Saving the soul of Northern Nigeria

However, it appears that the state of emergency and military check-points have succeeded in only destroying the economy of the already impoverished people of the region, instead of solving the problem. Even the meetings organised recently by leaders from the region did little to give hope to the people and to end the spectre of […]

However, it appears that the state of emergency and military check-points have succeeded in only destroying the economy of the already impoverished people of the region, instead of solving the problem. Even the meetings organised recently by leaders from the region did little to give hope to the people and to end the spectre of violence.

Although statistics and figures cannot fully explain or be used in analyzing social phenomena, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics poverty figure does show the extent of the region’s problems. It is not just enough to state that the North is poor and then keep quite on the possible explanations of why the region is so poor. In their reaction, northern state governors demanded for more revenue from the federation account. What a lazy way of addressing the problem! Northern governors are responsible for the present situation in Northern Nigeria. With the region having more than N20tr as revenue from the federation account in the last 12 years, there is little to show for all these huge sum of money, except the alleged stealing which most of these governors are accused of.

And it appears there is no end to our problem, because all what our political elite are doing is to focus their energy and resources on getting power at the centre instead of looking inwards to what is really wrong with the region. Can we for once forget about ruling Nigeria or who becomes the next President and focus on how we can challenge our state governors to revive agriculture in the north through deliberate policies aim at helping small farmers? As we are now even the mighty Kaduna finds it very difficult to pay its staff salaries. All their revenue is diverted to security.

Secondly, we need to challenge northern governors on good governance, accountability and transparency. Most of our state governors have deleted these words from their dictionary. They steal the state treasury and the local government share of the revenue. Most of them don’t even have a single programme or plan or an indicator as to what they want to achieve even in six months, talk less of long term development plan for their states.

If the North has over N10m children roaming the streets begging, with only 2% of the region’s secondary school students qualifying to enter university, we know that the future of the region is a bleak one. And it is very clear for everyone to see now, a group of dirty looking children clutching their begging bowls or old men and women knocking at your car door begging for alms. Do we have a future with this attitude? And someone as a governor of a state can go to sleep comfortably?

Kabiru Danladi Lawanti, Department of Mass Communication, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria