‘I wish I knew Yusufu Bala Usman better. His stuff is so good; the best kind of lucid, outspoken, demystifying, vigorous, witty, radical writing. Whom among radical pamphleteers does he remind me of? Tom Paine? William Morris? Jamal Al-Din Al Afghani? Ho Chi Minh? Franz Fanon? Something of all of them. He certainly belonged to that honourable and honest tradition. When I first met him, several years ago at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, I was impressed by the depth and range of his historical understanding (he corrected some of my errors in regard to the history of Katsina, helpfully and politely). I did not then sufficiently realize that he was also a perceptive and critical Marxist, a splendid deflater of academic pomposities, a courageous opponent and analyst of the neo-colonial Nigerian state and its ruling class’. – Professor Thomas Hodgkins renowned Africanist historian, reviewing For the Liberation of Nigeria, in Race and Class, Spring, 1980.