The leader of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), Jamilu Aliyu Charanchi, has said that the Endbadgovernance protest is a testimony that Nigeria isn’t working, and so many things are going wrong.
He described President Bola Tinubu’s recent speech as empty. “He was saying something different while the country was saying another thing,” he noted.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the CNG leader berated past and present political leaders of the north for underdevelopment of the region. He said, however, that the signing into law of the North West Development Commission (NWDC) was a good development.
What is your take on the #Endbadgovernance protest?
It was something that Nigerians prayed that it never happened the way it was witnessed, especially in the northern part of the country. We had wanted the government to do all things humanly possible to avert the calamities that people foresaw. It was unfortunate that despite the window period given to the government through the mainstream and social media and analysis on the gathering cloud, the authorities decided to remain adamant and silent. If they have been proactive, the lives of citizens would not have been lost. Many businesses shut down and others were destroyed. A lot of government structures and even worship places were destroyed. The genuine protesters were infiltrated by hoodlums and it ended up as a riot.
Even though we don’t support a protest that would lead to the destruction of lives and property, this happened because of the negligence of the government. The government needed to have addressed the issues within the window period given to her so that this protest would not happen, but regrettably, this is where we found ourselves today where so many things were destroyed and looted.
But there were no defined leaders of the protest for the government to discuss with?
Whether there were defined leaders or not, from analyses, people were warning that if this protest as allowed to happen, that it would never end well. It is the government’s responsibility to protect the welfare and lives of its citizens as enshrined in the constitution of the country. In as much as the government realises what was to happen, whether there was a face or it was faceless, the authorities should have been proactive to avert the calamity that might fall on the citizens. The reality is that the organizers of the protest even showed their faces so that the government might know who they were talking to. That was not an excuse for the government not to address the issues of people crying over acute hunger in the country. The issue of hunger is everywhere in the country, there is monumental corruption, there is high electricity tariff. The government should realise that the level of suffering in this country is very high. Nobody, except the very rich is talking about three square meals per day. You count yourself lucky if you are eating two meals a day. People are now eating what was taboo before just to stay alive. The government is aware of all these and they were supposed to have addressed them before this calamity. But unfortunately, the government has not been listening.
At what point did the peaceful protest turn violent?
I should be talking about my constituency where I’m familiar with. I think it is after three or four hours that the protest started that it took another dimension. The riot was everywhere in the north. Even where it started peacefully, it ended up as riot. I doubt if the security operatives we have on the ground were enough. That is why we have so much destruction. If they received signal that riot as going on at a particular place, before they got there destructions had been carried out. Shops of innocent citizens were looted and destroyed.
What is your take on the president’s broadcast last Sunday?
Despite that fact that the broadcast didn’t come out the right time, it is empty. He was supposed to tilt his speech towards the angle of policy reforms because what people are talking about are his policies, but unfortunately, he ended up telling us what we were already familiar with. He was talking about the student loans, which we are already aware of, he talked about the minimum wage that is not a new thing and other things which we are all aware of.
We expected the president to focus on issues of fuel subsidy, electricity tariff, corruption, security and the exorbitant cost of governance, the luxurious lives of political office holders and the permanent secretaries why the citizens are suffering. These are the issues we had expected the president to address. But unfortunately, he was saying something different while the country was saying another thing. The speech as empty; it carries no weight and doesn’t address the immediate concerns of the citizens.
The leaders of this country need to understand that Nigerian is sitting on a keg of gunpowder. What happened during this protest is just a tip of the iceberg of what is being forecast that if care is not taken may happen to this country. I’m from the north, we have seen the kind of people that are on the streets; we have seen their level of intelligence, we have seen their illiteracy level, we have seen the level of their wellbeing and so many things in them. These people are destitute, they are frustrated, and they are hungry and angry. An angry man can never think of the right direction he is supposed to take. An angry man doesn’t have the time to think of what is right or wrong. The people we have seen in the streets of the north are angry people, and that is why you see them even destroying concrete slabs and taking the rods away. Anything they can lay their hands on, they can vandalise it. It is very sad that we have this kind situation and our leaders are not concerned and they are cruising in their SUVs and billions of naira is spent on politicians. We have seen their convoy, their mansions. We have seen how trillions of naira are spent on them while some people can stay up to two days without food.
If our leaders don’t take this serious as a warning of danger, definitely, nobody can contain what may happen in Nigeria. We need to come out of our slumber and do the right thing at the right time and address the issues of insecurity, economic hardship, inflation and unemployment, and particularly, issue of petrol subsidy. These issues have to be looked into with all sense of humility and respect for the citizens of this country. They should be addressed once and for all. If leaders are playing with the issue of fuel subsidy they are putting this country into a serious danger.
Can you imagine a situation where some people were flying Russian flags in the name of protest? That is rubbish. This was not part of the protest because they were not with their senses. They cannot differentiate between what is right and what is wrong.
The government said the protest was politically motivated. What is your reaction to this?
Whether it was politically motivated or not, whatever it was, if the government had done the right thing nobody would have come out to protest. Like I said earlier, the government had a window period to avert the protest whether it was politically motivated or not, or internationally motivated or not. If the government had done what it was supposed to do, we wouldn’t have found ourselves where we are today, but it decided to remain adamant on issues of serious concern. These issues are reality; we are not talking of something that is invisible. Nobody can tell you that the hardship we are talking about is not real. Today, go to market with one million naira, you would be annoyed at what it can buy. The same market we are using is the same market the politicians are using. The same market the national assembly members are using is the same market the civil servants are using. We are going to buy the same commodity but unfortunately, the incomes are not the same. You think that all is well and that people can live peacefully? No. That cannot be accepted by the citizens.
As way of addressing infrastructure deficit in the North West, the president has signed the North West Development Commission bill into law. What do you say to this?
It is a good idea. As we have the North East Development Commission and also the Niger Delta Development Commission, it is good for us. We that are living in the North West know what is happening in the region – Kano, Kaduna, Jigawa, Kebbi, Zamfara, Sokoto and Katsina. In terms of out of school children, we are leading, we are leading in poverty indices, the region is leading in everything that is negative and unfortunately we are now suffering insecurity. This insecurity has displaced so many people and now we have the formal and informal IDPs. All these Alamajiri people are now increasing in numbers. Go to the streets and see the number of beggars. Go to the village square and ask the people when last they ate rice, they would tell you that it has been a long time. Let’s talk about maize, guinea corn, and millet. A bag of maize that was about N20, 000 before is almost N100, 000 now. The same goes with guinea corn or millet. A common man cannot even afford to buy food.
It is a welcome development as the president has decided to sign the bill. Our hope is that the commission would be handed over to people who have the region at their hearts and are patriotic enough to know what to do to improve the lives of the people living in that area.
Even the fight against insurgency, you need a synergy with the state governors, security agencies so that they can have a common understanding of fighting terrorism in the region. They could have a common blueprint of economic development of that area. When Zamfara is doing something different from what Sokoto is doing and other states doing things differently, then the terrorists will be moving from one state to the other because there is no synergy among the states. If there is a synergy going on regionally, bandits won’t see any place to hide in the region.
When we have economic development going on simultaneously in every part of the region, you won’t have rural to urban migration or urban to urban migration. There is need to have a centre to coordinate all the economic activities in the regions in the country so that they will be moving simultaneously. Our request to the president is that he hands it to capable hands, who would do everything humanly possible to put in place policies that would develop the region. It is for us to keep our eyes open to know what is going on in the commission. We cannot allow anybody to turn it into personal estate.
Kaduna State governor, Uba Sani came hard on the past and present political leaders of the north for its underdevelopment. Do you share his sentiment?
You cannot only share the blame on the present administration. There were so many things that were supposed to have been done by our past leaders. I’m not talking about the era of Sardauna Ahmadu Bello. Babangida’s administration was fairly better. The problem started thereafter. There were so many things that were supposed to be put in place, but the leaders ended up looting the treasury without considering the priorities of the people of that region.
It is the decay of many decades that we are suffering in the region. The children that were out of school in 2000 to 2003 are the ones wielding guns today. The persons smoking marijuana six years ago that the politicians recruited as thugs are the same people vandalizing government and citizens properties today. The same people they failed to give the necessary mentorship are the same people bringing all the challenges in the north. I share the same opinion with Uba Sani. We are repeating the insensitivities of our past leaders.
During Buhari’s administration there was also severe hardship, but there was no protest. Why?
It is not true. I led a protest in Katsina during Buhari’s government over insecurity. It was all over the media. Our main leader was arrested and taken to the Force headquarters, where he spent about three days. During the EndSARS protest, my organisation also organised Endsecurity protest in the northern part of the country. It was reported in the media. There was protest during Buhari’s administration and there is protest today. They are just trying either to monopolise the protest or take it as political or tribal sentiment. We led a protest during Buhari. It is a capital lie that there was no protest during Buhari’s time. They just want to use the opportunity to politicise or tribalise the protest.
Prof Ango Abdullahi, in an interview last weekend, said Nigeria wasn’t working and called for a revisit of the 1914 Amalgamation treaty to decide if the people want to live together or go their separate ways. What is your opinion on this?
The statement is quite and clear. Nigeria is not working. I doubt it if you will say Nigeria is working. Do we still have a country? Do we still believe in the country? Where is the patriotism? What is our concern about the country, do we still have the country in our hearts? It is because Nigeria is not working that patriotism is gone, selfless service is gone. Anything good to Nigeria is gone, we are just thinking of ourselves personally, myself, my family.
Nigeria is not working and nobody doubts it. The protest is a testimony that Nigeria isn’t working, and a testimony that so many things are not going the ways they should. That is the reason people were in the streets protesting, looting, vandalizing things and people also lost their lives.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the Prof’s statement. Yes, Nigeria is not working and it is a call for us to sit down and review the 1914 amalgamation. The Prof is very right. Some people said that we didn’t do protest during Buhari’s region. That is tribalism and they are saying that northerners are now protesting because it is not a northerner who is the president. This shows there is the need to revisit the 1914 amalgamation because we are just saying we are a united Nigeria, but in our minds we don’t believe that we are one. No one believes in the country he is living in. Prof was right by saying that we need to review the amalgamation so that we have a treaty within ourselves, and if we decide to live as one united country and holistically from our minds, we do that. But if we decide to part ways, we do it gently.