Again, Punch bombs Arewaland
If you live on social media where people are their own publishers and editors spewing Okrika English, then you would agree that these are interesting times. Our north has never had it so good. Our dear son, mai gaskiya, Muhammadu Buhari is president, elected by popular mandate. His success is bound to attract jealousy and […]
If you live on social media where people are their own publishers and editors spewing Okrika English, then you would agree that these are interesting times. Our north has never had it so good. Our dear son, mai gaskiya, Muhammadu Buhari is president, elected by popular mandate. His success is bound to attract jealousy and spite especially from regions born to follow and those who have never produced anything better than 419, cultists and corrupt ruiners.
Insha Allah, Sai Baba till 2023 ko an ki ko an so – whether they like it or not. Those who dislike that reality are free to vote with their feet wherever they see their El dorado. As Sai Baba himself would have put it, this generation of northerners, and indeed generations yet unborn have no other business than prebendal politics, they shall continue to feed on it.
Southerners and their powerful media have a different agenda. Recently, the Punch, a southern newspaper published an editorial with the title – “Breaking the Vicious Grip of Poverty in the North”. Ever eager to bash the north, this newspaper with neither bureau nor representative anywhere in the north continues to magnify regional stereotypes.
Using a 2017 Oxford University Human Development Initiative, Multidimensional Poverty Index Data Bank report, the Punch painted an unfair editorial on poverty, insecurity and illiteracy in its phantom north. It reported 85% level of poverty in the north. Anybody reading this anywhere in Arewaland would see the paper’s pure etanu or bad belle. There is no such level of poverty anywhere in Arewaland. If you disbelieve me, check the number of tweeter trolls who stalk the likes of Farooq Kperogi whenever he criticises their hero – Muhammadu Buhari.
At any rate, even that jaundiced report says that only six of Arewa’s 19 states are poor. Any statistician knows that a region that scores 13 out of 19 has done well but these jaundiced editorialists could not see the big picture. Six out of nineteen cannot be described as many if you ask Femi Adesina.
Naija governors know where their bread is buttered. That is why the Governor’s Forum elected Abdulaziz Yari as their leader. They know what’s best for business. Yari goes around in sartorial elegance. His thoughts on meningitis are pristine – it is a divine punishment for the prostitution that has deeper roots in Ajegunle than Gusau. But to denigrate Yari’s Zamfara, the UK report writers allege that poverty in Zamfara is 92%, the highest in Naija. At the appropriate time, Yari, who once hired a jet for $200,000 for a return prayer trip from Maccah, would respond to this litany of lies.
Everybody knows that Sule Lamido wants the presidency. But he would not get it until he repents of his critical criticism of President Buhari. Still, only the wicked would record Jigawa, a state that Lamido governed for two terms as having 88% poverty rate. Anyone who has been to Bauchi would disagree that there is an 87% poverty rate in the pearl of tourism. It couldn’t have rivaled Kebbi’s standing of 86 per cent. It is sacrilegious to suggest that Katsina, the home state of the president has a poverty rate of 82 per cent.
How on earth did anyone arrive at a 77% poverty rate for a young state like Gombe? Punch’s anger is that Gombe has established two universities it claimed the state couldn’t sustain. Ibrahim Dankwambo’s credit rating is high enough to secure loans from any Bretton Wood institution for posterity to pay. Again, this is pure bad blood. Taraba, the home state of Aisha Alhassan has been denigrated with a 78% poverty rate in this report. If this is an attempt to bring the poor minister to disrepute for supporting Atiku and Buhari, it has failed. Buhari knows the principle of double-loyalty – polygamous men know it too.
The Punch rehearsed a few reports to insinuate that eight million children are out of school in Arewaland with the girl-child carrying the stick. It is pure blackmail to claim that our Arewa has a girl-child enrolment of 30% just like Pakistan and Afghanistan without acknowledging that we marry off our girls to prevent them from ‘open-eye’ that leads to prostitution and low morals.
On food security, this newspaper reminds us that our region has a 75% food insecurity attributed to the boko haram insurgency, which thanks Buhari was defeated in December 2015. Of course, Punch does not know this, it keeps carrying reports of bombs and attacks in different parts of the north, ignoring cultism, 419 and ritual killings that is rampant within its region of operation – pure wickedness.
Arewaland cannot be compared with Islamic countries like UAE, Turkey & Indonesia with close to 95% literacy rate. In Jannah, we would have more saints than those countries put together for adhering to undiluted form of Islam. Punch asks governments in Arewaland to promote the social paradigms of population control, immunisation, sanitation and hygiene, and to end practices such as child marriage and almajirci. My response is simple; we would ignore that advice because what Punch considers as vices are simply machines that mint votes. If in doubt, ask Ganduje.