If the South falls asleep

Unfortunately for the north, there is no end in sight to the bashing, because Nigeria’s mainstream press is dominated by southerners, who are very adept at what they do.  On the other hand too, many young northerners are not enamoured of the behavior and past and present performance of their political leaders.  These young – and even old – northerners are saying ‘good for us’.   Many have actually taken the blame for what has happened to Nigeria, with that same ‘quiet dignity’ that they have been known for.  It is dangerous territory though, because there is a fat risk that people in the north, after having taken the blame for Nigeria’s demise, will sink into depression further, under barrage from an unforgiving and vociferous south.

A few of the articles are worthy of note.  One was written by Ross Alabo-George, in which he sought to explain that ‘most’ of the indigenous oil companies are owned by northern big men.  But I saw some deliberate lies, myths and half-truths in the widely publicized article.  JF Kennedy it was who said the opposition to truth is not the lie, but the believable myth.  For example, IBB owns every other oil company managed by a southerner today. But is that true?  The Adenugas of the world, the Tinubus of OANDO, and a great many southerners, are solidly in control of their empires.  At best they only pay some royalty to those who enabled them – past Military rulers.  Also, AMNI Oil is owned by the current Asagba of Asaba family – the Edoziens.  Mr Alabo-George chose instead, as in a few of other instances, to tell us who the chairman of the company was.  Any enlightened person knows that it was the fad at some point in Nigeria to appoint past military big wigs as chairmen of companies, and that many such large companies were forced to show some corporate governance by appointing directors from different parts of Nigeria.

In matters such as this, it is good to be very objective and not merely sensational.  Clearly, the north of Nigeria has suffered from criminal leadership for many decades, but so has the south.  There is something defeatist and immature about the attempt by most columnists to cast the north as the be-all and end-all of Nigeria’s problems.

Another article was written by Kogi-born Malcolm Fabiyi. Hard-hitting and more objective, but the same skew of fundamental bias.  Fabiyi’s article showed he had fantastic knowledge of the North.  But as a first class brain, he should have also undertaken a historical analysis of the problems he spoke about.  For without looking back, we cannot truly see forward.  The north is stuck in a historical time warp.  Only a fraction of the problem it faces today is a result of the nature of the inhabitants of that region today. The people of Northern Nigeria did not choose to be backward.  The north of Nigeria, like the north of most West-African countries, was Islamic in orientation, and was in touch with the Islamic Civilisation then under the auspices of Constantinople (modern day Istanbul, Turkey), when the British Colonialists arrived.  The world was still largely unintegrated then, unlike today where the USA bombs whole continents into Capitalism and ‘democracy’.

Lugard and his cohorts prevented the spread of Christianity in vast sections of the North, because they were already having problems with the educated wannabes of the South and Middle-Belt.  It was also expedient for Lugard, because he was short of staff.  In those days, only a handful of Britons controlled the entire Nigeria, because as we know, the British are very frugal people, who try to achieve too much with too little.  The present-day problem with poverty, almajirai, inability to fully integrate with western education (which was then – and is still – seen as a capitulation to Christianity), are a carryover of that era.  To make matters worse, the average person in the north has seen a tendency for educated people in their region to become proud and aloof, and of course, their ‘educated’ leaders have been a great disappointment to them since the second republic.  Their leaders have shown them that education equals waste and ostentation.

The thinking of the south and north of Nigeria, were vastly different at the time the Colonial masters came.  They had a formidable religion – Islam – while most villages and cities in the south, had their own peculiar gods, which the white man quickly threw out and burnt.  While converting to Christianity in the south was seen as a modern thing to do, in the north, it was more difficult because their religion was well established.  Islam it was, that brought the world out of the Dark Ages, by going back to exhume the scientific works of the Greeks.  Before then, the ‘Christians’ who ruled the world had outlawed science and knowledge, and coerced all and sundry to believe in supernatural powers only.  Islam is still going strong today in spite of its challenges, while many of our local gods in the southern belt of West Africa, have all but disappeared.

A proper historical understanding of these problems will inform our comments, prevent their exacerbation, prevent us from pouring insult upon everybody’s injury, and for the northerners, perhaps inform their enlightened ones, that it is time to fully integrate western with Islamic education and move with alacrity. What is on hand is a historical issue, admixed with a culture shock.  Merely talking down on the region, cursing them out, calling them ‘animals’, ‘parasites’, ‘evil’, ‘backward’, as has become the norm among many so-called enlightened southerners, and Christians, will not solve any problem.  It can only breed enmity from north to south, east to west, and not only estrange northern muslims, but it will continue to reduce the self-worth of southerners/christians who engage in such bigotry.

Do we take it that while the north is asleep, and the south is wide awake and working?  Far from true.  Northerners learnt profligacy from the south. Driving out of Abuja towards the north, you would see teenagers by the highway, motioning to you to come and buy ‘mint’ for spraying.  But for the Boko onslaught, the North was becoming ‘owambe-ish’ like the south.  Our leaders down south have been terrible as well, with the dignified exception of someone like Fashola (more next week).  Others should not hide under his achievements and philosophy.

What riles me about us in the south, and something I am not proud of at all, is our knack to talk down on others.  We are engaged in pointing fingers now, all but forgetting our own serious problems.  I hope we would not fall asleep while passing the blame.  I posted a clip of Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa’s trip to the USA in 1961 on my facebook page recently and many were shocked at his eloquence, his carriage, his confidence and calm demeanour as he chatted away with JF Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.  The Americans gave standing ovations at his delivery of cogent talks.  He had vision, he had philosophy.  He shames our current leadership in no small measure.  Some were charitable enough to state that they had dismissed him as a ‘cattle rearer’, and were shocked at what they saw.  We must fight the myth that the North is all that is/has been wrong with Nigeria.  From north to south, east to west, we need change, sometime structural, sometime cultural, sometime to do with our thinking, but mostly attitudinal!