CRISES IN NORTHERN NIGERIA Gov Aliyu Tackles Northern Elders

The Niger State Governor,  Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, at the weekend, took a swipe on northern elders who blame northern governors for the multifaceted crises besetting the region.   The governor, who is also the Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, argued that many northern elders  are to blame for the current problems of the […]

The Niger State Governor,  Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, at the weekend, took a swipe on northern elders who blame northern governors for the multifaceted crises besetting the region.

 

The governor, who is also the Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, argued that many northern elders  are to blame for the current problems of the region because of the roles they played previously in the nation’s polity.

Governor Aliyu made the remarks in an interview with Sunday Trust while responding to a question on what northern governors were doing to address the Boko Haram crisis, poverty, unemployment, dwindling quality of education, health care delivery and related problems facing the North.

In a veiled reaction to a recent lamentation by a former Finance Minister, Malam Adamu Ciroma, that the North needs a Shehu Usman Danfodio at this juncture in its history, the self-styled chief servant of Niger State said, “Part of our problem” is that the wrong people are talking. Everybody gets up and starts talking nonsense. Some of those talking are the same persons who caused our problems. Like the one who said he is waiting for Shehu Danfodio to come!  Danfodio will not come back, Sardauna will not come back, we are the ones who must do our own thing! I also saw Alhaji Shehu Malami saying similar things, regurgitating the same untruths. These are people who should be advising quietly, not going to the media to talk about things they no longer understand. Elders should know that they are elders. How can the governors do much when whoever wakes up, it is the governors he is abusing?”

The governor added that “Many of the issues originated right from the first coup of 1966, and then we had a string of military governors, we had value systems eroding! You wake up and see the person who had not even finished primary school suddenly become the richest man in the village, so you say okay, there is no need to go to school. Since it is not honesty but crooks that are respected, people will now rush to become crooks!”

Speaking on the issue of revenue sharing among the federating units in the country, the governor said that his position that the formula is lopsided had been misunderstood, but that the North would do everything possible to ensure it is corrected.

Governor Aliyu said, “I didn’t question derivation, which has always been with us. If you want to be curious, you may ask if the 13% derivation being paid now is only for oil revenue or for all revenues, including Customs etc. One may want to know that. There is also the issue of the continental shelf, i.e. offshore oil revenue which belongs to all Nigerians, not the contiguous states. The Supreme Court even affirmed this principle but someone went and bribed the National Assembly to merge onshore with offshore oil revenue. So we are questioning that! If it means going back to the Supreme Court, we will go back! If this is what some people call controversy, so be it, but those who come to equity must come with clean hands.”

(Read excerpts from Governor Aliyu’s interview and others related to the way forward for the North on pages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)