What an epochal day it was last Monday when the first ever joint meeting of the Northern elite was held under the auspices of the Northern Governors’ Forum; Northern Traditional Rulers Council; Arewa Consultative Forum and Northern Elders forum, among others. The Sultan of Sokoto, MuhammedSa’ad Abubakar III, must be commended not only for spearheading this landmark gathering, but for his frank, brutal words.
This column had also written so much about the issues at stake in the North in the last five years. It will suffice to say ‘Good morning’ to this august gathering and reproduce below, an article written on July 31, 2015 under the title:#harsh-truths-to-northern-elite. Some points here may be helpful to the resolution drafting committee:
About four years ago, (precisely July 29, 2011) I had written in this column that then fledgling Boko Haram was the shame of the Borno elite. Expectedly, I was vilified to no end. But little did we (yours truly, his readers and drillers alike) know that what was happening then was mere child’s play. Between 2011 and now, so much innocent blood has drenched the Nigerian soil to the point that atonement may be impossible. But the point remains now as then, that the extreme criminality that the terror of Boko Haram has become, is the shame of the elite of the North. This point must be made without equivocation.
Three recent issues have warranted a reiteration of this view which is even more valid today. First is the ‘face-off’ between Governor Nasir el Rufai of Kaduna State and the beggars of Kaduna. The second is the new-wave sacrificial offering of nubile little girls in an endless festival of suicide bombings and thirdly, the recent $2.1 billion World Bank loan for the reconstruction of the Northeast of Nigeria.
An elite in retreat The point today as I made it then is that from the period of the violent outbreak of the Boko Haram (BH) sect up to this moment, the elite of the North have failed woefully to put up a well-reasoned and concerted response to deal with the evil. As the sect callously made an ocean of blood especially in the Northeast, the elite of the North, (religious, intellectual, political and business) even more callously favoured a tacit accommodation of the scourge for the first few years.
Where was the funding for BH coming from? Where was BH drawing its intellectual and logistical resources? Who purchased the arms, ammunition, rocket launchers and the dozens of armoured carriers the BH deployed to overrun many Nigerian towns at a time? For a region that boasts of about half a dozen former heads of state; current and former governors; respected traditional rulers; hundreds of well-trained retired military officers and a good number of men of means in the land, not one committee has been set up to date to as much as give a thought to the BH tragedy.
An initial acquiescence grew into fear and cowering. Hardly anyone was known to have stood up boldly to the gang in defiant condemnation. It was convenient for many leaders of the North to hide behind the North-South politics of the Goodluck Jonathan era. Some simply found comfort in their corners and said to themselves: “since he chose to ‘usurp’ power, let him stew in the juice of insurgency”. It did not matter that hundreds of their compatriots were daily wasted in the heedless blood fest.
BH as brainchild of the northern elite The point must also be made clearly that BH is the creation of some leaders of the North. While it may be argued that it may be the unforeseen outcome of poor quality leadership and ineptitude in high offices, it is elite failure albeit. Of course the feudal system of the North continues to take its vicious toll, fuelled by an uncontrolled and exponential population growth. Further, while it was the trado-religious lords who held sway in the days of yore, today, the political class has taken over with even more deadly intuition. As we know, in feudalism, there are only kings and serfs; or the ruling class and the hoi-polloi; hardly any middle ground.
In the mid-80s while one was on National Youth Service in Sokoto, it was a culture shock then to witness a horde of scruffy, unclad children invade the camp refuse dump each day foraging for food. That scene has lingered most graphically in one’s psyche more than 30 years after. We must admit that it is anunconscionable and indeed wicked elite that would look on as children roam the streets with begging bowls; feed straight from dunghills or even lead cattle from Maiduguri to Majidun!
Between medieval and modern states The elite of the North must be told to make those hard choices between living in ancient times as it still subsists largely in the North now or building a modern country as we have in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, UAE and the rest of the Muslim world.
This is where El Rufai’s feud with the beggars of Kaduna comes of note. He, in concert with his colleagues of the 19 states of the North must immediately abolish the pernicious almajiri culture (if indeed it can be regarded as culture). It must be the highest act of irresponsibility for a man and woman to sire children and set them loose into the world with begging bowls in hand. The wickedness of marrying off little young girls in the name of tradition MUST also stop. If you brought a child into the world, you must take some responsibility to rear him or her. This must be the essence of our humanity and the crux of a legislation being proposed here.
El Rufai and his colleagues must enact – and if possible – a pan northern Nigeria law to abolish almajiri culture and under-age marriage tradition immediately. This singular legislation will greatly stem the social dysfunction in the North. We must begin to deliberately uphold and emphasisefamily values, child rearing and early education. Why has the local government system which ought to lift our rural population become near extinct in Nigeria?
In the same manner, we must begin a phased abolition of nomadic life. It is ignorance that has pushed the Myetti Allah Cattle Breeders to seek to metamorphose into an alternate ‘army’ instead of a regional economic construct. Where in today’s world, dear reader, do people still lead cattle over thousands of kilometres just to make basic living? Not in many sensible places any more. The result is that they may have slaughtered more compatriots than cattle in the last five years mainly in a bid to fend off rustlers and defend against farmland owners as they take livestock through long trails.
Again, El Rufai and his brother governors of the North must begin a concerted and expedited rethink of the milk, beef and hide economic value chains. Think for a moment that Nigeria imports almost 80 percent of milk consumed by her 170 population. Animal protein production in Nigeria is still an ad-hoc business while animal wool and processed leather are massively imported. This is multi-billion naira business.
State governments can catalyse the livestock value chain and unleash the inherently huge economic potentials of milk, beef, leather and wool production. Countries like Argentina, Brazil and Australia would make good benchmarks. Let us develop ranches in the vast swathes of Borno, Bauchi, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba, Kaduna and even Niger. We could start with pilot schemes. Pastures are nurtured these days and many species of grass mature in weeks. Why arewe still trapped in pre-medieval nomadism?
Again, a savage elite The North, let it be said plainly, has some of the richest people in the world. One could count at least two dozen individuals richer than their states: TY Danjuma, the Dangotes, the Dantatas, the Mai Deribes, the Babangidas, the Yar’Aduas, the Indimis, Sani Bello, Rilwan Lukman, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Atiku Abubakar, Ado Bayero and Abdulsamad Rabiu, to name a few. This is not discounting the numerous new-rich politicos; all the former governors for instance.
The World Bank has granted a loan of $2.1 billion to revamp the Northeast. This class of northern elite in concert, probably has more net-worth than the World Bank, they can raise $21.1 billion for the same purpose. They must consciously resolve to help lift the North from its present morass of despair and sub-humanity. They can start a sustained change campaign on family values for instance. They can build early learning centres and primary schools in areas too remote for government to reach. There are a thousand and one ways they can give back to this earth that has proved very clement to them.
When the nose cry, the eye cries too The people of the South of Nigeria may choose to be aloof and comfortable about the backwardness of the North, but that would be basking in blissful ignorance. The Federal Government has spent trillions of naira in the last five years battling BH. That is cool cash that would have been spread round the country on development projects. The World Bank loan mentioned above for the reconstruction of the Northeast will be paid back by you and I, for instance.
But we need more than loans; we need elite change of attitude and resolve.
