Tag: Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF)

• At 25, ACF needs to reimagine itself

The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), a northern socio-cultural group, stands as a regional equivalent of the southwestern Afenifere and southeastern Oha N’Eze Ndigbo. It was formed in the year 2000 with its main goal being to represent the interests of Northern Nigeria, often associated with the Hausa-Fulani.  It was established to push for regional growth and development in all ramifications, but often veers off to advocate for national interests which invariably equally benefits the North.

 ACF celebrated its silver jubilee in November 2025.  While we commend the ACF for what it represents, we agree with notable voices during the three-day event in Kaduna, who called for bold solutions to long-standing insecurity and development challenges across the region.

ACF’s Board of Trustees (BoT) Chairman, Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu, said: “It is time to look for further, better, more effective means of curtailing insecurity.” He also said: “We must begin in earnest to plunge into modern developmental efforts.”

A former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai (retd.), described the milestone as a moment to reflect on the past and the future.  He described Northern Nigeria as “a microcosm of the nation,” adding, “When one part of the country develops, that progress translates to others.”

The host and Kaduna State governor Senator Uba Sani stressed that open borders, drugs and arms flows were central to festering banditry.

Also, representatives of the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni, stressed the need for national unity and strategic approaches to security and community development.

The northern region is beset with many developmental issues:  poverty, illiteracy, out-of-school children, almajiris, insecurity, child-malnutrition, IDPs, insurgency, unemployment, child-marriages, porous borders etc.

ACF has been campaigning for good governance in their region as well as within the country.  It has often spoken up about the increasing insecurity in the region as a major destabilising factor.

One of the major achievements of ACF since its establishment is the seeming monolithic voice it has given to the region. The group has been very protective of the political and economic interests of the North. They understand the value of maximising areas of comparative advantage like political power and promotion of regional agricultural opportunities.

Highlights of the silver jubilee included the launch of the ACF Endowment Fund, aimed at moving the Forum beyond mere advocacy to the implementation of tangible, community-based projects focused on socio-economic development, skill acquisition, and adult education in the region.

Also, security dominated the discussions, which stressed the need for a unified front and collective commitment to end banditry and terrorism, described as one of the gravest tests in the North’s history.

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Notably, major criticisms levelled against the ACF include: elite club syndrome, failure to effectively address core northern problems, ethnic/religious bias and parochialism, and inconsistent messaging and internal conflicts.

We believe it is time for serious introspection. They seem to be all talk and seemingly little action. For instance, they have not been very effective in pushing for accountability from politicians in the region.  The poverty index in the region has not shifted significantly in decades. Out-of-school children in the North account for 80 per cent of about 20 million in the country that has the global highest number of out-of-school children.

Insecurity in the region, which is impactful nationally, is fuelled by poverty, religious extremism, lack of accountability and general unemployment. The 19 states that make up the North have been plagued for so long by religious fanaticism, bigotry and herder intransigence. ACF seems ineffectual in addressing these issues, despite its influence in the region.

The region’s main economic power – agriculture – has been badly impacted by insecurity as bandits continually sack communities and herders force their cows into agricultural fields. ACF has not shown, through actions, that it understands the long-term impact of insecurity in the region.

Nineteen states out of 36 is a huge number. Insecurity in the region discourages economic investments by Nigerians and foreigners.  ACF has seemed unable to act in non-partisan ways to open up the region for tourism and other forms of economic engagement. We would have thought that the northern body would at least put their house in order by holding leaders in the region to account. There are low-hanging fruits that are achievable just with political will: basic education is handled by the local and state governments.

We expect the group to pressure state governments in the region to address illiteracy. Education in the 21st century continues to be the key to development. Not focusing on education in the region continues to multiply the problems of the North in a world driven by ideas and technology.

Focusing on Islamic education alone falls flat in the face of reason and modern global economics. The Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates (UAE) have keyed into the global economic developmental agenda while maintaining the sanctity of their socio-religious practices. ACF can tap from their strategies if the North wants to join the global developmental train.

Insecurity in the Northern region should be on the front burner. Insurgency, banditry, kidnappings and school abductions have received mere rhetorical attention with little effort to actively address the core causes, despite the national impact. 

The causes of the social problems in the region are all human issues that can be addressed with the right political will. ACF has not shown enough zeal in making the leaders in the region do what is necessary to, at least, reduce some of the problems.

Many have criticised the ACF as being basically an elitist association where the majority of the members merely peddle influence for personal political and economic gains without giving much thought to the larger population. The critics argue that their impact in the last 25 years has not changed the circumstances of the people.  Poverty and illiteracy continue to be the albatross of the northern economies in particular, and the nation in general.

While we don’t expect ACF to be the magic wand for solving all the region’s problems, we expect that its 25 years of existence ought to have recorded more successes than what it has represented. The northern region is bedevilled by so many issues, and as a group made up of the region’s elites, more action and louder voices must come from the group.

The ACF must understand that charity begins at home. They seem to shout loudest when they are making demands on the government at the centre but seem indifferent when it comes to holding leaders in their region accountable to the people. They give a misleading impression of a beggar region when they are not a querulous one.

They have 19 governors, top statesmen, ministers, resources. What they lack is the political will and it begins with acute introspection. Not just on rhetoric but action. The plague of insecurity is the urgent one on their table to be tackled here and now.

The socio-economic problems in the region must be addressed with urgency and ACF can facilitate that. The next 25 years of the group must be a great departure from the last 25 years. ACF must learn from its mistakes.

•Arewa leaders’ move should go a long way towards ending insecurity in the North

Leaders of the north apparently are aiming to give their best shot at making banditry and terrorism that have wracked that region since late 2000s history. Security forces have in recent times been making modest gains in tackling the security challenge by killing some notorious leaders of the terror cells and their foot soldiers, thus forcing others to surrender or renounce their errant ways. Now, northern leaders are weighing in with moves to deal the menace a final blow.

Kidnapping for ransom by bandits has been rampant in the Northwest but was fiercely fought in recent times by security forces, while Boko Haram insurgency had hobbled the Northeast but is now losing steam owing to incessant pounding of insurgents’ hideouts through air strikes and land operations by the military.

Northern leaders under the auspices of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) lately raised two panels to make recommendations that should finally pull the brakes on insecurity in the region. And they seem to have in view a dual approach involving the carrot and the stick. The panels, which have mid-November as deadline to submit their proposals, are respectively headed by a seasoned technocrat and a consummate ex-military general. Former Head of Service of the Federation Alhaji Yayale Ahmed heads the Unity, Peace and Reconciliation Committee while former Chief of Army Staff and one-time defence minister, General Abdulrahman Dambazau, heads the Committee on Security. Former Inspector-General of Police, Alhaji Mohammed D. Abubakar, is to serve as deputy to Gen. Dambazau.

ACF General Secretary, Professor Tukur Muhammad-Baba, was reported saying the initiative stemmed from “concerns over the worsening state of inter-group relations in the region, which have hampered peaceful coexistence and development.” He explained that the committees are to, by mid-November, generate proposals that will be considered by ACF, “which will in turn collaborate with northern state governors and federal agencies to ensure the recommendations are implemented.”

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The concerted pitch by the Arewa forum aligns with the strategy that Northwest governors earlier reported they were taking to tackle down the insecurity menace. In June 2023, shortly after taking office, Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani said efforts to contain insecurity in the Northwest failed in the past because some governors wined and dined with suspected terrorists, and that the current set of governors had resolved to adopt a united front against the menace. “We agreed that we have to have a common approach to the issue and we have to move away from the mistakes made by some previous governors that decided to compromise the operation in the past when they started giving money to the bandits and negotiating with them… We have to work together with a common agenda, plan and operation. That is the only way we can be able to solve the problem,” he had stated inter alia.

We consider it useful that northern leaders are mindful of the need for reconciliation in inter-group relations as one of the ways of addressing the challenge. It has been argued that at the root of the insecurity menace is a historical tribal war between the Fulani hegemonic class and the Hausa tribe that may be what informs curious measures of accommodation that bandits enjoy in some northern communities and among community leaders. It is also helpful that it is recognised that kinetic approach alone isn’t sufficient to end the menace, because after you have won the war, you would also need to win the peace, and that won’t be by kinetic exertions.

But let’s be clear. We have always argued against negotiating with bandits and we remain firm on that stance. Negotiations should never be with bandits but with communities, groups or persons sympathetic in whatever manner or measure with bandits. This would be a form of ‘soft war’ against the criminals. What government owes the bandits – in that manner of speaking – is to speedily ameliorate the depressing economic conditions that have often been cited as a motivating factor for banditry.

Even then, it can be argued that those conditions are not in themselves sufficient motivators onto banditry since many other Nigerians live under the same conditions and have not resorted to banditry, and there are some other countries with worse economic conditions that do not experience the banditry menace. There are possibly political instigators of the insecurity menace, and these should be the ones to be targeted for negotiation onto reconciliation.