JMD Foundation
He has been president since 2012. The public line is Be Kind. The work is health, education, and daily need, mostly close to home in northern Nigeria, with an eye on the rest of the country and the continent.
During the COVID-19 period the foundation distributed food in grassroots communities across more than four states. The longer work is quieter: bills, meals, girls’ programmes, and time given to people who want a career in the air.
Community development
Projects in communities across northern Nigeria, run with a small group of active members rather than a large bureaucracy.
Women and girls
A teenage girls’ empowerment programme, and wider support for women in the communities the foundation reaches.
Students
Help for students who would otherwise stall, paired with the mentorship work he runs in public.
Feeding
Meals for children who need them, and a feeding programme for inmates at Gusau Correctional Centre.
Health
Hospital bills for people who could not pay them. The foundation treats care as something to arrange, not only to talk about.
Aviation mentorship
Opened in August 2019. He coaches people considering the cockpit, and younger pilots already in the industry, and introduces them to the right networks.
“Giving back to the community doesn’t necessarily have to be political. Leadership should start from your private capacity and then grow into public service.”
A mark for the team
In November 2020 the Arewa Youth Assembly gave him the Jagaban Matasan Arewa award, for humanitarian service in Nigeria. In 2022 he dedicated a Royal African Youth Leadership Forum honour to the people who do the foundation’s work with him.
A 2020 profile recorded his view that being rich is giving without expecting a return.
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