Some leaders of Northern Nigeria have of recent raised concerns over issues of poverty, unemployment and environmental degradation occasioned by insecurity, the intimidating presence of danger and terrorism in the region. It is regrettable that despite the electoral promises, the federal government under President Muhammadu Buhari has failed to contain the unfortunate incidents and fear of the unknown, which have enveloped the region and indeed, Nigeria in the past ten years. It is even more ironic the complacency of some northern leaders in the ongoing mayhem being perpetrated by terrorists, cattle rustlers, kidnappers and bandits. It is truism that if northern leaders had spoken with one voice all these years, the situation in that part of the country would have been much better than it is presently.
The level of poverty and human degradation in the North cannot be compared with any other part of the country. The people are hungry. Many women and children are suffering from lack of care and social welfare. The elderly are suffering from neglect while the youths roam the streets without jobs, without money and without succour. Do we then blame the youths if they take to crimes in retaliation to their plight? Do we blame the youths when agriculture that used to be the main stay of northern economy was replaced with oil money? Is it not amazing that northern governors are busy fighting the Federal Government over money sourced from oil generated from another region forgetting that prior to and shortly after independence, agricultural proceeds from the north sustained the national economy. It is on record that majority of the Ibos and Yorubas resident in the North went there primarily because of the region’s economic potentials. Today, what is the situation like? Northerners are moving down south as farmers, cattle rearers, palm-oil merchants, onions and potatoes’ sellers and street beggars. This is uncalled for and unacceptable for a region with huge economic potentials.
Various studies have shown that the pitiable situation in Northern Nigeria was one in which the combination of political and religious power and authority made wealth and personality worship an integral part of the system. The leaders were seen as never making any mistake, and their public policy decisions were not subject to public scrutiny out of utmost respect. To question the validity or legitimacy of the actions of the leaders or to dispute their position on anything was tantamount to questioning one’s religion or the will of God. There is the saying in Hausa that: “Bin Na Gaba, Bin Allah” i.e., obeying your superior is synonymous to obeying God. Despite the fact that there have been some recent changes, the situation largely remains the same for many of the ordinary people.
Northern Nigerian elites did not begin to seriously realize their “relative lag” in modern development until the 1950s, when because of social and political developments after the Second World War, the liquidation of colonial empires became inevitable. But while Southern Nigeria was relatively prepared for this due to the social changes they had accepted (or that were forced on them) much earlier under colonial rule, Northern Nigeria had to start almost afresh in the 1950s in order to institutionally prepare herself for a modern democratic government and to grasp the processes of the emerging new social order.
Every right thinking Nigerian is disturbed about what is happening in Northern Nigeria today. Even the “Northern talakawa,” whether the “talakawa” is Hausa-Fulani or minority seem not to have any peace. On the other hand, it is doubtful if the northern elites have sleepless nights at all worrying about the welfare of the ordinary “talakawa”.
Finally, if the fundamental commitment of the elites is to transform the region, they should measure the progress of the region neither by the number of houses built by the rich, nor the number of millionaires the region has produced, but by the economic well-being of the poor around them.
