Political power, poverty, gold and killing fields in Northern Nigeria

Aliko Dangote has caused us to look deeper into events in Northern Nigeria today <calendar:T5:today>, and David Diop’s poem comes to my mind where he laments – Africa My Africa, is this you… In my mind’s ear, I hear this said of Northern Nigeria in the voice of Sir Ahmadu Bello the Sardauna of Sokoto. […]

Aliko Dangote has caused us to look deeper into events in Northern Nigeria today <calendar:T5:today>, and David Diop’s poem comes to my mind where he laments – Africa My Africa, is this you… In my mind’s ear, I hear this said of Northern Nigeria in the voice of Sir Ahmadu Bello the Sardauna of Sokoto.

“Arewa, tell me Arewa

Though I hailed you as Kasa mai Albarka (Richly Blessed Land)

Is this your back that is (this) bent

This back that never breaks, now bent, under the weight of humiliation

This back now trembling with red scars

And saying yes to the vicissitudes of shame under your governors and rulers past and present?”

Why is Dangote talking about poverty in the North now? Because the North is not what it should be, and poverty is the platform on which the whole narrative of the North toda <calendar:T5:today>y is laid. Poverty is the bedrock of all Northern Nigerian woes. Bandits in Zamfara State, killing by the hundreds for sport; Kaduna – Abuja highway, given up to kidnappers; Birnin Gwari, and Kajuru in Kaduna State all killing fields where people meet with death in a world without all values of humanity; the Tiv and the Jukun, killing each other in Wukari, Taraba State; and in Adamawa State, though farmer – herder conflicts have ebbed, life is on edge because rumours are rife that attacks would soon come, fears are that small market incidents would spark off monumental orgies of bloodletting. This is the condition of the once peaceful Northern Nigeria – simple folks who were once friendly, welcoming and accommodating, have become vile and bloody.

Why is the vast North, bleeding? It has all it takes, political power, wealth of vast arable land and mineral resources which include gold, and yet it’s people are stricken by poverty, and the whole region, is today made up of the killing fields in Nigeria.

The backdrop for this condition; the reason matters are the way they are is the stark ignorance of the common ordinary folks. It is a good thing that a weighty voice like that of Africa’s richest man and Chairman of Dangote Group of Companies, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has risen on the problem of poverty in the North. He has placed the problem where it belongs – the governors of Northern States, who have taken no steps to reduce and in time eradicate poverty in the region.

For a long time to come, Northern Governors will not take up the issue. They are all disagreed on regional development even as the South West Region has virtually liberated itself from our political shackles on them and have forged regional development through monolingual and uni-cultural economic cooperation to achieve the betterment of their people. Northern Governors appear unperturbed by the stark poverty being suffered by their teeming populations. They pay lip service to education and are unaffected by the misery of ordinary folks they see.

Poverty in the North of Nigeria should be seen for what it is. It is the evidence of the criminal conspiracy of the elite against ordinary citizens – the belief being to keep the people permanently impoverished and in so doing, arrest and control their tacit political support. Ignorance is the tool. In ignorance, the people are held bound and procreate massively. They abdicate responsibility by running away, or by trafficking their children to distant lands for street begging. It is a vicious cycle, the number of afflicted doubles with every effort to reduce the pangs.

But Dangote for some reason stopped short of berating President Muhammadu Buhari who cannot be absolved.  The same should be said of him about poverty in the North. Even for the mere fact of his being a Northerner, one expected President Buhari to hold Northern Governors accountable to specific issues namely the menace of 13 million almajiri children, education, poverty eradication and security. Instead he has cocooned himself under his self-imposed constitutional trappings and has not pointed at any direction for the Northern Governors on behalf of his massive supporters. For much of the time that people were being killed in Zamfara State, the governor of the State Abdul’aziz Yari in outright irresponsibility, was the most visible swashbuckling governor in Aso Rock.

There are truths we must accept and face up to. First is that President Muhammadu Buhari’s handling of the Northern situation, particularly poverty and security is defective to the point of being ineffective. The orders he gave for service chiefs to relocate to Maiduguri were not obeyed. Instead a theatre was created and Boko Haram like a snake, was only scorched, the head has not been cut off. The military’s approach if subjected to analysis proves the logic of the counter insurgency difficult to understand. Obviously the attempt to create safe and secure havens and wait till Boko Haram attacks for them to be repelled has and will keep the war till the end of time. One expected a surge – a mobilisation of able bodied reserves and recruitment of well profiled soldiers for an onslaught from all fronts. This may sound like bloody civilian, crap, but this crap worked for the civil war. Besides, the current approach has been too costly in both troop and civilian losses, indeed materially and manpower wise one is forced to ask if at that price we really did make progress.

To confront the Zamfara Killings, the Nigerian military has launched what is tagged Operation Puff Adder. The Military has been effective in checkmating banditry through designed operations, but sadly victory is won not through the defeat of the enemy but through their dispersal. Thus as we await the cleansing of Zamfara State through Operation Puff Adder, other States in the country now hold their breath, not knowing what direction that murderous lot in Zamfara would be dispersed to. The military in directing Operation Puff Adder must think this whole process out. The idea is not to shift the mayhem to neighbouring vulnerable States such as Plateau, Benue, Adamawa, Katsina and even Kaduna State, as would happen if Operation Puff Adder merely disperses the bandits.