Suleiman Uba Gaya writes for Daily Dispatch every Friday (BRASS TRACKS)

Suleiman Uba Gaya is the immediate past Deputy President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and is one of the most versatile editors in Nigeria, with deep international connections. He is the only Nigerian editor to have attended twice, on invitation, the Editorial Meeting of The New York Times, and is currently a member of the highly-selective World Editors Forum’s Global Experts Group On Distributed Platforms.

He is also a member of the International Press Institute, the Global Editors Network and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. At the 2015 World News Congress that took place in Washington DC, he successfully rallied leading global editors to take a stand against the government of Turkey, for its terrible record against freedom of the press, and is a passionate defender of free press on the international circuit.

Locally, Gaya served for four years (2013 – 2017) as Vice President of the NGE in charge of Abuja and the nineteen northern states, before his elevation by Nigerian editors to the post of Deputy President at the Biennial Convention of the NGE that took place in Lagos in April, 2017. He has the record of being the only person that got for the NGE, its biggest asset thus far, and has chaired the Guild’s Fundraising Dinner Planning Committee which in 2014, drew the cream of the Nigerian society to Abuja, including the then President of Nigeria. He also served as Chairman of the Planning Committee of the All Nigeria Editors Conference that took place in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, in September, 2017. The NGE is the apex organisation for the profession of journalism in Nigeria.

His first appointment as editor was twenty one years ago in 1998, and he has edited a host of Nigerian publications, the most prominent of which include Leadership (daily), New Telegraph (Managing Editor), New Republican (MD/EIC), The Authority (Managing Editor), Today’s Impact (Executive Director/Chairman, Editorial Board) Concern Magazine (Executive Director), Jamhuriya Hausa newspaper (Editor-in-Chief), Liberty Magazine (CEO/EIC), SKYLIMIT Media Group (Managing Director) and he was a director at Leadership Newspapers Group. He was also a prominent columnist with the New Nigerian, The Triumph as well as Leadership newspapers. He presently runs a full page weekly column with the Daily Sun newspaper.

Gaya is also a member of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, the Institute of Mass Communications, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Policy and Management Development. He was also a Special Adviser (Special Duties) to the former Governor of Kano State, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau (2007 – 2011) and has briefly served in the Presidential Campaign Council of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999.

With his epic book, Not Fit To Live. Gaya holds the record of being the youngest son of old Kano State to have authored a novel in English language. The book was published by The Triumph newspapers in 1990. With his second book, The Trail of Blood, he became a member of the Association of Nigerian Authors and the Society of Authors, England. Gaya has authored hundreds of articles in national and international magazines and newspapers, and has travelled widely around the world.

He is also a respected community leader who has served at various levels in the Police-Community Relations Committee of Kano State, as well as very many non-governmental organizations championing good causes of his locality, including the Centre for Qur’anic Reciters of Nigeria, which is championing the cause of interfaith dialogue at home and abroad.

As a sports enthusiast, Gaya has served as Chairman, Kano State Badminton Association (2006 – 2010).

He was born in Kano on May 1, 1969, and is happily married with children.