After perusing Suleiman A Suleiman’s ‘Why the North is poor’ article published on Monday, November 4, 2024, a striking and unequivocal question should continuously agitate the inquisitive mind. How did the North become poor? This seemingly ‘notorious’ question is meant to unmask the point of divergence from our prosperity to adversity, collaborating with the apt title for the sake of balanced reflections, quality judgement and eventually forging ahead.
Though it has been a prolonged and sad narration of our persistent and mass poorness, yet the HOW instigator fundamentally elicits and spurs complex analysis of restructuring ourselves for redemption from the artillery of backwardness. Certainly, today’s North is on the verge of systematic collapse and must swiftly act in line with the inescapable reality of the symbiotic relationship between chronic disease and damaging symptoms for the survival of the next generation.
According to the United Nations Human Development Index, countries are measured in accordance with their economic prosperity, respect for human rights and the quality of life of their citizens. However, the northern economy is sick, deepening the crisis of our expectations on quality living. The politics of Arewa is bedevilled by ‘empty of policy’ to rightly quote Suleiman. It is this protruding emptiness that continues to endanger our collective existence and explains why the North is not only poor, but will continue to be so.
Instead of aspiring for higher achievements, we are, unfortunately, battling to survive as a region enmeshed in poverty, insecurity and unemployment. These are a network of our embarrassment that must vehemently be checked. Of course, they are the paradigm checklist that requires the HOW strategy vis-a-vis where we are today so that we will not continue living the life of dying hopes and dislocated dreams. Albeit some of the factors of our glaring penury as envisaged and enumerated by the columnist are beyond our reach, such as the non-presence of ports, the others are self-imposed but can be controlled and manipulated to suit our development purposes.
Nevertheless, the painful result is that we are metaphorically poor in security, population, vision, leadership. Security operatives are themselves vulnerable to the attacks of bandits and insurgents, who have sacked many productive farming communities.
Our population is poor because a significant portion of it consists of the abandoned Almajirai, the disfigured substance abusers and dangerous political thugs. These are human capital which we willingly allow to be squandered. We are yet to start searching for a vision to view our profile through a reflective mirror for corrections and improvements. Our political leadership is very poor and incapable of breaking our disabilities to create wealth and opportunities for us.
We have to understand that the North will continue to be poor as long as it is staggeringly more divided between the exploited and the exploiters, between the ruled and the rulers, between the rich and the poor.
We are witnessing the arbitrary manner many northern governors mischievously employ hundreds of political aides, advisers, special assistants while primary schools are lacking teachers. On this note, Malala Yousafzai poses this reminder: “Let us remember that one book, one pen, one child, one teacher can change the world”. How many of these political appointees have really changed our world?
The socioeconomic dichotomy between the rich and the poor is escalating in such a big fraud that the rich make bulk purchases of rice after harvest for hoarding to maximise profit during the dry season. It is the economy of exploitation in which farmers as producers of wealth are made to become poor from their labour by the evils of capitalism.
Suleiman’s unbridled anger about our pathetic situation emphasises that we have reached the unacceptable trend of grappling with regional dislocation that we need to bring out the desirable and well-articulated policy to save ourselves.
In my frantic efforts to contribute to the theme on salvaging the North, I comparatively identified two Norths, the OLD and the NEW. What were the characteristics of the OLD North vis-a-vis the NEW North? Kindly refer to my article via Google entitled: ‘Between old North and new North: Remembering the Legendary Sardauna’, published by the Daily Trust of February 19, 2024.
Additionally, the deteriorating quality of leadership as encapsulated by the writer has deepened and aggravated this regional decadence in the aftermath of the death of the late Sir Ahmadu Bello. For the sake of emphasis, Sardauna’s real North has collapsed. It fell down with selfless services by selfless leaders. We are told that 50 years back, Dubai was a small fishing community. If quality leadership is there, an agricultural region like the North would have been a Dubai prototype.
When the North is at war with itself through brutal banditry and insurgency, we need not be told that the quality of leadership is at its lowest ebb. To resuscitate a functional leadership for the survival of the North, the late Malam Aminu Kano stressed: “State leadership is not a source of amassing ill-gotten wealth, self-complacency and pomposity, but a trust for which the bearer will be accountable to both people and God”. However, the core value of prevalent northern leadership is opportunistic both in theories and practices, ignoring the fundamental needs of the region and the people.
I must refer to Suleiman’s resentment of the deteriorating North as no longer Nigeria’s epicentre of radical politics. The writer did well not to forget that in those days, there was politics that was meant for the socioeconomic and political reforms of the North. It was a child of political necessity which dealt against decaying systems and practices, and not imposing cheap popularity on the people. Spearheaded by the unforgettable Malam Aminu Kano, he was documented by an American researcher on African politics in his famous book: African Revolutionary: The Life and Times of Nigeria’s Aminu Kano.
Meanwhile, the case of federal character as mentioned by the writer is a knotty theme and full of fraudulent practices. I still recall that in 1984, released statistics showed that the number of staff of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) from the former Bendel State was greater than the number of staff from the entire North. Till date, the issue of federal character is a misleading concept that is still not working in favour of fairness and equity.
Statistics have shown that Abia, Anambra and Imo states have the largest number of indigenes in the federal civil service. Where are the apostles of Nigeria’s marginalisation?
The last British General Officer Commanding the Nigeria Army, Major General Christopher Welby-Everand, recommended to the late Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa that the then Brigadier Aguiyi Ironsi, the most senior Nigerian Army officer, was unfit to lead the Army of a new country. But to preserve and strengthen the cardinal principle of fairness as a vibrant tool for instilling confidence in national unity, Balewa ignored General Welby-Everand’s recommendation and appointed Ironsi as the first indigenous General Officer Commanding of the Nigeria Army. Of course, even with that spirit of detribalisation, Balewa was not spared by the coup plotters of January 1966.
Finally, the unrelenting strives of the Daily Trust Company for setting a series of robust agenda in its publications to liberate the North from retrogression must be extolled. Accordingly, Suleiman A. Suleiman has once again with this topic hit the nail on the head. Do we allow the North to continue as a poor region in the context of national and global competitions?
Abdu Abdullahi, Ringim, Jigawa [email protected]
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