A letter to northern states’ governors (I)
Recent sorrowful events demand that this letter begins with words of condolence and commiseration. I condole with the Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF) over the tragic demise of Governor Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa of Kaduna State who died along with five others in a helicopter crash in Bayelsa State on Saturday December 15, 2012. I equally […]
Recent sorrowful events demand that this letter begins with words of condolence and commiseration. I condole with the Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF) over the tragic demise of Governor Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa of Kaduna State who died along with five others in a helicopter crash in Bayelsa State on Saturday December 15, 2012. I equally commiserate with you over the separate air and road accidents in which Governors Idris Wada of Kogi State and Danbaba Suntai of Taraba State respectively sustained injuries. While I pray for the repose of the soul of the late Governor, I wish the injured governors quick recovery.
This letter, Your Excellencies, which will serially run in two parts for two weeks due to the limited space of this column, is only but a ricochet of the rife lamentations, disquiet and restiveness orchestrated by the multifarious crises of bad governance and underdevelopment over the entire northern part of the country; a region once held dear and which heritage we were in the past proud of as northerners. The message of this letter is not too different from what, I believe, you have had cause to courageously listen to in the past from those who would neither look over their shoulders nor at your awe-inspiring faces to tell the truth as it is. The only thing that might be new is the circumstance (to be explained shortly) that prompted this more or less New Year mail; incidentally coming up in this year’s first edition of the column.
The scenario of the circumstance began on Friday December 21, 2012 when I set out on a journey out of Abuja through Kwali in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).The convoy of trailers loaded with yam tubers near Kwali market caught my attention. The yams were to be transported to the southern part of the country. The interrogation that instantly engaged my mind was: why is the entire north of the country so engrossed in the ‘poverty of local capacity’ that it lacks an industry to process this valuable food crop of the region in to yam flower and other forms of packaged foodstuff?
Worried by the retrogressive pattern of governance and development in all the northern states of Nigeria, I decided to look out for the manufacturer’s address printed on each consumable item we purchased. Of the following drinks we bought in the journey that lasted three hours, none is produced in the north. Bottled Mirinda is produced by Seven-up Bottling Company in Ijora, Lagos; bottled Viju milk is produced by Viju industries at Oregon Industrial Estate, Ikeja, Lagos; canned Maltina is by Nigerian Breweries at Iganmu House, Lagos; exotic is manufactured by CHI Limited Ajao Estate, Ikeja, Lagos; 5 Alive is produced by Nigerian Bottling Company, Iddo House, Lagos.
After safe arrival at my intended destination, I went in to a shop to pick some items. Except for Corn flakes, which is produced by NASCO foods in Jos, Plateau State; all the items I bought are produced in regions other than the north. Powdered Peak Milk is packaged by WAMCO Nigeria PLC at Ilupeju, Lagos; Cabin Biscuit is made by Yale Foods Limited, Ibadan; Vaseline body cream is made by Unilever Nigeria PLC Oregun, Lagos. Even ordinary cotton used in cleaning and dressing wounds, a once major cash crop of the north is today processed and sold to farmers of the commodity, northerners, by industries in Onitsha and other places. The north has been turned into a sort of “periphery” within periphery. Your Excellencies! I urge you (if my claims are doubtful) to walk into any supermarket in the capital city of the state you govern; pick fifteen items and see if two of them are produced in the north.
The once huge industrial estates of northern cities of Kano, Kaduna and Jos are today shadows of their former selves. Your Excellencies! If you have not visited Kano in recent times, kindly ask the Kwankwasiyyah Governor of Kano state to give you a brief situation report about the state of Sharada, Bompai and Challawa industrial estates in Kano. The present state of infrastructural development in contemporary north of Nigeria is not near what the founding fathers of the region dreamt of. A region that was once not only famous with the export of two major cash crops (groundnut and cotton) but also played host to textile industries has nothing to show today in terms of industrial development apart from sachet water and block-moulding industries. Street begging could be added since such is almost but unfortunately becoming an “industry” in the north! The region’s major export commodities today are poverty, destitution and unskilled labour. No wonder the late Sardaunan Sokoto wrote the NSGF a letter through the eloquent and guileless columnist Aisha Umar Yusuf (published in Weekly Trust Saturday October 24, 2009) to disown your proposal, at that time, to launch a Memorial Foundation in his name.
Those who travel wide would attest to the fact that majority of wheel barrow pushers in the markets of Lagos, Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Benin and other major cities around the country are young boys from the north. The same reality reveals itself among commercial motorcycle (okada) and tricycle operators in these cities. The tag “mai-gadi” (Hausa name for a security man) is even portrayed in Nolly-Wood movies as synonymous with a northerner; or more specifically a Hausa man from the north. A character playing the role of a security man in such movies is simply given the name “Adamu”; to illustrate (in their prejudiced perception) that such a job, perhaps, is what a Hausa man from the north could best do to earn a living!
To be continued.