Gimba’s story: Young lawyer, 22 touching lives with online forum
Friday, February 9, 2018 Barrister Suleiman Hassan Gimba was born in Potiskum, Yobe State. He was called to the Nigerian Bar in December 2017 at age 22, after he began law education at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria when he was 16. In this interview, Gimba speaks on how his online forum, Forward Yobe, Forward (FYF) has impacted on lives since 2015. successfully executed our first project at Government Day Secondary School, Damaturu, in 2016. The story is motivated by the desire to help others and now with new members, the desire to help others couldn’t have been greater. We also have a Writers’ Club. The aim is to bring established writers together and to unearth potential writers in the state. We have made progress in this regard as writers are using their pens to have our voices heard in the state. @SimonEchewofun
What’s the motivation for progressive forum? story your
A true and good measure of finding our way is by helping others find theirs but an even truer and better way of finding our way is by growing with the people around us and finding our way together, there is no better feeling than that for me.
Even for a young state, Yobe is not where it should be in terms of development and we cannot expect the government to provide everything for us. So, one cannot sit down, fold one’s arms and then say God made us this way because that would be a lie. We have dreams and the right to chase them. I don’t have a child yet or even married but I want him to be in a better society than this, and his children too and their children.
How then did you start the forum?
I started an online forum in 2015 with a posse of friends, Musbahu Goni, Muhammed Ba’aba, my cousin Zaharaddeen Gimba and a few others, which served as a medium where matters affecting the state were discussed. We grew gradually and got a decent number of members in Damaturu, and together, we started the FYF of today and
08078068532 What is your membership strength? current
We have more than 1,000 members spread across the 17 local governments of Yobe State and beyond. We are one happy, growing family.
What is the nature of your projects?
Education is the centrepiece of our projects because education is the key to development. We offer Career Talk and guidance to JS 3 and JS 2 students because education is the seed of development and we want to sow it in everyone. We have also concentrated on the female child across schools because everyone needs to know and believe that educating a girl is like educating the whole society.
We are agreeing with the proprietors of private schools in Potiskum to collegiate FYF, when it starts, every secondary school in Potiskum will have an FYF Club, which will, in shaa Allah increase the impact of our activities.
We visit prisoners like those at the Potiskum Prison and offer them provisions and to also show them that there is a future after prison and they can attain it if they go for it.
As a victim of the Boko Haram mayhem, I took a keen interest in the raising of awareness against violent extremism. Our family house was burnt in October 2012 and I lost a lot of friends and neighbours. I know how hard it was for me and that is why I don’t want another person to experience similar thing. We also hold campaigns against tribalism, hate speech and anything that may hinder the development of Yobe state or the people’s peace. Recently, we helped a victim of breast cancer, Fatima, to raise money for her treatment. We were able to raise a total sum of N163,000 out of the N200,000 she needed for treatment. She is currently receiving treatment at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital.
What projects are you currently working on?
A lot, actually. We will be marking the surface of the roads in Potiskum this month and sensitization about various road signs and their importance. Which we hope would make our roads safer. We have joined forces with the National Union of Yobe State Students to start a JAMB training camp in each of the three zones to improve the quality of education in our state.
Voter education is really something that concerns us and even though we are confident in our abilities but this is an area, we believe, we should be looking at the possibility of partnering with NGOs in the area to achieve this.
As a young activist, do you face challenges in your operations?
As a young professional in a mostly conservative environment like ours, it was a bit difficult to get to convince the older generation of the seriousness of our initiative. However, with the recent successes recorded by our Movement (like the treatment of Fatima, a cancer patient), more people are now willing to support or even join forces with us.
Another challenge we are facing, is the number of members. There are places in the state that are difficult to execute our projects because of lack of membership strength.
How do you source your fund for projects?
We raise funds from sales of forms, members’ solicitation and donations from the schools we have been to as a way of showing their appreciation. We try as much as possible not to get something from politicians.
What is your advice youth, many of who are unemployed? to still
Looking at the rate of unemployment in the society, one can tell that it is not ending anytime too soon. The problem is that we have conditioned our minds into believing that the only way to be employed is through a salaried job; that is wrong. At this age of computer and entrepreneurship, the youth should be looking at ways to employ themselves. One can go into blogging, developing apps, investing in digital assets and even buying and selling goods. Being an entrepreneur will even pay better than any salary one might earn.