Abdulkareem Baba Aminu (born Kaduna, 7 July 1977) is a Nigerian journalist, cartoonist, comicbook artist and retailer, painter, writer, poet and culture critic.
Baba Aminu is a commentator on culture. He was one of four judges for KORA Music Awards. [1]
Born in Kaduna, Nigeria, on 7 July 1977, Baba Aminu soon began to scribble and doodle as a child, eventually going on to write an op-ed column for Classique Magazine at age 12.
Later, while in secondary school, he created two weekly cartoon strips for the Saturday and Sunday editions of The Democrat, a national daily. The characters, Bala and Kareema, became popular and were used by Peugeot Automobiles Nigeria to endorse their then-new 306 model.
Baba Aminu went to the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, for a degree in Business Administration, while pursuing a career as a studio painter. He has exhibited in several group shows and one solo. Twelve of his paintings are included in the National Assembly Art Collection in Abuja, Nigeria.
During his final year in university, he was employed by Weekly Trust, a major Nigerian newspaper. After a stint as a reporter, he became the Entertainment Editor and eventually the editor of the magazine section of the paper. During that time, he scored many exclusive interviews with Nigerian and international stars.
On his approach to work, Baba Aminu told a Nigerian newspaper in an interview:
“I have a healthy interest in stories and investigations into issues that seem to slip through the cracks and are forgotten by mainstream media. Even when it comes to entertainment stories, which some people believe are fluff, I look for previously-unseen angles. Oftentimes, I take weeks and even months researching a story before writing it for publication.”
For two years – with the help of the internet and long-distance phone calls - Baba Aminu was also the Special Features Editor of now-defunct Komikwerks.com, then a leading U.S-based publisher of both webcomics and regular comic books. [2]
Baba Aminu was part of a Federal Government Monitoring Team in Togo, during that country’s controversial 2005 elections, where he “faced death many times trying to escape back to Nigeria after the elections turned violent.” The resulting travelogue, called ‘Escape from Togo’ was published May 2005.
For his investigative journalism work, Baba Aminu was nominated for ‘Journalist of the Year’ at the 2006 edition of the Future Awards Nigeria. The following year, he was nominated again and he won. [3]
Baba Aminu was Acting Editor of the Abuja, Nigeria-based influential Weekly Trust newspaper for over two years, from late 2008 and was made substantive Editor in July 2010, until recently being promoted to Creative Editor overseeing all Media Trust publications. He returned for a second tenure as editor, for five years, before he retired early from the newsroom in October 2020. He is a member of Daily Trust's Editorial Board, and also writes a weekly column called Column No. 6 for the newspaper.
Baba Aminu was a writer on the BBC-produced Wetin Dey, the number one TV show in Nigeria while it ran for two seasons. The production saw him team up with notable young Nigerian movie directors like Mak 'Kusare, Kenneth Gyang and Seke Somolu. As a result of a very good professional and personal relationship, 'Kusare was tapped by Y!Magazine to write about Baba Aminu in the publication's annual "Freedom Issue" in 2010. The magazine also added Baba Aminu to its annual list of '50 Young People Who Will Change Nigeria'.
Notable TV appearances by Baba Aminu include a November 2012 episode of Close-Up, a movie industry variety TV show running on M-NET's Africa Magic channel where he was interviewed by host Keppy Ekpenyong Bassey.
Baba Aminu was one of the co-owners of Planet Comics, Nigeria’s first comic book store. [4] The store was closed due to both owners' busy schedules.
Derek "Dez" Skinn is a British comic and magazine editor, and author of a number of books on comics. As head of Marvel Comics' operations in England in the late 1970s, Skinn reformatted existing titles, launched new ones, and acquired the BBC license for Doctor Who Weekly. After leaving Marvel UK, Skinn founded and edited Warrior, which featured key works by Alan Moore.
Hindustan Times is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media Limited, an entity controlled by the Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia, the daughter of KK Birla.
Odoh Diego Okenyodo is a Nigerian writer, pharmacist, activist poet and journalist, who founded Akweya TV Ltd and Isu Media Ltd. Odoh was one of the founders of Kaduna Writers' League, KWL. He is also one of the Directors of Splendors Of Dawn Poetry Foundation. He co-edited Camouflage: Best of contemporary writing from Nigeria, an anthology of new Nigerian writers. The anthology included works by the most renowned contemporary Nigerian writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Helon Habila.
Reuben Adeleye Abati is a Nigerian Journalist, Politician, Television Anchor and Newspaper Columnist. He was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)'s Deputy Governorship candidate in Ogun State for the 2019 Gubernatorial election. Abati was Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria between Year 2011 and 2015. He was previously a newspaper columnist and the chairman of the editorial board of the Nigerian newspaper The Guardian from 2001 to 2011. He is a graduate of Theater Arts from the University of Calabar. Equally important, Reuben Abati is a Senior Research Associate with the Olusegun Obasanjo Centre for Cultural Studies and National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).
Aminu Isa Kontagora was a Nigerian politician who served as the Governor of Benue State, Nigeria, from August 1996 to August 1998 during the military regime of General Sani Abacha, then Governor of Kano State from September 1998 to May 1999 during the transitional regime of General Abdulsalami Abubakar, handing over power to the elected executive governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso on 29 May 1999.
Azubuike Ishiekwene was the former executive director of Punch Nigeria
Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed ; born 7 July 1969) is a Nigerian economist and politician who served as Senator for Kaduna North Senatorial District in 2011. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 2003 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, he was the party's vice presidential nominee in the 2023 presidential election, alongside presidential candidate Peter Obi.
The Miss World riots were a series of religiously motivated riots in the Nigerian city of Kaduna in November 2002, resulting in the deaths of more than 200 people. The Miss World beauty pageant, which was controversial in Nigeria, was relocated to London after bloody clashes between Muslims and Christians, caused by what some Muslims deemed to be a "blasphemous" article in the Christian newspaper ThisDay about the event. The Miss World riots were part of the Sharia conflict in Nigeria, that started in 1999 when several predominantly Islamic states in Northern Nigeria decided to introduce Sharia law.
Aisha Halilu Buhari ; born 17 February 1971) is a Nigerian beauty therapist who served as the first lady of Nigeria from 2015 to 2023, as the wife of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Bilkisu Yusuf, also known as Hajiya Bilkisu Yusuf,, was a Nigerian journalist, columnist and editor for prominent newspapers in Abuja, Kano and Kaduna, Nigeria. She is known in Nigeria for being the first woman to direct a national newspaper operation and served as editor for two more. She was a Hausa, Muslim, feminist, of Yoruba descent and advocate for interfaith society, who was known for being an adviser to the Nigerian President on International Affairs and the founding of NGOs, such as Women In Nigeria (WIN) and the Federation of Muslim Women's Association (FOMWAN). Yusuf was killed in the 2015 Mina stampede while on Haj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Sam Omatseye is a Nigerian poet, novelist, playwright and journalist. Born on June 15, 1961, Sam Omatseye hails from Delta State, Nigeria. He is a 2019 recipient of the National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM).
BBC Hausa is the Hausa-language service of the BBC World Service meant primarily for Hausa-speaking communities in Nigeria, Ghana, Niger and the rest of Hausa speakers across West Africa. It is part of the BBC's foreign language output of 33 languages, of which five are African languages. The service includes a radio station, a bureau office based in Abuja and a frequently-updated website which serves as a news portal and provides information as well as analysis in text, audio and video formats and online access to radio broadcasts. The radio service is broadcast from Broadcasting House in London with preliminary editing done at the BBC's bureau office in Abuja.
Farooq Adamu Kperogi, is a Nigerian-American professor, author, media scholar, newspaper columnist, blogger and activist. He was a reporter and news editor at many Nigerian newspapers including the Daily Trust, Daily Triumph and the now defunct New Nigerian.
Ibrahim Sheme is a bilingual Nigerian writer, journalist, filmmaker, and publisher. He worked as editor and correspondent of many Nigerian newspapers, including Leadership, The Tide, New Nigerian, The Reporter, and Hotline Magazine. He also authored the official biography of the number two man in the military government of General Olusegun Obasanjo, the late Major-General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, and the official biography of the leading Hausa musician and singer, the late Mamman Shata. He was the pioneer editor of Blueprint Newspaper and later its editor-in-chief. Sheme has been the Director of Media and Publicity at the National Open University of Nigeria since 2016
Kadaria Ahmed is a Nigerian journalist, media entrepreneur, television host and the chief executive officer of RadioNow 95.3FM. She started her career at the BBC in London and has worked in print, radio, television, online and social media platforms.
Hadiza Isma El-Rufai is a Nigerian writer (novelist), and wife to the former governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. She was the founder of Yasmin El-rufai Foundation (YELF), a non-profit literary organization.
Abidina Coomassie was a Nigerian journalist and newspaper publisher.
Samuel Ndanusa Isaiah, commonly known as Sam Nda-Isaiah, was a Nigerian political columnist, pharmacist, entrepreneur and journalist. He was the founder and chairman of the Leadership Newspaper.
Usman Baba Pategi, known mostly as Samanja Mazan Fama is a retired Nigerian Army. Together with Yusuf Ladan, Mamman Ladan and Idi Jibril an NTA staff introduced the Hausa comedy known now as Kannywood, Northern Nigerian films or Hausa films in 80s to the Northern audience.
Nasiru L. Abubakar is a Nigerian journalist from Kaduna and the Editor in Chief of Dateline Nigeria, an online publication company based in Abuja, Nigeria.