By Abubakar H. Muhammad (May 2026)
The participation of young people in leadership and politics is sweeping across the world today, and the story is no different in Nigeria. This is also not limited to the popular role of ‘political thugs’ they usually play during election periods, but they are now seen at the center of decision-making processes within and outside government.
This new development can be attributed to many reasons, but the central arguments are basically two: the emergence of many young leaders making remarkable strides in leadership roles across the globe, thereby motivating, impacting, and influencing changes against the status quo in the country.
Secondly, it can be, to a lesser extent, attributed to the failures of the older generation that has ruled the country for decades without any reasonable development, or perhaps their slow pace in catching up with the rest of the world.
Be that as it may, this development, coupled with several other global factors, is giving birth to new reforms and ways of doing things, challenging conservative approaches while paving the way for younger minds.
At the heart of these young minds catalyzing development in Nigeria is a veterinarian whose journey into politics and public service is marked by a sequence of events that shaped his story and contribution to the development of his society.
There are always conflicting thoughts and public arguments about one’s discipline, educational background, and training in relation to what he or she does later in life, and this personality is not an exception to that reality. In fact, he is not only a medical doctor-turned-politician, but an animal specialist now working directly with public officers to serve the masses.
Now busy ensuring that every nook and cranny of his state, Yobe, recognizes and feels the impact of government, this public servant is demonstrating that good leadership, if anything, can only be truly effective if leaders engage directly with the masses, that it is no longer fashionable to lead from behind an executive desk.
His continued urge and drive to serve the people and his journey into public service are logically not accidental, and that would perhaps explain how he opted to do things differently.
The passion and stamina with which he carries the heavy burden upon himself are the culmination of experiences and stories that built his personality.
Born in old Borno State, in the capital Maiduguri, in the early 80s, his childhood was characterized by events such as military coups, instability in government, and other political and social crises.
He began his education at a public school, Abbaganaram Primary School in Maiduguri, and after graduating in 1990, he was sent to a boarding school in Madagali, Adamawa State, to start junior secondary school, where he spent only a year.
His journey in Madagali ended amid the jubilation sweeping across present-day Yobe State, his ancestral home, when it was carved out of the old Borno in 1991.
Originally from Buni Yadi in Yobe, the future doctor’s father, a civil servant, was duty-bound to return home and help steer the infant state, and so was he, to study at home.
He joined Government College Damaturu, now Federal Government College Nguru, and later moved to Government Senior Science Secondary School, Potiskum, where he obtained his West African Examination Certificate (WAEC) in 1996.
The later story of his life and achievements is not unconnected to his days in Potiskum, where he said he met most of his friends and network.
He has, in several public statements, mentioned some of his schoolmates and how they impacted his life. In May 2015, he recalled some of them in a Facebook post while congratulating Dr. Mohammed Musa Lawan, the first PhD graduate of their set. Among them are now university lecturers, engineers, lawyers, humanitarian aid workers, and politicians spread across Nigeria.
When Nigeria was celebrating its new democracy with former President Olusegun Obasanjo as president, the fresh graduate from Potiskum was battling with the choice of what to study in tertiary education, a phenomenon that would shape his future. That was further complicated by his father’s wish to have ‘a doctor’ son. But although he had a different dream, anything that involved mathematics would do for him.
“My favorite subject was mathematics. I was obsessed with numbers and calculations, but my ambition was to become a pilot,” he said during an exclusive interview at his Damaturu residence.
Like a child’s dream shaped by cinematic influence, he later desired to be a soldier or any uniformed personnel, but fate had its own plan.
Despite growing up in a large polygamous family, life was generally modest for him. First, as a civil servant in old Borno State, his father had two wives and many children.
“I am from a middle-class family. I am the second of about 20 children. Although we didn’t have material abundance, life was smooth for us growing up. We never lacked anything, especially basic needs,” he said.
The large family setting had equally equipped him with experience of different characters, and understanding their actions and inactions became an asset that now describes his exceptional qualities in interacting directly with locals.
The twist and turns finally happened in 1997 when he gained admission to study Veterinary Medicine at the University of Maiduguri, known as Unimaid, after a remedial program. That created a balance between his desire to work with numbers and his father’s wish for ‘a doctor’ son.
Typical of the Nigerian academic system, it took him nine years to graduate due to frequent disruptions like workers’ strikes. Available records show that there were about six strike actions by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) between 1999 and 2006 alone.
After graduating in 2006, he was yet again confronted with the question of what to do next and where to start. Perhaps passing through the university, meeting different people, and engaging in several activities had changed his perception of things and molded in him a different orientation and vision for the future.
Politics on university campuses is usually the beginning and stepping stone for most politicians, and in Nigerian universities, for instance, staying in hostels is close to a shortcut into active participation.
Like many successful politicians in the country, his foray into politics started at the Unimaid campus.
“It was tough to get involved in campus politics at that time because, unlike now, there were many rich students with influential parents in the university. We always got intimidated by the big boys,” he narrated.
And while many students find it difficult to balance academics, campus politics, and other economic and social challenges, the student-doctor was privileged to witness the dying phase of the ‘golden generation’ in Nigerian universities, a time when basic amenities were within students’ reach, an opportunity for young minds to multitask, and he took it.
From activism to member of the student assembly, he became a member of the electoral committee twice for the Student Union Government (SUG). “That experience laid my foundation and interest in politics, but it did not mature until later in life,” he said.
That period was not only characterized by relative ease in the academic environment but also by an abundance of opportunities after graduation. This reality presented him with several choices after graduation, and he got an automatic appointment with the Yobe State government as a Graduate Veterinary Officer at grade level six. This, however, was after finishing the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) at Kindila Veterinary Hospital, Kano.
Serving the state government and practicing what he studied wasn’t fulfilling for the fresh graduate, and it did not last long before he jumped into the labor market.
For the love of numbers, he did not hesitate to accept an offer to work at a bank, the former Intercontinental Bank, now Access Bank, Maiduguri branch, in 2008.
Working in the bank was supposed to fulfill his passion for numbers and calculations, but it was not long before he found himself wanting something else.
Rejoining the labor market, he applied to the Nigerian University Commission and also for a job at the Nigerian Prison Service, Ministry of Interior. As fate would have it, he was enlisted, and after a short service training in Kaduna, screening in Gombe, and internship in Potiskum, the young doctor landed at the Prison Farm Centre.
“The job had a lot of hype at that time. It was three ranks above other graduate positions. It was like working in an oil firm or one of these lucrative government organizations like NNPC. With a N190,000 monthly salary, I was earning more than enough and life was very comfortable,” he said.
Then came the Boko Haram crisis. When the first terrorist war broke out in 2009, the years that followed saw the emergence of new security threats, especially for uniformed personnel. The serial killings of policemen and other security workers in Maiduguri changed everything for him.
Confronted with daily threats to life two years after Boko Haram’s first major armed encounter with security forces, he shared with his parents the thought of quitting the job.
Leaving the prison service opened up a new phase of life for the former officer and set him up for a new challenge. In the same year, he sponsored himself to acquire a foreign master’s degree, an action that came not without sacrifice.
He recalled during an interview how he sold his car and a plot of land to fund his postgraduate studies in Public Health and Biostatistics in Malaysia.
“But I also had support from other people at some point, like Dr. Yerima Ngama, then of the Ministry of Finance, who covered some of my bills during my studies,” he said.
True to his energetic character, he did not take for granted the brief wait while anticipating his results in a foreign land and took up an ad-hoc job, until he finally graduated in 2014 and returned to Nigeria.
The year 2014 was a chaotic period in the northeastern region of Nigeria, particularly in Borno and Yobe. It was a period when terrorist activities were at an all-time high.
That situation had created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the two states as many security personnel and thousands of civilians were killed while millions were displaced.
In addressing that crisis, local and international NGOs trooped in large numbers to bring mostly immediate relief to the victims and survivors of the conflict.
Informed of what awaited him, the now rejuvenated health worker was back home amid that chaos, aiming to turn a new leaf in his life and career. Would Dr. Mohammed Goje now find his path, the path he had been searching for within himself, in the center of the crisis?
To be continued in part 2…
