Is Tinubu truly anti-north?

At a recent ‘Chatham House’ meeting with a southern governor, an editor of northern extraction was full of fury. He believes that President Bola Tinubu has been consistently anti-north since May 2023. Strangely, he was strongly countered by another northern editor who was full of gratitude to Tinubu for favouring the north. This debate between two brothers from the north in a government house in the south mirrors the broader debate on whether Tinubu is an anti-north president.

While some persons in the south accuse Tinubu of favouring the north in a show of pork-barrel politics and political clientelism, there are those in the north who see the  President as a local, parochial-minded leader whose focus is largely on his southern people. Among this group is a sub-group that argues that Tinubu’s focus on the south is largely on his southwest region. Diverse perspectives. Different shades of framing. What these point to is that Tinubu is focusing on all parts of the country. Whether as pork-barrel politics or as political clientelism, Tinubu has development imprints across the nation and the north is a major beneficiary.

But it is strange how the accusers of Tinubu, who consciously avoided to rebuke previous governments on their models for allocation of resources, from Obasanjo to Buhari, could suddenly jump out of their skin to pick holes where there is none. From the acerbic tone of some of the critics, you would almost think that there are states in Nigeria, north or south, that do not have ministerial representatives in the Tinubu cabinet. You could even be tempted to believe that Tinubu completely shut out some parts of the country in the distribution of resources or infrastructure.

Even stranger is the fact that journalists are among the purveyors of this toxic gospel of marginalisation. Are these critics strangers in Nigeria? Did they descend from Mars or any other planet beyond this crusted earth? Except they are politically motivated and ethnically-propelled critics, there is no quantitative and qualitative analysis or result therefrom, to support their argument that Tinubu is anti-north, any part of the north for that matter. To keep asserting such assumption is to play politics with matters that verge on development.

So, if the north is complaining, what should the south-south minorities do? Without any ounce of doubt, the south-south is the economic turbine engine that drives the nation. Nigeria’s budget is benchmarked on price of crude oil, not on any other product or produce. Everyday, Nigeria earns petro-dollars in millions. It has been so since 1958 when Nigeria exported the first cargo of crude oil. Yet, the same south-south does not have as much federal infrastructure, institutions and monuments like the north. And it has been so before Tinubu ever became a politician. Yet, the same south-south has submitted and committed itself to laying the golden egg; the wealth provider that succours the nation. Whereas the petro-dollar from the south-south has kept the nation breathing and staying economically afloat despite long years of ruination and despoliation by bad leaderships, the same south-south has since 1960 been cast aside like a child of abomination. Without commensurate number of federal institutions and infrastructure, the south-south has endured pain, neglect and ostracization from the centre it feeds per second. Again, this is not a Tinubu problem. This marginalisation predates the Tinubu era.

On the praesens materia, which is that Tinubu is anti-north, there is no empirical evidence to prove this. But there is a preponderance of verifiable proof to show that indeed, President Tinubu has been pro-north. From presidential appointments to distribution of infrastructure, the north has witnessed showers of presidential rain. Road infrastructure, healthcare, agricultural input, education and other aspects of national development.

How do you ignore the reality that under Tinubu, the northwest has had the lion’s share in infrastructure development? It is hard to mute the voice bellowing through the savannah plains of the northwest where about N5.97 trillion worth of federal projects are concentrated, the largest share nationwide, outstripping infrastructure value in southwest. The northwest alone has 48 percent of the 260 special intervention projects under Tinubu, cresting a zonal average of 43 percent.

Indeed, the north is where infrastructural development has its hub and heart. Think of the Sokoto-Badagry Superhighway, a 1,068-km, six-lane highway featuring an integrated rail line spanning across northern states; ponder the Kaduna-Kano-Katsina-Maradi railway, an ambitious trans-Sahara rail corridor connecting several northern states to Niger Republic. Anyone with as much as a smattering knowledge of the dynamics of trade across the north all through and into the Sahel region will appreciate the relevance of this route. It is a commercial highway that links northern Nigeria to the Sahel states. It will be the ultimate hallway to improved trade between Nigeria and other African nations through the Sahel. Trade, interstate and inter-national transport, agriculture and commerce, among others will profit from this. Then there is the 20-cm thick concrete pavement and solar-powered Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Expressway now nearing completion.

Except Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger and Kwara have been excised from the north, the Sokoto–Badagry Superhighway, a massive federal infrastructure cannot be numbered among pro-north infrastructural projects. This project connects Illela in Sokoto State (at the Nigeria-Niger Republic border precincts) to Badagry in Lagos State, coursing across   Kebbi, Niger, Kwara, Oyo, Ogun, and Ondo states.

In agriculture, healthcare, education and general infrastructure, Tinubu has done for the north far more than he has done for the south. The emblems of proof and data that support this assertion are clearly in the face of those who have chosen to play politics with the critical matter of development.

Cast away the cassock of partisan politics. Look through the prism of development and national cohesion. The north cannot and should not complain. This has been the pattern of politics in every election year. Ignoring the big picture and focusing on shadow. Northerners or other critics who blame Tinubu for the woes of the north should take a step back and ask the critical question: what has my governor done with all the hefty allocations he gets every 30 days? If Nigerians demand good governance and accountability from their governors, it will reduce the national amnesia of travelling to Sokoto when what they are looking for is right inside their ‘Shokoto’ dress.

Those from the north or any part of the country should think less of Tinubu or any president as their problem. They should look within their respective states and demand accountability and good governance from their governors.