Life can be very funny. The alluring substance of political power can also be intriguing. But the boastings of life and power are made futile by their transient nature. And democracy, as a leveller, breeds the contradictions. Some years back, it was unthinkable that the northern part of Nigeria would cry of marginalization. Whether by an adult or a kindergartener, crying connotes despair, pain, bitterness, regrets and, perhaps, helplessness. In this case, a tiny clique of political elite is shedding crocodile tears.
The ‘tears’ are not necessarily for the material conditions of the poor and the disadvantaged in the North but about the displacement of a privileged few from the corridors of power and their control of the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy.
The first shot was fired by an Islamic cleric, Sheikh Gumi, on the appointment of Nyesom Wike, a southerner as FCT Minister, but he was stoutly reminded that the ministry was not the birthright of the North and non-Christians. In a similar vein, the relocation of FAAN headquarters and some relevant departments in CBN to Lagos was seen as anti-North. In fact, Senator Ali Ndume threatened that the singular decision would have political consequences.
Also, Professor Usman Yusuf, the sacked executive secretary of the NHIS, has been letting out a stream of invectives like an aggrieved man. Overnight, he has turned an advocate of good governance. Yusuf’s latter-day foul cry would have been taken seriously, if it were directed against those in the North who abused their perennial years in the seat of power and failed to address the structural deficiencies that morphed into humanitarian crises. Nearly 12 years ago, precisely, in December 2012, the former Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar, had expressed grave concerns that the fever of insecurity and its havoc would take over 20 years of constant efforts to revive the economy of the North.
The situation is worse off today as banditry is rife. Criminal gangs militarize Zamfara corridor with the active connivance of opportunistic elite in the illegal competition for artisanal mining and exporting of gold. Last week, there was a resurgence of suicide bombing in Gwoza, Borno State, which claimed 32 lives. Some strategic analysts view it as a build-up ploy to blackmail Tinubu in 2027 like they did to Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 with the Boko Haram insurgency.
The once monolithic North has become irredeemably fragmented by the over-pampered killer-herdsmen’s dispossessions and dislocations of agrarian communities in Benue and Plateau states under the Buhari presidency. It was so bad that T.Y. Danjuma, a retired senior military officer, indicted the military of complicity and urged his Taraba people to protect themselves, if they don’t want to be killed.
These are the issues that should bother the North. Besides, in October 2017, research revealed that generations of addicts were being created with the consumption of more than three million bottles of codeine syrup daily in Kano and Jigawa states alone, “as abusers take up to three to eight bottles daily.” BBC reported that though it is an effective painkiller, its content of addictive opioid, “is also capable of giving you a euphoric high if consumed in large quantities.” Apart from the unchecked consumption of cannabis and cocaine among the male youth, codeine cough syrup addiction has become a new cancer ravaging women and girls. Another frightening statistics, which calls for a timeous policy action and not buck-passing, is the country’s 2023 National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) dashboard.
The scary report states that 63% of people living in Nigeria (133 million people) are in the multidimensional poverty bracket, and 65% of them (86 million people) live in the North. For emphasis, the 10 indicators of multidimensional poverty include nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, and assets.
This ugly development is readily manifest in the number of out-of-school children. According to UNICEF, as of May 2024, Nigeria has 18.3 million out-of-school children, the highest globally. The North has the highest percentage with the following top 10 states: Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe, Zamfara, Bauchi, Borno, Jigawa, Gombe, Katsina and Niger. The hangover is the low educational profile of these states. Hence, the vice-chancellor of Bayero University, Kano, recently lamented the inability to fill the admission quota of Kano State in the school. It is not surprising that northern lawmakers are up against the bill to codify cattle ranching.
They prefer open grazing despite the insecurity pathogen and human rights concerns. Prof. Yusuf and his co-travellers should mind these problems and not go about throwing jabs at the Bola Tinubu presidency alone. Even Nasir el-Rufai’s self-serving visitations to SDP headquarters, Daura, the hometown of Buhari, and Rabiu Kwankwanso, apparently to mobilize against the present administration, would not exculpate him from answering questions on the choking external debt overhang he bequeathed to Kaduna State as governor.
Such alleged infractions should elicit public opprobrium from the North. Of course, Shehu Sani, the nemesis of the North, is equal to the task. He has alerted the country that those homages, including Atiku’s visit to Minna, were all targeted at wresting power from the South in 2027 after the North has had its eight-year presidency. And in condemning the killing of seven policemen and other civilians in Zamfara State by bandits last month, Sani upbraided the North for not raising public outcry against the criminality, stating that, “It’s sad that the killing of our security agents only gets louder outrage when it happens in the South East.”
In essence, the selective morality of the northern elite leaves much to be desired. Lending his voice, the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, took those he called “unpatriotic politicians in the northern region” to the cleaners for their “entitlement mentality” and listed 30 key appointments allocated to the North by President Tinubu.
But under the Buhari presidency, nepotism and sectionalism in appointments and projects were greeted with loud silence from the North. Be that as it may, Bernard Malamud had noted that, “In a sick country, every step to health is an insult to those who live on its sickness.” The way forward is to harp less on our fault lines, forge elite consensus in tackling national challenges, and not the parochial hyping of negative stories to feather political nests.