It’s heartening that within only 46 years on earth, your life has been so impactful. Your diligence, dedication and discipline (3Ds), I suspect, with the mercy of God, have all worked together to produce an academic icon like you.
You set out early to fear God. You showed restraint while many of your colleagues in your undergraduate days, threw sanity to the wind.
As your former teacher in the University of Ilorin a few decades ago, and as well as your final year project supervisor, I saw in you a healthy seed snowballing into a mighty tree. I saw the seed of an embodiment of intelligence and critical thinking faculty.
Your indefatigable personality, humility and uncommon courage in the face of glaring uncertainty is the result of what you are reaping today.
From a relatively humble background, you walked your way up to the palace. With courage unfeigned, the dynamite in you refused to depreciate. And the fire in your bones continued to burn hotter. Your fertile investigative mind endowed with a creative intelligence system is a marvel to us all.
Thanks be unto your Maker who has made you a goal-getter academic.
Your in-depth and topical PhD thesis is a platform on which you stand, singing the sonorous community policing song. You sang it in the villages and you sang same in the cities. You sang it among the whites and you sang and danced with the song among your native black, both at home and in the diaspora. With the village bell you sang the community policing chorus. And the town criers took the song to the Presidency.
Your vision has crossed borders, making you a blazing light in the midst of multitudes. And yet, you have not deposited all that is within you. You must not rest on your oars, else the one eyeing you across the corner will steal the glory.
I strongly believe you have all it takes, with God on your side, to go further and farther. You will be more fulfilled thereby and humanity will celebrate your name to the ends of the earth. Dr. Aminu Musa Audu, congratulations on your eventful birthday! May your path continue to shine brighter and brighter.
– Prof. Steve Metiboba.
Professor of Medical Sociology and Former Deputy Vice Chancellor, Kogi State University, Anyigba, Nigeria.
