Providing Educational Support: Prof. Gwarzo as a Model, by Adnan Mukhtar Tudunwada
“Education is the most powerful tool which you can use to change the world”–Nelson Mandela
As a business magnate and founder of Maryam Abacha American University of Niger and Nigeria, he had long realized the importance of this quote attributed to the iconic African revolutionary, Nelson Mandela, who is fondly called Madiba.
Adamu Abubakar Gwarzo, a Professor of French Linguistics is an exemplary leader that should be emulated, owing to his immense investment in nation’s educational sector.
At 43, Professor Gwarzo, is the largest investor in education from the north. After establishing the Maryam Abacha American University of Niger, MAUN, he moved on by actualising his dream of establishing the second private university in Kano State, and the first to be established by an indigene of the State.
His donation of a 30-seater luxury bus to select institutions of learning in Kano, Kaduna and Katsina States, recently, was a thing of joy and inspiration to many wealthy Northern personalities.
Recalled that Prof. Gwarzo’s kind gesture started with Federal University Dutsinma, in Katsina; Kaduna Polytechnic, KADPoly; Bayero University, Kano, BUK; and the Yusuf Maitama Sule University.
Some weeks ago, the acclaimed don, also promised to build a 160-room hostel and then donated a 30-seater bus to Al-Istiqama University, in Sumaila, that was founded by former House of Representatives Deputy Minority Leader, Hon. Suleiman Abdulrahman Kawu Sumaila.
Unlike other universities’ proprietors, Prof. Gwarzo did not see Sumaila as his competitor, but rather, someone that will join hands with him for the development of Kano, and in extension, Nigeria’s university education system.
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Personally, I have not come across a man flawlessly generous, and blessed with a good heart like Gwarzo. At every moment, he likes discussing anything development and is seeing Al-Istiqama University and other proposed private universities in Kano as not MAUN’s rivals, but institutions that will help transform Kano’s educational sector.
With an undying passion for humanity, education and young people, Prof. Gwarzo, is clearly a perfect role model for our younger generation and people, in particular. His listless philanthropic acts have earned him respect in the eyes of the global community.
Little wonder, the Federal University Dutsinma recently named its University clinic after him. Equally, the management of Al-Istiqama University also took the deliberate step of naming its 160-room hostel after the eminent philanthropist.
Both universities cited his consistent philanthropic supports, doggedness, understanding and unequalled commitment to modernizing Kano’s education sector and human development, as reasons for naming the clinic and hostel after him. These moves are commendable.
From being a member of the Advisory Board of the International Management and Academic Association with headquarters in London, to becoming a Former President of the Association for the Protection of Journalists of Africa, and currently, the President of Association of African Universities, Prof. Gwarzo is an achiever and mentor.
After securing an approval licence for Maryam Abacha American University of Nigeria to operate as a private school; he has proposed the establishment of another new private university, the Franco-British International University in Kaduna.
As a business mogul with vast network across the world, Gwarzo perceives Nigeria’s educational sector as his safest and best place of investment.
If Mallam Aminu Kano is alive today, no doubt he will honour and commend Gwarzo for the good things he has been doing and the love he radiates to less privilege.
Prof. Gwarzo, in fact, once told me during a private chat that showing love and compassion is the only legacy he can bequeathe for himself and his family.
If all the affluent in the country will be like Gwarzo, and invest hugely in our educational sector, the narrative of Nigeria as a third world state would have been changed.
May our dear country be blessed with thousands of Adamu Abubakar Gwarzo, in no distant time.
Adnan is a writer and university lecturer, he writes from Kano
