Indubitably, Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of Kano State loves his kith and kin in the northern part of Nigeria – a region that is currently embroiled in self-inflicted turmoil through the subversive inclinations of the malevolent Boko Haram insurgents. But he has most probably and suddenly realised that frank talk with his kinsmen remains the only panacea to the catastrophic activities of insurgents that are threatening the region with imminent annihilation.
Kwankwaso dared to say publicly what most northern elite know, but had been shying away from, for selfish reasons and indeed, lack of valour. In apparent allusion to the upsurge in rebellious activities, especially in the north during a courtesy visit by members of the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of security challenges in the north, he said: “We have a situation in this part of the country where parents give birth to 20 to 30 children, chose only two of them and send the rest away to God-knows where. Children are sent to places that they don’t know. They are left to fend for themselves. We have a situation where you go round the city and find garrison of children, able-bodied youths begging. These children were abandoned by their parents and they were sent away and brought into the state. They grow up to hate themselves, hate their parents, hate the leaders, hate the government and the society. They feel they were deprived, they feel injustice and they become enemies of the state and constituted authorities. They thereby become vulnerable to crime and violence.”
No northerner, dead or living, has been more apposite in precisely depicting the northern quagmire that is gradually assuming national and international dimensions. Yet, previous and present leaderships of the region, despite their education and exposure, continue to promote a feudal cum political system that forcibly makes the greatest number of their people to remain perpetually poor and subservient to them. The Boko Haram is surely the creation of the northern political and feudal class that overtime, takes delight in breeding a largely uneducated society of almajiris in their region. Among these hoi polloi in the north, poverty, illiteracy, feudal and religious fundamentalism, and indeed, irrationality, have become a culture. This fact informs why these almajiris have become easy tool for fomenting hubbub in the hands of northern feudal/political elite, even when this elitist class keeps its own well-groomed and educated Hausa/Fulani children far away from such flashpoint areas. These almajiris and not the exposed kids of the northern leadership class, constitute a substantial chunk of Boko Haram followership now working assiduously to destabilise the country.
Kwankwaso puts the blame of insurgency befuddling the region on;“ parents, the communities, the local government authorities, state governments and the Federal Government” but failed to tell bewildered Nigerians about steps that he has taken so far as governor of Kano state to remove the plague of almajiris and by extension that of Boko Haram from Kano. As parents, how far has he and other northern elites cum oligarchy gone in ensuring restoration of family cum societal values in the youth and the community at large; and as governor, how far has he with other governors, past and present in that region, gone to ensure that that region do not stray into anarchy? What efforts have been taken by Kwankwaso and others in his class to change the stereotype against western civilization, even when the northern leadership is an ardent admirer and beneficiary of western education? He wants parents to take responsibility of their families, yet, poverty still reigns unabatedly not only in Kano but other northern states. The administrations of northern states have done very little to impress it on their people to place high premium on western and not Islamic/Arabic education. The latter has given impetus to the creation of more almajiris by the system.
Let us ask Kwankwaso and the entire northern elite to tell Nigerians how many wives and children most of them have? And how do they fund them; could it be through allocated resources that ought to have been used to develop their entire people and infrastructure or through immoral exploitation of the archaic system in place? Do northern governors at any time bother to put in place any social security or safety net that can dissuade abandonment of children or begging on the streets by northerners in the country? The streets of most states across the federation, especially Lagos, have been taken over by northern states’ indigenes that also double as emergency commercial okada drivers – mostly becoming harbingers of death on roads in the Centre of Excellence. Since the religion of Islam which the northerners have unfortunately turned into a culture permits marriage to more than one wife, inevitably leading to rearing of several children; and in view of the debilitating underdevelopment of the region, provision of safety net/social security by any sincere government in that region should be a necessity. But northern leaders including Kwankwaso seem not to be giving such beneficial policy any useful thought. Whatever is rampant in the north in the past and even today is that what is meant for the people as democracy dividends are cornered by the few and the oligarchy that are ruling the region.
However, this deliberate oversight and invidious greed of the northern feudal/political/oligarchy have put the entire country in this Boko Haramic mess. And one agrees with Kwankwaso that ‘what started in Yobe and Borno is now everywhere in the north. It may eventually engulf the country – if we don’t check it now.’ It is a national issue that must be addressed. This statement should be the raison d’etre, and motivating bulwark that should goad on all northerners wherever they might be to give intelligence and inspirational support to the country’s military of Joint Task Force (JTF) comprising troops deployed to quell the Boko Haram insurrection. Boko Haram must be checked now and everybody, whether in the north or anywhere, with useful intelligence hints about this evil group, must come forward and give such to security agencies.
The Boko Haram cankerworm should not be seen from the prism of being problem of our non-performing and inept President Goodluck Jonathan alone- Boko Haram was largely seen ab initio as a northern problem; but it has since become a Nigerian/international problem that must be destroyed – if only to prevent a re-enactment of what happened in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote D’voire and of recent, Mali, in the country. The truth as it is now is that this northern nightmare – whether almajiri syndrome or Boko Haram – needs a rethink!
