By Tunji Adegboyega
All he is saying is … Give the north education and other things shall be added
Many prominent northerners have spoken of the need to do something about the region’s backwardness. They had spoken eloquently about the need for change, in a way that would bring down the antediluvian cultural practices and put the region on the path of development and modernity. But, much as it would appear many of them have spoken well, it remains to be seen whether they meant what they said.
But, of all those who have spoken, I found the comment of the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, most comprehensive and down-to-earth. The emir indeed spoke the minds of many progressive Nigerians on February 17, when he told the north, point blank, that the region was destroying itself and only engaging in self-delusion to think that ‘quota system’ and ‘federal character’ would last forever. It was vintage Sanusi! This piece is coming this late because I had been on a two-week leave. I had made up my mind that it would be the very first thing I would write on as soon as I resume because one must add one’s voice, for the record, to such a statement coming from a distinguished member of the aristocratic (or should I say feudalistic) north.
The statement was, as usual, audacious even as the occasion was auspicious. Sanusi bared his mind at the 60th birthday of Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, in Kaduna. He highlighted the well-known problems facing the region: poverty, millions of out-of-school children, malnutrition, drug abuse, Almajiri, and the Boko Haram insurgency.
Hear Sanusi: “When we talk about birthday, we talk about happiness. Just last week, someone asked me, ‘are you happy?’ And I said, ‘I am not’. And the person was surprised. The truth is nobody who is a leader in Northern Nigeria today can afford to be happy.
“You cannot be happy with about 87 percent of poverty in Nigeria being in the North. You can’t be happy with millions of northern children out of school.
“You can’t be happy with nine states in the North contributing almost 50 percent of the entire malnutrition burden in the country.
“You can’t be happy with the drug problem, you can’t be happy with the Boko Haram problem. You can’t be happy with political thuggery. You can’t be happy with all the issues; the Almajiri problem that we have.”
The bombshell which came barely one week after a damning World Bank report on the region, was more or less a parody of the report. In essence, northern Nigeria is largely responsible for Nigeria being the poverty capital of the world. Why this is so, I have been trying to comprehend for so long, without success. After all, the north, like other regions, has been getting its fair share (perhaps more than it because of its population) of national budgetary provisions. What has happened to the monies accruing to the region over the years?
When we talk about the north being in crisis because of cultural inhibitions, it does not appear to me like we are being fair in assessing the issues. If successive northern leaders had invested hugely in education, some of these cultural beliefs would have since died. The situation would have been different if they had invested in education because the wool in the eyes of the downtrodden in the region would have been pulled off a long time ago, to enable them see clearly.
It beats me that any rational human being will think a fellow human being will forever continue to accept that he was created to beg and feed only from the crumbs of the food that are falling from the dining tables of some rich persons. I said it in a piece on this page sometime ago, and it bears repeating: many of us had said in those days at The Punch in the 80s and early 90s that the north would implode someday because of these so-called cultural beliefs. I also referred recently to one of my seniors in the university (when I wrote on the need for Amotekun) who said his parents “gladly embraced poverty” to see him through western education. This is weighty. Such a person should not be killed by some ragtag, misguided elements who just delight in blood-letting and who cannot appreciate the value of education.
The truth of the matter is that while it may be desirable that allowance might sometimes be made for certain situations like the one that brought about the ‘educationally disadvantaged’ status of the north, or ‘quota system’, or ‘federal character’, it should not be in perpetuity. To perpetuate such policies is not only to encourage indolence on the part of the political leaders; it also does not give room for creativity even as it kills initiatives on the part of other constituent regions. As a matter of fact, if there had been a terminal date for such policies, the north would have been the better for it because leaders in the region and even the led would have had to face the realities of such terminal date and thus be gingered to think out of the box to solve the region’s problems. The way things are, the north cannot change and will only continue to log the kind of unimpressive record it is logging in almost all spheres of life, as attested to not only by reality that stares us in the face, but also by global bodies like the World Bank, UNESCO, the World Health Organisation (WHO), etc.
As Emir Sanusi rightly noted, a time will come when the other parts of the country that get the short end of the stick for these policies will begin to question why they have to be the beasts of burden of such policies. I do not have at my disposal what this country has spent to rebuild the northeast devastated by Boko Haram. This is money that ought to have been spent to bring about development across Nigeria: provide hospitals, build and equip schools, provide security, good road networks, reduce poverty, etc. Now, as we are busy pumping money into the northeast and other parts devastated by the insurgents, the fundamentalists are still pounding those places, wreaking more havoc which someday we would still have to fix at the expense of the entire country. Yet, Boko Haram would have been averted if political leaders in the north had given the youths the desired education which would have freed them from the shackles of retrogressive cultural beliefs, assuming that is really the problem. I mean if the political leaders are not merely pretending to be sad about the development while satisfied with the situation internally because it gives them access to cannon fodder that they can fall back on to further their political interests.
Some governors in the north had threatened that the region can do without the money from the south-south (we are only deceiving ourselves if we say from the centre because the centre does not produce anything). It is high time these governors actualised their threats. This is what would be in everybody’s interest. If the other parts of the country must subsidise any other part, that must be for people whose leaders are prepared to alleviate the situation, not in a situation where a governor was happy and thanking God that he had nothing to fear about newspapers criticising him because his people could not read.
Let no one castigate Emir Sanusi for speaking the truth. No one kills a dog for barking; the same way we don’t kill a ram for ram-fighting; no one kills the he-goat for misbehaving. So, you don’t chastise Sanusi for his radical stance on this matter. Never mind too if he is a major beneficiary of these contradictions that are now haunting the north. It is better for reform to come from above. As we have seen in the northeast and elsewhere, the consequences are dire when it comes from below.
It would be a ‘Miracle of Damman’ for Emir Sanusi to reign long, given his candour and the no holds barred manner he always pushes his point against the ills plaguing the northern region. Truth is bitter; but it must be told and it had to be swallowed if the region’s wellness is truly desired.
There is nothing basically wrong with the north. As a matter of fact, the region would appear to be doing fairly well in agriculture. It should keep this up. However, beyond farming at the subsistence level, there is need to add value to the farm produce. A state like Benue, for example, needs factories to process the soybeans, citrus fruits, mangoes, roots, and tubers , etc. which it produces in abundance. Other states in the north have one thing or the other to also depend on; they can work on these.
My candid advice to the northern leaders who might be feeling uncomfortable with Sanusi’s radicalism is that they should, for once, pay attention to his message and ignore the messenger. It is in their own interest because one day, the other parts of the country will reject some of these contradictions in federal laws that are holding them down for the north whose leaders enjoy the best that modernity and civilisation offer but are hiding behind one finger (culture) to deny their followers the pleasures of both.
Someone whose parents “gladly embraced poverty” to see him through school cannot understand what is meant by a certain part of the country being perpetually ‘educationally disadvantaged’; just as ‘quota system’ or ‘federal character’ would mean injustice to him. We are inching toward that trajectory.
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