Sherifat aregbesola biography channel
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Iya Kabiru and other stories
By Reuben Abati
“Iya Kabiru must be the luckiest woman in Nigeria today”
“Who is that? I don’t know anybody so-called”
“You don’t know Iya Kabiru? But you know Baba Kabiru?”
“Do they know me?”
“This is the problem with you. You only think about you, you, you. I am sure when I tell you now who Baba Kabiru is, you will jump up and say you know him”
“Look, just say what you want to say. I have too many things to worry about other than this your D.O. Fagunwa story about Iya Kabiru. Today is a busy day for me not a day for idle talk”
“Hey, don’t get worked up, chill, my friend. Iya Kabiru is the wife of Governor Rauf Aregbesola, the comrade Governor of Osun State who is leaving office today after eight years in office. Kabiru is their first son. He got married last year. Many people who know the Governor call him Baba Kabiru.”
“So, what has that got to do with all the serious issues of survival that Nigerians are worried about. You know you should be more responsible. You can’t go about gossiping about other people’s lives.”
“I don’t gossip. I am trying to say something very serious. By the time I am done, even you will learn
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As my angel turns 60
My sojourn in Kaduna in the 1980s, first for my youth service and later for a paid employment, will remain ever memorable. This is because it was there that I found the love of my life, Iyaafin Sherifat Abidemi Aregbesola.
I was a dashing young man with long hair and ideological fire burning in my soul. I had been caught in the throes of the ideological fervour of the time. I left The Polytechnic Ibadan fired with idealism and was prepared to change the world.
People of my generation actually were fiercely nationalistic. They wanted the best for the country and at the same time were globalist. Our vision was not just for Nigeria; we wanted a world devoid of injustice, inequality, poverty, diseases and other afflictions of humanity. Zaria-Kaduna too was a hotbed of activism and provided a natural habitat for me. I was therefore too serious to have any social life. All that would soon change.
It started 39 years ago when I daily secretly admired a damsel in front of her residence on Ibrahim Taiwo Road, in Tundun-Wada, Kaduna. Strangely, it appeared this fine young lady was always there whenever I passed by on my way to my own residence in Dustima Road, Tundun-Wada, in the same Kaduna, each day at the close of work in the now defunct National Freight Co
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