President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, has extended warm felicitations to Honourable Hamma-Adama Ali Kumo, popularly known as Dattuwa, as he celebrates his 55th birthday.

In a statement from the State House, President Tinubu described Hon. Kumo as a patriotic leader, a loyal party stalwart, and a dedicated public servant whose contributions have strengthened the All Progressives Congress (APC) and advanced Nigeria’s democratic journey. The President praised Kumo’s commitment to grassroots mobilization, his advocacy for education and youth empowerment, and his role in fostering unity within the APC, particularly in Gombe State.

Hon. Kumo currently serves as Chairman of the Governing Board of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), where he has championed initiatives to boost skills acquisition and workforce development across the country. He also holds the position of Deputy National Financial Secretary of the APC, a role in which he has been instrumental in promoting transparency and accountability in party administration.

President Tinubu noted that Kumo’s political career reflects resilience, vision, and a deep commitment to service. “Honourable Hamma-Adama Ali Kumo has consistently demonstrated integrity and patriotism in his service to our nation. His leadership continues to inspire progress in Gombe State and across Nigeria,” the President said.

Tributes have poured in from colleagues and supporters who describe Kumo as a bridge-builder, mentor, and advocate for the welfare of his people. His 55th birthday celebration has become a moment to reflect on his enduring impact on Nigerian politics and governance.

As he turns 55, President Tinubu prayed for Hon. Kumo’s continued good health, renewed strength, and greater accomplishments in the years ahead, emphasizing that leaders like him embody the values of patriotism and service that Nigeria needs to thrive..

Barely a week ago, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission once again proved that Nigeria’s anti-graft war is far from a toothless bulldog. Chairman Dr Musa Adamu Aliyu, SAN, disclosed to State House correspondents in Abuja that his commission had unearthed yet another fake government agency, this time operating brazenly within the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. The phantom outfit, calling itself the National Brands Development and Made in Nigeria Special Project Office, had somehow managed to secure office accommodation, gain access to public servants, open bank accounts and even wriggle its way into the 2026 national budget, all without any legitimate presidential authorisation.
The discovery was not accidental. It emerged from the ICPC’s dogged investigation into the earlier scandal involving the fake Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, an outfit promoted by one Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew that had similarly infiltrated government structures before Aliyu’s team blew the lid off it. Following his Friday briefing to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the President ordered the immediate arrest of George Buchi Nwabueze, identified as the man behind the new fake agency, and directed the suspension of three permanent secretaries in the OSGF: M.S. Danjuma, Nandungu Gagare and Richard Pheelangwah, over the circumstances that allowed the fraudulent office to thrive under their watch. Investigators further found that the outfit had built an elaborate structure complete with an executive director, zonal directors, state coordinators and even foreign representatives, a level of sophistication that speaks to how deeply corruption can burrow into government machinery when vigilance slips.
The ICPC did not stop at exposing the fraud. It went further to indict the Budget Office of the Federation for negligence, establishing that officials had processed and onboarded the phantom council into the 2026 Appropriation Act despite glaring gaps in its documentation, relying instead on informal engagements and unverified scanned approvals rather than due diligence. It was a sobering reminder that corruption does not always announce itself with the theft of physical cash; sometimes it hides in the quiet failures of institutional process, waiting for a vigilant commission to catch what ordinary oversight missed.
This latest exposure is only the newest chapter in what has been a remarkably consistent record for Aliyu since he took the reins as the Commission’s fifth substantive chairman. In his first year alone, he reported cash recoveries of nearly ₦30 billion domiciled in ICPC recovery accounts, alongside almost ₦11 billion recovered as Value Added Tax and remitted to the Federal Inland Revenue Service, and ₦10 billion clawed back from the COVID-19 vaccine fund and returned to the treasury. Forfeited assets in that period alone were valued at ₦2.5 billion plus close to a million dollars in foreign currency.
The momentum has not slackened. By 2024, the Commission had recovered more than ₦20 billion in cash and properties from corrupt individuals. The following year proved even more fruitful: 2025 closed with the ICPC announcing recoveries of ₦37.44 billion and over $2.35 million through asset seizures and forfeitures, one of its most significant annual hauls since the Commission’s founding. That year also saw the agency investigate 263 cases against a target of 250, file 61 cases in court, and secure a conviction rate of 55.74 percent, including the notable jailing of a University of Calabar professor for abuse of office.
Beyond the courtroom victories and cash recoveries, Aliyu has placed heavy emphasis on tracking public infrastructure spending through the Commission’s Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking Initiative. As of the middle of this year, that initiative had tracked over four thousand five hundred public projects worth more than ₦22.5 trillion nationwide between 2023 and June 2026, recovering stalled projects valued at over ₦507 billion and generating an estimated ₦385.6 billion in savings for government coffers. Separately, the Commission has pointed to recoveries exceeding ₦130 billion drawn from public projects worth more than ₦35 trillion, alongside court-ordered forfeitures including properties worth over ₦5 billion tied to the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and nearly ₦942 million recovered from a 2024 payroll fraud scheme.
Taken together, the figures tell a story of an anti-corruption agency that, under Aliyu’s watch, has shifted from mere rhetoric to measurable results, running into hundreds of billions of naira reclaimed, saved or redirected back into the Nigerian treasury. Yet the chairman himself has been candid that the fight is far from over. He has repeatedly appealed to the National Assembly for improved funding, warning that inadequate resources continue to hamper the Commission’s manpower, logistics and operational capacity, even as staff morale suffers under the weight of high-risk investigative work. He has also pushed back firmly against suggestions that the Commission is being weaponised for political witch-hunting, insisting that its work is driven strictly by evidence and due process rather than political considerations.
If the recent unmasking of yet another ghost agency within the corridors of government is any indication, Nigerians can expect the ICPC under Musa Aliyu to keep peeling back the layers of institutional rot, one budget line, one phantom office, and one recovered billion at a time.

By: Inuwa Bwala.
I have read a lot of tributes to Borno state Governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum on his 57th birthday anniversary.
In most, Nigerians celebrate many things about Professor Babagana Umara Zulum.
To many, his unique leadership style, to others, his developmental strides and yet to others his many ventures into danger zones, the rebuilding of schools, his sleepless nights on duty and many other things.
I want to celebrate something quieter, and maybe more rare: seeing him as the teacher that he is, using
Borno as a big lecture hall, in which he deploys his teaching technique.
I dare say that, Governor Zulum goes to schools unannounced, not for photo shots, but to check attendance, to ask pupils questions, to see if the teacher is teaching. That is a lecturer’s habit.
He commissions hospitals and ask about drug inventory and rosters. That is a supervisor’s habit.
He stands in the rain with displaced families, not to make a speech, but to take notes. That is a researcher’s habit.
Most politicians campaign on promises, but he he is not seeking any position and does not need to campaign. He does things out of passion for true development.
At 57, Zulum reminds me that leadership is not about sitting in the office of power. It’s about sitting on the floor with students, under a tree with farmers, and in the dust with people who have lost everything, and then going back to “prepare the next lesson plan” for Borno redemption.
People often say a leader must choose between the office and the field, the book and the gun, and between the seminar and the street. Governor Zulum seems to have broken that rule by chosing both. And ir is working for Borno.
For me, today, I do not just celebrate a governor turning 57, I celebrate a teacher who took his entire state as his assignment, and refused to submit it half-done.
As the only Governor in Nigeria, who foes not aspire for any other political office after this, he may be retiring into a future only God know about, but one must not fail to state, that, Governor Zulum’s strength lies, not in the paraphenilia of governance but in the dedication of a leader who work, teach to graduate Borno into peace, dignity, and pride.
Happy 57th Birthday, Proffessor Babagana Umara Zulum.