Each week, I try to respond to the silent curiosity of my readers, many of whom often ask: How do you write so easily, so quickly? Some wonder how I manage to produce articles on almost any topic within minutes. This isn’t to blow my trumpet, far from it. It’s simply to tell a quiet story of how writing became my way of breathing.
I do not see myself as an exceptional writer. In fact, I often describe myself as “not yet a writer” one still learning, still growing. But since writing has become second nature to me, I feel the need to share where it all began, not just as a writer, but as a shy young girl who found her voice on paper.
I was not born a speaker. As a child in primary school, anytime I was asked to explain my role in a conflict, I would burst into tears. My father, the late Alhaji Tanko Yarima, soon noticed my struggle. A quiet man himself, he simply asked me to write instead. And so I did. I began writing letters to him even when he was within reach, and he would respond with his signature beautiful handwriting, the kind I’ve only seen again in his niece, Hajiya Maikudi.
Baba fed my writing spirit. He bought me books long before I could grasp their content, and eventually I began buying books with my own pocket money. My quietness became a comfort zone. While others socialised, I found joy in solitude and stories. Some friends complained that I never chatted, always reading. But those who truly understood stayed. And that’s how the journey of becoming a writer quietly began.
My mother, on the other hand, is everything my father wasn’t, expressive, eloquent, and a gifted storyteller. She remembers family histories with detail and colour, and has a way of narrating that holds your attention till the end. Till today, whenever I need cultural context or local nuance in my writing, I call her and she always delivers. Even without Western education, her memory and oral skills remain unmatched.
As for me, I never developed that kind of verbal power. My voice was constantly teased. Even my grandmother once joked that my speaking voice scared birds away. It was meant in humour, but it left its scar. I grew even more withdrawn, choosing my pen over my voice.
Then something happened.
As a student in the early 1990s, I was posted to Hotline magazine for my first Industrial Attachment. Despite being shy, I took a bold step and approached the editorial board with a request to have a column in Rana, one of their respected publications. To my surprise, they gave me a chance and I delivered. Week after week, my pieces were read, reviewed, and printed. Alhaji Hassan Sani Kontagora, the Chairman and owner of Hotline and Rana, together with the late Yaya Bashir Bello Anko (may Allah rest his soul), believed in me even when I barely believed in myself.
Not long after, I submitted a bold investigative proposal to the editorial team. I wanted to report on how the then-FCDA had neglected the indigenous people of Abuja compensating them with makeshift huts while their ancestral lands were being sold in millions. The proposal was approved, and funds were disbursed for my trip from Kaduna to Abuja. When I returned and submitted the story, Yaya Bashir Bello Akko looked at me with a mixture of surprise and admiration and asked, “Are you sure you wrote this?” I took it as a compliment a moment of quiet affirmation that still stays with me.
Years later, Yaya would remember me and invite me to join his new media outfit in Abuja. Unfortunately, I was already with Leadership at the time and couldn’t accept. I regret that decision till today, it was the last time I saw him alive. But I hold on to the fact that someone like him saw something in me when I was just a quiet student and gave me a voice.
Writing became more than a skill. It became my therapy, my celebration, my survival kit. When I’m happy, I write. When I mourn, I write. When I am tense or heartbroken, I disappear for a few days and emerge with a finished book. That is how I avoid the weight of depression. That is how I breathe.
By 2004/2005, I joined Leadership, courtesy of Alhaji Ibrahim Sheme. Later, during my second coming, I was no longer under his guidance, but I had to prove myself again. I wrote for the opinion page and created Diary of a Northern Single Mother a column that resonated deeply. I also submitted a full out proposal for Leadership Hausa, which many warned me not to “give away” to the company. But I was never afraid of creating again. I handed the proposal to the Chairman, Late Sam Nda-Isaiah, who immediately approved it and instructed that I be given everything I needed. When the first edition came out, the Sales Manager personally came to congratulate me. That day, I realised that one can speak loudly even in silence through the quality of their work.
Now, the Age of AI…
Today, a new era has dawned the era of Artificial Intelligence. While many in the younger generation are embracing it and earning well from it, others particularly the older generation see it as a lazy man’s shortcut. The resistance is not new. The same scepticism greeted the arrival of the calculator in its time.
I once listened to a lecturer lament how his students now submit AI-generated assignments. When asked to make verbal presentations, they fumbled. I wasn’t sure whether to feel sorry for the students or for the lecturer still trying to fight the tide.
But it made me wonder: Did he test them on what he taught in class? Because AI wasn’t in the classroom with him. If teachers design assessments rooted in their own teaching, it becomes easier to detect and harder to fake. But as long as assignments remain generic, AI will continue to fill in the gaps. And not all polished work is AI-generated some students are simply gifted.
As for me, AI can never truly replace the emotions, experiences, and cultural truths I pour into my writing. My words are born of memories of grief, of joy, of listening to my mother’s stories, of quiet moments with my father. AI can assist, but it can never write as me. Not yet.
Maybe one day, AI will read minds and write like humans. Until then, I plead for balance. Judge fairly. Not all perfect writing is artificial. Some of us have paid our dues in silence, in scribbles, in sleepless nights.
I remain, in all humility,
A Shy Writer, in the Age of AI.
