Adamu Muhammad Nababa
Kano, Nigeria.
Introduction
Northern Nigeria has for a long time been on the receiving end in the context of Nigerian set up. So many things have not been going well for the region since Nigeria’s independence in 1960. In real sense, the North has been the most marginalized in terms of distribution of key government positions, neglected in critical national infrastructure and above all, it’s educational slots generally usurped by perceived southern educated elites. This is notwithstanding the fact that Northerners have also held power at the centre for several years. What more? The North doesn’t seem to know, or perhaps indifferent about its future. It only cares about today, or in fact about its retrogressive present. Perhaps it has refused to have an acceptable vision that can work on bringing out it’s blueprint in a competitive federation.
Unless the North wakes up from its slumber; unless the North decides to be their brothers keepers irrespective of tribe or religion; unless the North tame the almajiri syndrome in whatever guide, we will continue living in rags, illiteracy, want and squalor.
Time*To*Heal Wounds*
We have at different times fought ourselves for reason of tribe or religion, abused and insulted one another for same reasons or for reasons not far fetched from religious extremism or tribal affiliation. It has never been of any use to any tribe or religion because we always come to realize that we still need one another. Today, we are still battling such monstrous activities going by the name of Boko Haram, Banditry or Kidnapping for ransome.
The cause of all these demeaning adventures was the politics we resorted to since 1999. Just prior to this time, such upheavals were obtained at a scale that could always be nipped in the bud. But since 1999, the conflicts were, for political reasons, allowed to escalate beyond the capacity of law enforcement agencies. Even the first tenure of former President Obasanjo, such conflicts that erupted in Zaki Biam and the Government did not handled it lightly. So also the tribal conflict in the Plateau, forced the Government to declare a State of emergency in the state and constituted an interim state government. Since those decisive actions, no Federal administration was able to take such bold steps in curtailing the conflict because they have been given political coloration despite the fact that they are now more deadly and on international scale.
For the North to be what it need to be, or to be directed toward the path of progress and development, strong and functional institutions are necessary. The North need to redefine it’s priorities, that is if ever it had any. It needs to have a respected voice and elders of repute who command respect but not who just want to be respected. The North also need a robust intelligentsia out of professionals and diligent youths whose exuberance is not hinged on materialism.
A Call For A Northern Dialogue*
The North has for some time been threatened with a Sovereign National Conference by Southern elements, believing that the North will be at a disadvantage if the mantra finds the light of the day. But it all boil to the understanding that the North is neither cohesive nor a monolith to even conceptualize the idea of being a Sovereign entity all by itself.
Therefore, given the precarious state of affairs in Nigeria today, and the lack of foresight of our state governments, it is very imperative for the North to organize and conduct a Northern Dialogue in order to talk to one another, to see eye to eye with our leaders and reminisce, as well as pave a course of action for the future. As it is today in Nigeria, the North is the most ravished; the region with the most insensitive leaders at every rung; the states that are most unsecured; where the people are lowest in all economic indicators and where education is only budgeted annually but not implemented. Only a Northern Dialogue will bring out the solutions, or at least a working roadmap. The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF; Northern Elders Forum and The Middle Belt Forum, if they are still alive to their responsibilities for which they were formed, should be seen working together to chart a course of action for the whole of Northern Nigeria.
The North In A Southern Outlook
Be that as it may, the North cannot be said to be lacking in leadership acumen, but when paired with our kinsmen from the South, we are so divided and totally indifferent to attainment of set goals, which we really never set for ourselves anyway. We are so shortchanged in almost everything in the course of being in a federation with people who knew their onions. Gone are the days when the Northern leadership could dare the South and compete at any level anywhere. We only reminisce the days of late Balewa; late Sardauna; late Aminu Kano; late Tarka; late Zungur; late Maimalari; late Murtala; late Bida; ‘Yar’adua; late Hassan Katsina etc. But must we? Can the dead save the living? Can we survive in their shadow? Did they even bothered to look up to their predecessors? Didn’t they curved a niche for themselves? And stood up to the time and forces against their vision? Didn’t they bequeathed a legacy we are all proud of? Why are we unable to even maintain the edifices they built for us?
Today, the North is no longer a monolith, even if it has never really been one, at least it was an idea that a North existed and had a cause it championed. Today, in the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty! So said the Wailers of Reggae. We have become so subservient and rudderless. Modernity has not been of any use to us, if anything we still pride ourselves in the much loathed almajiri phenomenon, practice long overcome by more serious countries and communities worldwide, a practice akin to child abuse if not outright child trafficking. Some men of God and traditionalist still tell our people that it is a blessed enterprise of knowledge. Today in the North we still believe western education is no education, and the education we distrust controls not only our material life but is tasked to integrate our almajiri system into it, consuming it slowly in many forms that are bad and disastrous in the real sense. We have no justification at all to allow our children to roam the streets with bowls in hand begging for leftovers pretending to be the custodians of the Holy Quran. The sons of the Frontline ulamas who defend the practice do not allow their children to beg on the street while studying the Quran..
Come to think of it, the Western education is today offered in a segregated system. All the Northern top brass, have their children in exclusive or privately owned schools. The public schools are left for the less privileged who barely receive a lesson or two in a day. Private Universities are now established where the children of the elites and rich go for their studies while the mass of the people attend the strike prone public universities. The problem of all these culminated into the fact that the North is a mere imagination, a memory gradually fading as well. So if the South feel like colonizing the North, all it need to do is to build and continue building Lagos by providing it with fifty percent of the MW available in the country and the heart of the North, Kano, and being it’s centre of commerce, with a little above five percent! And the South may prefer to move the Federal Capital gradually to Lagos, the centre of excellence and the North simply bark and recoil in it’s shell. The North is undoubtedly vulnerable and weak in all indices of development, and totally oblivious of its plight on the national scheme. We have suddenly become a people without functional balls between our legs, fearful; dumb and materialistic. Send a representative to Abuja as an Honourable Member or Senator and he will begin to feel he is no longer a poor man, the feeling and tendency is that he has made it and nothing else matters. The few who are concerned, are not even allowed to raise their hands in plenary, more less to say a contrary viewpoint from the Frontline members.
Economic Underdevelopment
Today, economically, the North is in some quarters refered as the poverty capital of the country, with a very poor input into the national GDP. Perhaps, historically, the North laid the golden egg for economic growth and prosperity, but today, the North is simply alive, but not living with the reality. It is understandable that only Kaduna and Kwarai States are able to fund fifty percent of their operational cost from their internally generated revenue, and only the two states are in the top ten among the thirty six states of Nigeria including the FCT with the highest revenue base. All other states depend on the monthly FAAC allocation. While Lagos and Rivers States in 2023 were the only states and the FCT with the highest Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, Taraba, Yobe and Kebbi states are the lowest contributors of IGR in Nigeria. It is in the midst of all these, that a tax, indeed an Economic Reform is being touted by the federal government which the North will only sink further in poverty and hunger. Additionally, even Value Added Tax, is being proposed to be shared on the basis of a states contribution to cash flow of the states to the national purse and not on its consumption base.
Response of the Federal Government.
The North has lamented, pleaded and even threatened to resist the Economic Reform Bill before the National Assembly, but the Presidency has vowed to go ahead with the reform.
The North is only left by itself, either to look inward by thinking outside the box as Senator Shehu Sani had admonished and faced the reality, going by the saying that necessity is the mother of invention. That way, the North will let go the South or national cake and bake a fresh on for itself given the huge potentials it has.
Conclusion
The North is in penury. It is dismembered. Everything standing is going down fast. It has neither voice nor exemplary leaders. The followers are too passive and submissive, majority of its you are neither exuberant nor focused.
The time to roar is now. The time to ask questions is ripe. The time to stand up and say enough is enough is with us.
By Adamu Muhammad Nababa [email protected]
Kano-Nigeria
