In the wake of the arrival of a new terror group, Lakurawa, in Northern Nigeria, a group which, funny enough, was said to have been initially invited by local leaders in the Gudu and Tangaza LGAs of Sokoto State in 2017 to address the then growing threat by bandits from Zamfara State, I think it is time Northern leadership, in all its ramification, wake up to help the region get out of its literal strangulation.
It is time they both in urgency, and unanimity, as they recently did tearing down the tax bill before the National Assembly, find solutions to the myriad of insecurity and other social challenges aggressively convulsing that part of the country, rather than always misapplying – to put it nicely – funds put in care of some of them to get their out of school children into schools – reminds one of President Goodluck Jonathan’s titanic effort in that respect – or to fight terrorism, as it has just been alleged that millions of dollars appropriated for fighting Boko Haram was diverted into Luxury Real Estate in the United States by a former National Security Adviser.
The PPLAAF report which contained that allegation stated that tens of millions allegedly misappropriated by the Adviser ended up funding luxury properties in Los Angeles, California, and McLean, Virginia, a wealthy suburb of Washington, DC.
This is not the first time the columnist is pleading with them to help the region because, as my good friend, Tony Sani, the highly perceptive former ACF Publicity Secretary, never ceases to say, “Nigeria is a big river being fed by tributaries, and when one tributary is poisoned(as the North appears), the whole river gets contaminated.
I urge my readers to come with me as I reproduce below, my article of 21 April , 2019 titled “The North: Militancy, Banditry And The Rest Of Us” which was published on these pages.
Happy reading.
“It is crunch time, indeed. This harvest of despair is the product of many years of servile bondage, repression, suppression, deliberate pauperization of the people and placing their destinies and lives at impossible angles. My late father used to warn the Northern elite. This is morning yet; the Somalization of the far North is fast becoming a reality” – Dr C.C. Nwagwu
Completely unknown to me that this newspaper would be running an interview it had with Anthony N. Z Sani, my friend, and Secretary- General of the Arewa Consultative Forum in its edition of Sunday, 14 April 2019 in which, incidentally, my own article:’It is Crunch Time’ appeared, I had written to him a few days earlier as follows: “Tony what’s the problem with the North? Please talk to me at some length. Why has the North become a killing field? Is it that human lives mean nothing up there? I am at a complete loss; so am raising these questions in my column this Sunday.
Without a doubt feudalism, I guess, is at the root of Northern problems. For far too long education was denied to the children of the poor. Of course, you know that more than religion, illiteracy is the problem and it is what invigorates Boko Haram. But who and who is funding BH and are our security agencies so helpless they can’t find them out all this while? Has it occurred to Northern leaders the region is becoming a massive drain on the country?What is the exact cause of the problems in Zamfara? However, the million-dollar question really is: how do we exit these North- inspired problems? Please feel free to share this within your circle so we can generate well distilled reactions”.
Never known to disappoint, Tony wrote back as follows: “Good morning and thank you for the concern. I think there is a swarm of locust in the land and we do not seem to know the pests. Hence our inability to device the appropriate pesticides. I am happy some of you down there are also concerned. This is because Nigeria is a big river being fed by tributaries, and when one tributary is poisoned, the whole river is contaminated.
When in 2011 there was post election problems in the North and hoodlums burnt down some traditional rulers’ houses, Prof Bolaji Akinyemi called, and warned about the consequences of destroying the only platform of effective control in the North. To him, it is not time to dismiss the vestiges of indirect rule. That is, he saw wisdom in indirect rule by the British. Then there was the problem of education whose slow pace of development in the North cannot be blamed entirely on the leadership all of who could not possibly be depicted as feckless. I told him to consider the time Western education started in the South and when it reached the North which is almost a century. There is also the factor of unbridled growth in population. I mentioned “unbridled growth in population” because, the rate is not commensurate with growth of the economy, hence the poverty that comes with unemployment. For instance, the population of Nigeria and Britain were at par at our independence but today Britain is 62M while Nigeria is about 180M. What rate of GDP can cope with such increase? Without a doubt, the challenges are far more overwhelming than the capacity of the leaders, considering the difference between the level of education at independence and today, in the North. The difference is much.
Somehow, I believe in what Lee Kuan Yew (of Singapore) once said that: order, justice, liberty, common decency, and prosperity are never the natural order of things, but are attained through ceaseless hard work by the leaders, and the led, and that there is no country or society that is perfect. What matters when challenges arise is consciously directed effort to overcome them. I believe that President Buhari has what it takes to overcome our challenges.
Terrorism is universal, and unfolding; and Nigeria has predisposing factors that encourage it. The sponsors of BH may not even be Nigerians. During one of our interactions with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on the underlying factors of terrorism or insecurity, he traced BH to thugs used by Gov Mala Kachalla and Senator Modu Sheriff both of Borno state. The same thing with Niger- Delta militants and in Benue State where Gana, who was the leader of political thugs, turned out the Frankenstein monster.
Whether he is right or not, one cannot say. When the minister of finance (read Defence) accused traditional rulers in Zamfara of complicity in banditry, I had my doubts. But sad if it is true. Then it might be borne out of fear which one can liken to the Palestinian saga. When asked why they did not expose Hamas members, the Palestinians said doing so would have made Hamas kill them at night, and as they feared to expose them, the Israelis bombed them making them losers, either way.
In the same way, our soldiers killed many village heads in the North East during the President Goodluck Jonathan administration because of the suspicion that they shielded members of the sects which they did out of fear. When PMB came in, and overwhelmed the sects, the same villagers started to give information to the security people. In the same way, some traditional rulers in Zamfara may shield the bandits out of fear for their and their peoples safety”.
Sani and I went on, and on, in a few exchanges but let’s cut to the chase and properly distil his full-throated piece in which he identified: lack of education, uncontrolled and unbridled population growth and poor governance. It is sad that poor governance continues till today as exemplified in the 10M plus out of school children who wander about as Almajiris, whilst the governors go about in their free flowing babarigas, at best buying them okadas after which they are trucked down, in their hundreds, to every nook and cranny of the South, as Okada riders maiming themselves as well as their patrons. I am sure the governors see this as their own Youth Empowerment while they go on acquiring more wives.
May Allah forgive them.
So, what has been the response of the Northern elite to the debilitating factors so perspicaciously identified by the Secretary – General of the ‘numero uno’ Northern socio- political organisation which, for once, this past week, weighed in on the increasing Somalization of the region when it called on President Buhari to stop the killings? Northern political elite read politics into it when, before, and even after independence, Chief Obafemi Awolowo drew their attention to what trouble the North was breeding when it chose, deliberately, not to educate the children of the poor, but looked, askance, at both the Western and Eastern regions putting massive investment into education. Today village chiefs, even some minor Emirs, are being chased out of their palaces. And as Dr Nwagwu wrote in the intro this, unfortunately, is only the beginning as Somali, Sudan and Syria have comprehensively shown in other parts of the world.
With regards to over population, what was the North’s take away when during the 2015 election campaigns Mrs Patience Jonathan, poked fun at the North on account of its many children, most of who are thrown into the streets from very early ages? Which one single governor made a move towards checking his state’s unproductive population growth? Or which cleric lent a hand in their tough preaching’s which (then) governor El Rufai had to warn against? The North has many, if not most, of our highly regarded monarchs. What has any of them done to mitigate the factors that continue to undermine the North economically and socially,
but with political privileges forever constant?
Isn’t political, even traditional power, for a purpose? How exactly has the Northern traditional and religious elite – helped to positively impact governance at both state or local government levels, and even at the national level, how are they helping a seemingly overwhelmed President Buhari?
6Or wasn’t it only this past week we heard that Zamfara monarchs are helping bandits with intelligence? Have they taken out time to reflect on a future when the North begins to reap the whirlwind? And do they, or the North in general, ever reflect on what a drain it has become on the national treasury, even as nothing points to a remediation of current realities at a time when the country’s entire security apparatchik lies smack in the hands of Northerners who are supposed to know, and be quite familiar, with their own terrain?
Finally, like Sani wrote, the Northern elite must reflect on the fact that: Nigeria is a big river being fed by tributaries, and when one tributary is poisoned, the whole river is contaminated”. They should, therefore, turn a new leaf, help out, and be their brothers’ keepers, as the holy books enjoin us all.
It is time the North decides to help itself. As everybody knows, the North is more than capable of salvaging itself and, ipso facto, help this beleaguered country.
Du Allah.
