“Wow! Ismaeel I thought you’d be 50? And you’re just 40? What you’ve achieved so far, and your tremendous contributions to the success of our party the APC, something stratospheric is what you’re destined to be!” __VP Prof. Yemi Osinbajo. “He is very hardworking, very supportive and has care for our people and the development of this country. He is always dedicated to whatever you assign him to do. I have worked with him in the area of social intervention programmes and what I can say is that he is a great man”. __ Gov. Badaru of Jigawa state. “He is a leading light of the Nigerian youths in politics and it was clear to us, me and Asiwaju, when we met him, that he is a brilliant guy, and focused in ensuring that youths have a place and play their role in the development of Nigerian politics.”__ Minister for sports and youth development, Sunday Daare. These are comments from stalwarts of modern day politics in the country.
Ismaeel Ahmed Esq. just turned 40, and on his auspicious birthday celebration, you could see that the fella is really 50 and beyond, as far as politics and governance is concerned. The young Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari on Social Intervention Programmes has become quite a colossus in the interplay of the politics that brought Muhammadu Buhari into power and has sustained him, in a very rare political camaraderie with the national leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. For both Buhari and Tinubu, to have closely held up Ismaeel as a foot soldier, one can easily inhale the talent, skill, loyalty and youthful exuberance of this young man; 40 in age, 50 in politics.
On the occasion of his Birthday, where he assembled the best brains in a conference on education Kano, Ismaeel stepped to the General hospital in Kano, where he donated an Oxygen Accelarator machine, which would serve millions of less privileged people in Kano. He also empowered over 150 impoverished women, doling out cash and equipments to provide an economic buffer for the hard times that these women are encountering; especially in the face of the COVID-19 corona virus-hit economy, with dwindling oil prices.
Ismaeel is the face of Nigerian youths in politics, that gives the Buhari administration not only a youthful face, but the much needed humane face, that is friendly and comforting to the masses of the country — that they have a vocal interface with government officials and other instruments of governance. Not only the elders of the APC, but the youths as well, as members of the APC youth forum, which he pioneered, have confidence and faith in not only the capacity of Barr. Ismaeel, but in his antecedents, with a promise to deliver democracy and its dividends, to the quarters of a very huge youth population that are in dire need of leadership and direction. The sky is an obvious platform here, for Ismaeel, to reach a 50 of valor, honor and glory on a very slimy terrain of Nigerian politics, where youths are highly disadvantaged.
