By Abdu Abdullahi

Sir: News about Northern Nigeria is still the same: repulsive, gloomy, shocking. It is depicting a regional tragedy. It is nothing but the naked truth about a region that is literary on fire and passing through self destruction.

It is still awful news that the brutish Boko Haram, bandits and kidnappers are terrorizing and ruling the land untamed.

The other side of the scenario is disheartening too as the Almajiris are escalating in number, lacking care, support and compassion. The ugly face of poverty is not showing any sign of withdrawal and exit.

Vanished into the thin air is the hitherto peace character of Arewa. We have converted our vast and potential region into the theater of human carnage.

Gradually perishing, we are becoming hopeless, helpless and defenseless citizens. A greatly potential region, it is currently fighting itself, destroying its future, squandering the collective hopes and dreams of its youths, the unborn generation and plundering the elevated vision of the late Sir Ahmadu Bello.

Prior to the spontaneous outbreak of this prevailing predicament, many among us were proud of our enormous population. But a renowned Islamic scholar, Shaikh Ibrahim Khaliel had a divergent view.

He insisted that our population must be productive before we show our pride. He was reacting to the menace of drug addiction among the northern youths. To vindicate the scholar, is part of our population not destructive and destroying the productive ones?

I remember when the late Malam Aminu Kano made a case for sober reflections. He admonished the well-to-do in our midst to be concerned about the future of their neighbors’ children who were economically challenged so as avert these unfavorable consequences.

Aminu Kano is also vindicated by the current regional turmoil afflicting us.

Until February 1998, I had never been to the southern Nigeria. While serving as a youth corps member in Abia State, my first impression about the Igbo society was very impressive. Wherever I looked around, I could not locate the monster of class society.

In other words, the gap between the haves and the have-nots were narrowed to the barest minimum. The social life I saw was not about the rich versus the poor. It was a life well designed for collective goal.

Can’t we explore a similar vibrant society? This was the nagging question I often asked myself throughout my stay there.

Now that we are falling apart and struggling to survive as a region, how do we positively adjust to reclaim our past glory of being a peace haven? What efforts have we been making to redesign our lingering socio-economic troubles?

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Are we conservatively resigning to artificial fate waiting for other people to rescue us from drifting? How many individuals, groups and institutions within and outside Arewa are seriously exerting their resources to deliver us from the shackles of backwardness?

When the late Gani Fawehimni of the Southwest awarded scholarship to some northern youths, was he not more passionate about our future so that we would not be producing vagabonds and criminals? Did I hear you muttering the Rochas Foundation? Of course it is another great deal of human service for our young ones to acquire education free of charge.

If these southerners were to vie for the presidency, the same reactionary elements from the north would now pretend to be the best friends of the north and would have been at the forefront blowing the whistle of ethno-religious bigotry to win converts from among the unenlightened. This is basically the factor why our northern elite want illiteracy to persist.

Institutions play great roles in shaping the society. One establishment that is making impacts on the youths in the north for over 20 years is the Kannywood film industry.

It is a collection of northern youths who are crazy for comfort. Most of their thematic elements in their fictional productions are anchored on cultural conflicts. As northerners, they are unmoved by the region’s decadence as their usual business begins and ends with capital accumulation.

In a contrasting dimension, a filmmaker from Lagos, Adeyeye Olatokunbo released a documentary entitled:’ Born Unlucky: The Almajiri System’. Olatokunbo spent just a year in Kano as a youth corps member and was moved by the pathetic state of Almajiri that he came up with his film to draw our attention to the social ill with a view to eradicating it.

For us to survive and prosper as a people, we must concertedly recognize who are the best friends of the north regardless of their origin.

• Abdu Abdullahi, Ringim, Jigawa State.