Re: Why the disinterest from Northern Nigeria?
In the column Alternative Perspective titled ‘Why the disinterest from Northern Nigeria’ published in Daily Trust of Saturday October 26, 2019, the author, MD Aminu, as usual, raised some thought-provoking issues, which put together centred around ‘rearward-ness’ of northern Nigeria. The idea of “rearward-ness” of the region as portrayed by the column is, to say […]
In the column Alternative Perspective titled ‘Why the disinterest from Northern Nigeria’ published in Daily Trust of Saturday October 26, 2019, the author, MD Aminu, as usual, raised some thought-provoking issues, which put together centred around ‘rearward-ness’ of northern Nigeria.
The idea of “rearward-ness” of the region as portrayed by the column is, to say the least, one reckless conclusion of depicting the North as parochial – opposing to progress and or innovations – which I have not only found to be a sweeping statement; but also incapable of withstanding academic tests. Why do I say this? It is this.
Going by social indices, education, health, technology, employment and unemployment rates, among other development indicators, the North may well be trailing behind the South. There is no doubt about that; but that does not justify the claim that the North is retrogressing.
My thought was that the column would concentrate on, lack of focus, the existing unfriendly relationship between lecturers and students in our universities or how best to marry up possible mentors and prospective mentees to fast-track socio-economic development in the region.
Let us analyze some of the major arguments the column has raised: (1) young people (from the region) are missing from other proceedings…such as essay competitions open to undergraduate students across the country’; (2) ’there is a sharp “difference in scholarly output between northern and southern Nigerian academics’; and (3) scholars from northern Nigeria are performing oddly behind their southern Nigeria contemporaries.
Neither the summit the author attended nor the experiences of his two friends (cited in the column) have adequately proven the argument right that the region is relapsing with regard to scholarship (serious academic study). It is very difficult to arrive at such a conclusion taking into account the giant strides the North is taking lately in that direction.
For one, it is an understatement to say that young men and women from the northern part of the country are participating more than ever before in a series of activities, home and abroad.
Perhaps the writer is not aware of a 17-year-old young man from Kano, Mujahyd Ameen Lilo, who recently won the 2019 Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange Competition – Lilo’s paper emerged the best among the essays presented by the winners from the six geo-political zones, when he represented the North West.
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, whose first novel, ‘Season of Crimson Blossoms’, in October 2016 won the Nigerian Literature Prize, and has since then been included in the Hay Festival’s Africa 39, which is a list of the 39 most promising African writers under the age of 40 – since then Adam has been enjoying his literary honeymoon in the company of the world best literati.
He has also been awarded the “African Writers’ Residency Award” by Germany’s Goethe Institute and the Sylt Institute, among other mouth-watering opportunities he has enjoyed.
Second, the column is, permit me to use the word, insensitive of the devise launched by Nigeria and co-designed by the Minister of Communication Dr Isah Pantami, Jelani Aliyu’s breakthrough, and a host of other Nigerians of northern extraction who have been contributing researches to bodies of knowledge in technology, sciences, health, IT, engineering, journalism, literature etc, and achieving feats in different areas of callings.
Third, it is true the output ratio of the southern academic may by far outnumber that of the North, but even that argument is based on quantitative analysis rather than qualitative one. Besides, the argument needs rigorous academic checks to arrive at a reliable conclusion.
If there was total ‘disinterest’ as the article suggests, then neither he (the writer), one Yahaya Maikori, who made up part of the moderators at the summit they attended, nor Moses Ochonu or Faruq Kperogi he cited in the second part of the article would have made it to so high a rung of social leader.
Yet in the region there are Aliyu Isa Aliyus, Muhsin Ibrahims, Hamisu Hadejas, Abdullahi Zubairu Abduls, etc, who are all taking it to global arena.
If the word disinterest in the article was used to mean ‘indifference’; then the whole article is an insult or a bashing of some kind to the region; and summarily it is off the track of a wake-up call.
The idea that the North is parochial or is characterized by ‘total disinterest’ toward scholarship despite the corpus of literatures in various disciplines emanating from the region is totally ill-informed and insensitive.
Abdulyassar Abdulhamid wrote via [email protected]