Mukhtar Muhammad Mk
It was earlier today at exactly 12:02 am I received a text message from my fiancé A’ishat Ibrahim Umar commemorating my birthday. A’ishat, An undergraduate student of Nursing brilliantly praised my first Twenty Six years as promising urging me to thank God the Almighty for what she described as unprecedented achievements beyond my age and social status.
The short message of this young lady compelled me to mediate about the past, present and the future. But despite my proximity with her, I had a contrary view about her testimony. To my view, my birthday has nothing does not deserved to mark as celebrity. I only consider it as a Rite of Passage. It provide me an experience and the space readjust my position in my society to transmit its core values and confer the role responsibilities appropriate to the initiate’s stage of life, thus insuring cultural continuity, a sort of knitting together
It’s undoubted that I have enough reasons to be ever-grateful to God the Almighty for his uncountable blessings bestowed upon me. Hitherto my birthday marks the transition from one phase of challenges of life to another. It also poses a challenge to critically look at the role I played in changing my society in the past, What I am doing, What I am aspiring and how I am going to achieve it.
In trying to find solution to above individual sensitive challenges, I observed that at Twenty Six time have been just to me that I raised from a common student to a social commentator and a youth leader receiving unprecedented respect and ovation from my compatriots.
*Beginning of the End;
Twenty Six years ago the story began when the family of Muhammad Khaleed Kyaulori blessed with a baby which was named Mukhtar. The little Mukhtar raised and attended public primary and secondary school in Azare of Katagum Local Government area of Bauchi state.
*Who am I?
I am a social commentator and activist as well; a certified teacher for the past four years and currently studying law. I usually focus on education and charitable activities. I currently work with many charitable organizations on achieving my goal of wiping out illiteracy especially among children in Northeastern Nigeria.
I have chosen this this work because of the jeopardized state of education in my area leading to the spread of Boko Haram group. The group to understanding was widely accepted among youth due to the lack of interfaith and interreligious tolerance. Improving education in the area will improve the lives of the people, create jobs and make the environs forget the blood-bath days.
*My aspiration;
My most significant aspiration as a Law student is; I want to be one of the leading human activist and advocator of girl education. I also want to be an interfaith dialogue expert. As I hailed from Northeast part of Nigeria, where Boko Haram insurgency generated one of the most severe humanitarian crises in the world today, with more than Two million people displaced as internally displaced persons (IDPs) or refugees. Schools and colleges have been systematically attacked by Boko Haram and thousands of children were forcibly conscripted into the movement, destroying what was already a weak educational system in the northeast Nigerian states of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and part of Bauchi and Gombe states. To my observations, most of the members of the insurgents’ were either school dropouts or illiterates who may have had a rudimentary Qur’anic education, but insufficient to critique the Boko Haram doctrine. The rebuilding of the educational system in the region have been an essential component of reconstruction and future development. Paradoxically in north-east Nigeria there may well be increased grassroots demand for education in the wake of Boko Haram.
Before I become what I am today, some have sacrificed their lives and livelihood in the cause. I would like to thank my parent for not only putting up with me but being there when it counted and making me who I am. I am heartedly grateful to those who I have grown up with and have helped me over the years; you know who you are… I can say that I am truly blessed to have you all in my life, however a big thank you.
Mukhtar Muhammad Mk
