In an attempt to change lives by helping people understand their problems and work towards solving them, the Yusuf Maitama Tuggar Foundation was born in 2020 to achieve these objectives. It was founded by Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, Nigeria’s ambassador to Germany.
The fact that charity begins at home, the foundation is widely present in Gamawa and Bauchi state as a whole, Daily Review pays a visit to Gamawa local government area of Bauchi to assess the impacts the foundation is having on people.
Adama Ibrahim was getting ready to prepare street foods ahead of Ramadan iftar as she utilized the opportunity to sell kunu and kosai to Muslims fasting during the Holy Month.
She started the business after receiving a seed-capital from Yusuf Maitama Tuggar Foundation over five months ago, but now she has increased the size of her business five-fold, and today she has five staff. She is now able to pay her children’s school fees and saves enough to buy two plots of land in the outskirts of Gamawa town.
“I don’t think I would have been able to be who I am today without the support from the Tuggar Foundation,” she told the Daily Review Newspaper, saying she is planning to expand her business.
Malama Adama, a mother of three, is not the only woman whose life has been changed forever by the altruistic services being led by Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, there are hundreds of people who have benefited from the foundation in various sectors such as scholarship, medical bills, and extraordinary circumstances like flood and disasters.
“The foundation feeds more 200 people everyday during this holy month of Ramadan,” Alhaji Bello Muhammad Tukur, the director-general of the foundation told Daily Review.
“The major contribution Ambassador Yusuf Maitaima Tuggar is giving to this community and other places in Bauchi, is mobilizing the people to study their salient problems working to address. To solve the problems, we must groom our leaders and make sure they would not betray the people they represent.”
According to him, this advocacy has led to the massive success of the APC in Gamawa, producing one member of the Federal House of Representatives and another member of the Bauchi State House of Assembly all from Gamawa.
“We have confidence in the new elected members because they know recognize the power of the people and our coordination with rural communities can make or mar their ambitions depending on whether they return the favour by addressing the problems people have voted for them to solve, or abuse them by enriching themselves which I don’t think they would try this,” he added.
Over the past three years, the Yusuf Maitama Tuggar has supported hundreds of people in Gamawa and other parts of Bauchi State, and Daily Review Newspaper has managed to get in touch with the beneficiaries, and their testimonies have given credence to the fact that Yusuf Maitama Tuggar Foundation is redefining the concept of leadership in Bauchi.
“Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar is gradually becoming a household name in Bauchi,” said Abdulrahman Darazo who resides in Gamawa.
“If the foundation continues to impact the lives of people over the next two years, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar would conquer Bauchi. It is a strategy that works in the Bauchi politics. It worked for Governor Bala Muhammad, and it will surely work for the ambassador,” he added.
Another beneficiary from Azare Local Government who did not want to have his name mentioned told the Daily Review that he would forever remain grateful to Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar after his heavily pregnant wife required an emergency surgery as a result of complication she developed which required a huge amount of money, but he had no means of sourcing the money as he barely eked out a living everyday to stop his family from starvation.
Yusuf Maitama Tuggar came to his rescue, offering to cover the medical bill and handed him expensive gift to congratulate as he welcomed a new baby boy.
“I never in my wildest imagination thought there was any human being in Bauchi who could help a poor person like me without expecting anything in return until Yusuf Maitama Tuggar Foundation proved me wrong,” he told Daily Review Newspaper as he fought tears.
Alhaji Bello Muhammad said the foundation plans to expand its programs in the coming months, and train more youth in leadership and businesses especially in the neglected communities in Bauchi.
“Yusuf Maitama Tuggar Foundation will continue to support people for as long as it takes,” he said.
