Buhari’s campaign when he visited the state out of her business savings. This is despite her other contributions which ran into millions of naira for the success of APC in the state.
LEADERSHIP Sunday was in Koko and met the 95 years old woman, who despite her immense contributions to what she termed a worthy cause, seemed unassuming. Calmly seated by her pots containing variety of soups in her restaurant in Koko, she narrated why she endured for many hours at the airport despite her old age to see Buhari and why she made such a huge financial sacrifice for his success at the polls.
According to Hajiya Fati, her natural likeness for the general whom she described as an honest, principled and God-fearing gentleman dates back to 1983 when he took over as Head of state. She explained that the genesis of her rise to moderate riches was due to Buhari’s honesty which many Nigerian leaders lack.
women support Buhari, Hajiya Fati Maitalle Tara
women support Buhari, Hajiya Fati Maitalle Tara
According to her,“I was a contractor at that time. When Buhari took over, I executed a contract at a school in Gummi, now Zamfara State, worth about N40,000. Payment for the job done was denied me by the then Sokoto State government. I took a loan from several people just to execute the contract. But under Buhari, a committee was set up for verification which objectively inspected the project and recommended immediate payment without any kick back. I constructed two blocks of classrooms but because the then government did not want to pay me, they accused me of conniving with the engineer to carry out substandard work. But as I said, Buhari’s committee came and verified my work as one of the best and I got paid eventually,” she said.
Hajiya Fati recounted how the verification of her contract was carried out with honesty by the committee members. “Yes, at that time during Buhari’s regime, honesty and transparency were the order of the day. One of the committee members used a digger to hit the blocks I had constructed with several times but it showed no sign of cracking and he said “this is a good work,” she said.
“I have respect for Buhari, for his honesty and discipline and for that, I always dream of his leadership style again in Nigeria where corruption would seize and discipline would be restored in the society,” she added. Fati further explained that time has never wavered her love and support for Buhari and she has followed his political journey from ANPP, CPC and now APC with keen interest. “My late son, Lawali and I have made several sacrifices to the success of Buhari’s career both morally and financially. When Buhari was denied the leadership of this country in 2011 under the platform of ANPP, I decided not to take keen interest in politics again, but any time the name Buhari comes up again for president, I jump back on the train for a better Nigeria. I completely trust him to turn around our fortunes in this country”.
Apart from her financial contributions to his campaigns, she has also succeeded in converting many supporters of PDP to join the APC. “The people here know it and they can testify to that as I am talking to you now, APC has overrun Koko 99%”.
The old woman was respectfully and gently treated at the airport when Governor Wamakko of Sokoto State greeted her and ushered her to see Buhari on his arrival. Upon landing, Buhari himself headed straight to greet Hajiya Fati.
When asked how she felt when he greeted her warmly, she simply said, “He is a man of the people. I was offered a seat near him. We greeted with joy, happiness and I said, “Baba, you have come”, he replied “yes” and I said “God bless you! Carry on with your good intentions for the people” and he said “I will”. Thereafter, we snapped a photo together,” she said smiling.
LEADERSHIP Sunday gathered that Hajiya Fati Mai Talle Tara does not charge a kobo at her catering services when ever the APC is having any event in Koko area. She is also said to give special discounts during the visit of Buhari to Kebbi.
Her advise to Nigerians: “My fervent wish for Nigeria is to receive General Buhari not only in Kebbi, but all over the country to experience the rebirth we desperately need. I believe the man to take Nigeria to the promised land is Buhari, my politics is simply for Buhari till my life ends.”
Hajiya Fati is well known in Koko town for her restaurant business. According to her, she started food selling twenty years ago but she was into trading with her late son long before she ventured into restaurant business. According to her, she has fifteen children and many grand children. Despite her age, she shows no sign of slowing down.
Her final words to people, “Change comes with time and Buhari personifies the change we need at this point in time. He is the change we are all clamouring for. I prayed for Buhari and asked clerics to do same and the result is manifesting , Buhari’s enemies have now become his lovers”, adding “Do you know why I still like Buhari? He stands for truth and bears the name of my late father,” she concluded, smiling.

osun defender.





Popular posts from this blog

UK GENERAL ELECTIONS:Inquiry announced into memo alleging Sturgeon wants Tory election victory.

Image
Civil service instigates investigation into leaked memo from Foreign Office about supposed comments made in February Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, with David Cameron in her office at the Scottish parliament earlier this year. Photograph: WPA Pool/Getty A civil service inquiry into a leaked memo which claimed that Nicola Sturgeon privately wanted to see David Cameron remain in power after the general election has been instigated following calls from the First Minister. Ms Sturgeon described the allegation as “100% untrue” and accused Whitehall of “dirty tricks”.
Read more

Ebola Outbreak: Guinea Declares Emergency As Overall Deaths From Ebola Rise To 1,069

Image
Health workers take passengers' temperatures infrared digital laser thermometers at the Felix Houphouet Boigny international airport in Abidjan on Aug. 13, 2014. Ivory Coast on Monday banned air travellers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three countries worst-hit by the Ebola outbreak, and ordered its flagship carrier Air Cote d'Ivoire to cease flights to and from them. Reuters/Luc Gnago Guinea, one of the worst-hit West African nations in the ongoing Ebola outbreak, announced a state of emergency Wednesday. The World Health Organization, or WHO, also  said  that four new people died in Guinea between Aug. 10 and Aug. 11. The total death count in Guinea from the latest epidemic was estimated at 377 by WHO while the number of cases reported had risen to 510. Overa
Read more

Sandhurst's sheikhs: Why do so many Gulf royals receive military training in the UK? A parade outside the building at Sandhurst Continue reading the main story In today's Magazine The death list that names 5,000 victims Is this woman an apostate? Voices from a WW1 prison camp The Swiss selfie scandal Generations of foreign royals - particularly from the Middle East - have learned to be military leaders at the UK's Sandhurst officer training academy. But is that still a good idea, asks Matthew Teller. Since 1812, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, on the Surrey/Berkshire border, has been where the British Army trains its officers. It has a gruelling 44-week course testing the physical and intellectual skills of officer cadets and imbuing them with the values of the British Army. Alongside would-be British officers, Sandhurst has a tradition of drawing cadets from overseas. Many of the elite families of the Middle East have sent their sons and daughters. Perhaps the most notable was King Hussein of Jordan. Continue reading the main story Find out more Matthew Teller presents Sandhurst and the Sheikhs, a Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4, on Wednesday 27 August 2014 at 11:00 BST It will be available on iPlayer shortly after broadcast Four reigning Arab monarchs are graduates of Sandhurst and its affiliated colleges - King Abdullah of Jordan, King Hamad of Bahrain, Sheikh Tamim, Emir of Qatar, and Sultan Qaboos of Oman. Past monarchs include Sheikh Saad, Emir of Kuwait, and Sheikh Hamad, Emir of Qatar. Sandhurst's links have continued from the time when Britain was the major colonial power in the Gulf. "One thing the British were excellent at was consolidating their rule through spectacle," says Habiba Hamid, former foreign policy strategist to the rulers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. "Pomp, ceremony, displays of military might, shock and awe - they all originate from the British military relationship." Sheikh Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, King Abdullah, Sultan Qaboos Sandhurst alumni: King Hamad of Bahrain, King Abdullah of Jordan and Sultan Qaboos of Oman It's a place where future leaders get to know each other, says Michael Stephens, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, Qatar. And Sandhurst gives the UK influence in the Gulf. "The [UK] gets the kind of attention from Gulf policy elites that countries of our size, like France and others, don't get. It gives us the ability to punch above our weight. "You have people who've spent time in Britain, they have… connections to their mates, their teachers. Familiarity in politics is very beneficial in the Gulf context." "For British people who are drifting around the world, as I did as a soldier," says Brigadier Peter Sincock, former defence attache to Saudi Arabia, "you find people who were at Sandhurst and you have an immediate rapport. I think that's very helpful, for example, in the field of military sales." The Emir of Dubai Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum with his son after his Passing Out Parade at Sandhurst in 2006 Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Emir of Dubai, with his son in uniform at Sandhurst in 2006 Her Majesty The Queen's Representative His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, The Emir of Qatar inspects soldiers during the 144th Sovereign's Parade held at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on April 8, 2004 in Camberley, England. Some 470 Officer cadets took part of which 219 were commissioned into the British Army Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar until 2013, inspects soldiers at Sandhurst in 2004 Emotion doesn't always deliver. In 2013, despite the personal intervention of David Cameron, the UAE decided against buying the UK's Typhoon fighter jets. But elsewhere fellow feeling is paying dividends. "The Gulf monarchies have become important sources of capital," says Jane Kinninmont, deputy head of the Middle East/North Africa programme at the foreign affairs think tank Chatham House. "So you see the tallest building in London being financed by the Qataris, you see UK infrastructure and oilfield development being financed by the UAE. There's a desire - it can even seem like a desperation - to keep them onside for trade reasons." British policy in the Gulf is primarily "mercantile", says Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, of the Baker Institute in Houston, Texas. Concerns over human rights and reform are secondary. The Shard at dusk The Shard was funded by Qatari investors In 2012 Sandhurst accepted a £15m donation from the UAE for a new accommodation block, named the Zayed Building after that country's founding ruler. In March 2013, Sandhurst's Mons Hall - a sports centre - was reopened as the King Hamad Hall, following a £3m donation from the monarch of Bahrain, who was educated at one of Sandhurst's affiliated colleges. The renaming proved controversial, partly because of the perceived slight towards the 1,600 British casualties at the Battle of Mons in August 1914 - and partly because of how Hamad and his government have dealt with political protest in Bahrain over the last three years. A critic might note that the third term of Sandhurst's Officer Commissioning Course covers counter-insurgency techniques and ways to manage public disorder. Since tension between Bahrain's majority Shia population and minority Sunni ruling elite boiled over in 2011, more than 80 civilians have died at the hands of the security forces, according to opposition estimates, though the government disputes the figures. Thirteen police officers have also lost their lives in the clashes. "The king has always felt that Sandhurst was a great place," says Sincock, chairman of the Bahrain Society, which promotes friendship between the UK and Bahrain. "Something like 20 of his immediate family have been there as cadets. He didn't really understand why there was such an outcry." David Cameron and King Hamad David Cameron meeting King Hamad in 2012... A protester is held back by police ... while protesters nearby opposed the Bahrain ruler's human rights record Crispin Black, a Sandhurst graduate and former instructor, says the academy should not have taken the money. "Everywhere you look there's a memorial to something, a building or a plaque that serves as a touchstone that takes you right to the heart of British military history. Calling this hall 'King Hamad Hall' ain't gonna do that." Sandhurst gave a written response to the criticism. "All donations to Sandhurst are in compliance with the UK's domestic and international legal obligations and our values as a nation. Over the years donations like this have saved the UK taxpayer a considerable amount of money." But what happens when Sandhurst's friends become enemies? In 2001, then-prime minister Tony Blair visited Damascus, marking a warming of relations between the UK and Syria. Shortly after, in 2003, Sandhurst was training officers from the Syrian armed forces. Now, of course, Syria is an international pariah. Journalist Michael Cockerell has written about Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi's time at the Army School of Education in Beaconsfield in 1966: "Three years [later], Gaddafi followed a tradition of foreign officers trained by the British Army. He made use of his newfound knowledge to seize political power in his own country." Ahmed Ali Sandhurst-trained Ahmed Ali was a key player in the Egyptian military's removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi That tradition persists. In the 1990s Egyptian colonel Ahmed Ali attended Sandhurst. In 2013 he was one of the key figures in the Egyptian military's removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, now rewarded by a post in President Sisi's inner circle of advisers. In the late 1990s there were moves by the British government under Tony Blair to end Sandhurst's training of overseas cadets. Major-General Arthur Denaro, Middle East adviser to the defence secretary and commandant at Sandhurst in the late 1990s, describes the idea as part of the "ethical foreign policy" advocated by the late Robin Cook, then-foreign secretary. Tony Blair and Robin Cook Tony Blair and Robin Cook at one point planned to end Sandhurst's training of overseas cadets The funeral of King Hussein in 1999 appears to have scuppered the plan. "Coming to that funeral were the heads of state of almost every country in the world - and our prime minister was there, Tony Blair," says Major-General Denaro. "He happened to see me talking to heads of state - the Sultan of Brunei, the Sultan of Oman, the Bahrainis, the Saudis - and he said 'How do you know all these guys?' The answer was because they went to Sandhurst." Today, Sandhurst has reportedly trained more officer cadets from the UAE than from any other country bar the UK. The May 2014 intake included 72 overseas cadets, around 40% of whom were from the Middle East. "In the future," says Maryam al-Khawaja, acting president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, "people will look back at how much Britain messed up in the [Middle East] because they wanted to sell more Typhoon jets to Bahrain, rather than stand behind the values of human rights and democracy." "It's one thing saying we're inculcating benign values, but that's not happening," says Habiba Hamid. Sandhurst is "a relic of the colonial past. They're not [teaching] the civic values we ought to find in democratically elected leaders." line Who else went to Sandhurst? Princes William and Harry, Winston Churchill, Ian Fleming, Katie Hopkins, Antony Beevor, James Blunt, Josh Lewsey, Devon Harris (From left to right) Princes William and Harry Sir Winston Churchill Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond (but did not complete training) Katie Hopkins, reality TV star Antony Beevor, historian James Blunt, singer-songwriter Josh Lewsey, World Cup-winning England rugby player Devon Harris, member of Jamaica's first bobsleigh team line Sandhurst says that "building international relations through military exchanges and education is a key pillar of the UK's international engagement strategy". Sandhurst may be marvellous for the UK, a country where the army is subservient to government, but it is also delivering militarily-trained officers to Middle Eastern monarchies where, often, armies seem to exist to defend not the nation but the ruling family.

Image
Generations of foreign royals - particularly from the Middle East - have learned to be military leaders at the UK's Sandhurst officer training academy. But is that still a good idea, asks Matthew Teller. Since 1812, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, on the Surrey/Berkshire border, has been where the British Army trains its officers. It has a gruelling 44-week course testing the physical and intellectual skills of officer cadets and imbuing them with the values of the British Army. Alongside would-be British officers, Sandhurst has a tradition of drawing cadets from overseas. Many of the elite families of the Middle East have sent their sons and daughters. Perhaps the most notable was King Hussein of Jordan. Four reigning Arab monarchs are graduates of Sandhurst and its affiliated colleges - King Abdullah of Jordan, King Hamad of Bahrain, Sheikh Tamim, Emir of Qatar, and Sultan Qaboos of Oman. Past monarchs include Sheikh S
Read more