Follow Us on Google
From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has raised the alarm that Northern region of Nigeria will be in danger if a war is declared against Niger Republic by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
ECOWAS, led by Nigeria, has been threatening the coup leaders in Niger and has given them an a Sunday August 6 ultimatum to return power to the ousted leaders. Reports said Nigeria has cut off electricity supply to Niger Republic in the wake of ECOWAS intervention.
However, ACF has warned that any fallout of the crisis from Niger Republic will by extension affect the entire Nigeria, and it may pay dearly for it.
In a chat with Saturday Sun, the National Publicity Secretary of ACF, Professor Tukur Muhammad Baba advised Nigerian leadership to stay off Niger Republic crisis. The ACF spokesman, a Professor of Sociology, reminded ECOWAS leaders that they should take a look at the level of interventions that America, the most powerful nation in the world, has done in countries like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan crises over the years without the desired recorded success.
Professor Baba who is the Dean, Faculty of Social & Management Sciences, Federal University, Birnin Kebbi, also talked about President Tinubu’s nationwide speech penultimate Monday, saying that the President should move fast into implementing his plans and avoid too much of rhetoric.
He called on the Federal Government to put in place and implement programmes that will wrestle the people of the North from abject poverty, regretting that out of school children in the region has become a global embarrassment and national shame.
“Immediately anything comes in the way of policy, take for example, the so called attack by ECOWAS on Niger Republic, Northern Nigeria is going to pay very dearly for it, a Northern Nigeria within the context of Nigeria itself, Nigeria is going to pay very dearly for it. We should pay attention to what has happened everywhere. American adventurism in Vietnam, American adventurism in Iraq, in Syria and not long ago, Americans adventurism with European counterparts in Afghanistan. The biggest military machines in human history today have not been able to defeat Persians in Afghanistan. What is our strength compared to Niger Republic, and then we should not forget the historical force that bind us together before colonialism came and divided us without our consent. No participation.
“We should please tarry awhile and learn from human history and know about history. There are communities that I know in the North, if you go to such settlements, in Kebbi State, for example, it is one single settlement that is in the border of three countries; Nigeria, Niger and Benin Republic. We should be very careful, we have enough poverty, we have enough conflict, we have enough of kidnapping and banditry to contend with than to engage our neighbours in war. We expect that this should be taken into consideration. And I don’t think nobody will forget that we share the longest international boundary with Niger Republic more than any other country.
“And the fact that Niger Republic is one of the poorest countries in the world with the poorest indices of development, let alone in the sub Saharan Africa. We should please think before we act.
“Other things I will want to add is that we in the North here are generally worried, we the analysts in the North, because the North carries disproportionately the multidimensional incidence of poverty according to figures released in the 2022 report of the National Bureau of statistics, there are people who are overwhelmingly living below the poverty line of health and education in the North. We will like to see not just palliatives actually, but programmes that will address these causes and manifestation of multidimensional incidence of poverty.
“And we hope the federal government will do a programme that will key in with the state governors. No matter what the party affiliation is, this is beyond party, and the federal government should work out a system whereby there should be direct collaboration between the federal government and the state governments irrespective of party affiliation to show that we are facing a problem that affected everybody.
“Whoever is going to handle it, whether it is blue party, green party, PDP, Labour party, whether it is Chinese Communist party, the idea is that people should not go to bed hungry. Opportunities must be created; people need to be educated to go to school. It is a shame that today we are still trying to convince people to go to school, I think we should go beyond that. It is such a shame that North is bearing greater burden of out of school children. I know that basic education is the prerogative of the state government and local government, but the Federal Government has a say in that. The federal should with transparency encourage the states to pay attention to some of these key factors and indicators that are likely to push the people into multidimensional poverty.”
