Let’s bring peace and development to the North!
I am deeply in pain over recent happenings in Northern Nigeria. In the past, Northern Nigeria was known for peace, tolerance and love for each other. We used to adore and respect one another. We lived with one another happily, providentially and contentedly. We were harmonious, symphonious in coherent and cohesive manner. That is why the […]
I am deeply in pain over recent happenings in Northern Nigeria. In the past, Northern Nigeria was known for peace, tolerance and love for each other. We used to adore and respect one another. We lived with one another happily, providentially and contentedly. We were harmonious, symphonious in coherent and cohesive manner. That is why the region became the centre for attraction for influx people from the other parts of the country, especially immediately after our independence and after the civil war. We embraced and hugged one another and other people coming to us without any kind of acrimony or hatred. Northern Nigeria served as paradise and asylum for all.
Today, we have become fighters and killers of one another. The once peaceful, quiet and calm Northern Nigeria has become a place for upheavals, turmoils and anxiety. Carnage and mass murder are the order of the day. Why is the other part of the country in peace and constant development? They are also Muslims and Christians living together. They are progressing day after day while we are retrogressing. That part vehemently fights poverty while we are diving into it day in day out. That part is becoming more advanced in life and also more educated and enlightened while we are not. If one compares the North of this country to the South, in terms of development projects, the difference is wide and capacious.
Most of our politicians are not the persons who love, support and defend the North or her interests. They do not consider the region and their people as important worthy of regard or toil for their sake. All what they are after is their individual ego. They do not bring any development to their region apart from building personal houses and sending their children abroad for studies. In fact, many of them are a disgrace to the North, for we are disappointed in them.
Concerning our leaders, as I mentioned above, among the heads of state who ruled this country since independence, many of them were from the North. Based on my personal assessment about four of them did something for the North. General Yakubu Gowon is one of them. He was the one who introduced the policy of bridging the gap in the educational sector, where he built colleges of Art and Science in many states in the North. This gave ample opportunities to northerners to enter universities.
Sadly, the North is still lagging behind in the media space when compared with the South. The South today has Channels TV, TVC, AIT, Silverbird, Galaxy and so on, but in the North how many do we have? Look again at the print media, we have only Daily Trust and Leadership as popular publications that do us proud while in the South you have a lot of them. Thirdly, we the people of the North also have our personal problems, we are lazy, indolent and dilatory. Please stop playing politics with the lives of our people. Stop recruiting thugs to commit atrocities. Look at the killings all over the North, Boko Haram and their dreadful and appalling acts and other religious or tribal killings. Many of our past leaders from the North were the source of our poverty and deprivation. One cannot see any son of politicians being killed in crises. These vicious people are always interested in keeping us constantly divided along religious or ethnic lines, so they can forge their way to the lofty positions and to their ill gotten wealth.
Northern Nigeria was not a poor region. We were contributing about 60% to the inland revenue of this country after independence in 1960. Let our state governments and our wealthy ones embark on skills acquisition programmes for our less privileged ones. Our industrial sector must be brought back and be revived.
In conclusion, I would like to draw the attention of northerners to the fact that even in the National Assembly most of those who do not contribute to debates and discussions are the northerners. They ask the others to sign the attendance for them, while they are busy travel ling from one country to another. Northerners are not in need of distribution of rams for naming ceremonies, assistance for marriages, distribution of motorcycles, bicycles, cars, etc, we need you to lobby for real development projects and work for instillation of peace in the region. I call on our electorate to stop sending illiterates and semi-illiterates to the National Assembly because they cannot even talk during debates, talk-less of defending our interests.
Prof. Nguru wrote from Nigerian Arabic Village