Behind The Smoke Screen …Squinting Views Of The Northern Elite

For the second time in about three months, Northern leaders last week assembled in Abuja, ostensibly to find answers to the increasing wave of violence, terror-based mass murders, resurgence of ethno–religious warfare, and as main agenda, the lope-sided development of Nigeria weighed, in their own estimation, in favour of the southern parts of the nation. They also quarreled with the earnings of the oil producing states which they accused of receiving so much from the country’s resources.

The main crux of the recent dialogue was the allusion that oil bearing states are ill-equipped to manage the enormous resources regularly allocated to them, and to avoid corruption, the allocations should be reviewed. The review should, in their view, be such that allocates enough to the Northern states to help address urgently, the challenges of poverty, under-development and insecurity in parts of the North.

Perhaps, the most interesting position canvassed by the forum was the fact that only the southern states were developing, and such a scenario painted the picture of two different republics in one federation.

Simply put, all the daily attacks by the Boko Haram Islamist sect; the repeated religious-based terror attacks targeted at Christian places of worship, particularly in Jos, Plateau State, and Sulja, Niger and the increasing wave of violence are instigated by poverty, caused by poor federal allocations to parts of the North.

In an earlier attempt at search for peace necessary for the most-needed development, Northern leaders had met in Kaduna, December 5, 2011 where they also brainstormed on a number of issues responsible for the abysmally volatile state of insecurity in some states of the North.

Tagged Northern Peace Conference, it was convoked by the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and was attended by prominent Northern leaders and the governors of the 19 Northern states as well as traditional rulers, which according to Jon Shiklam, “was a clear indication that Northerners wanted an end to the orgy of ethnic and religious violence that have become a trademark of the region.”

Apparently, it was from the ethno-religious perspective that Senate President, David Mark addressed the forum in an emotion-laden manner, at least, to remind his listeners of the glorious days of the formidable one-North, when religion, ethnicity and language failed to be dividing factors.

While querying the region’s leaders for remaining silent in the face of rising security challenges in the North, especially the Boko Harm scourge, Mark lamented the decline in moral and cultural value of the people of the North, saying stakeholders must join hands to  find lasting solution to the problem.

“We are here today because one of our founding fathers and great leaders, the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, of blessed memory, showed great leadership qualities well beyond his time. He was charismatic, foresighted, committed, selfless, dedicated, totally detribalised, and courageous, and above all, sincere. Though a devout Muslim, he did not discriminate between Christians and Muslims. He was a symbol of Northern Nigeria and personified Northern values among which are education, development, progress, unity and peace.

“Sadly, today, the Northern Nigeria, which he left behind, is known more for the wrong reasons namely: poverty and under-development, poor education, religious fundamentalism, terrorism and ethnic intolerance, among others. He and other founding fathers must be weeping in their graves at our current situation, David Mark lamented, apparently blaming the problems of the North on the North, particularly on those the North depended upon to sustain the ‘One-North’ idea, through the same values the Sardauna championed during his lifetime.

He then asked: “Why has the North continued to lag behind in education? All available statistics show that in both literacy and numeracy, the North lags behind the South, and even within the North, there is so much disparity between the zones and between states”, and urged them to avoid sentiments in the search for solutions.

Bauchi State Governor, Malam Isa Yuguda in his work, Conflict and The Decline of Private Sector, ThisDay, December 9, 2011, particularly  blamed the under-development of the North of the decline of the private sector on account of conflict in the region. But he also addressed the imperatives of conflicts in history, and said, “The occurrence of conflicts in society has been explained as a symptom of the competition or struggle for society’s scarce resources – whether by the elite in government for themselves or ostensibly on behalf of their areas or ethnic group or between nomads  and farmers.”

According to Yuguda, “All the factors necessary for the development of a robust private sector and the successful take-off of a modern industrial economy are there as there were before. The (Northern) region is endowed with an extensive, fertile, mineral-rich  arable landmass more than 600,000 square kilometres in area that can, with the right policies and the  right quantity of subsidies, support a variety of agriculatural activity that can feed and make the region a net exporter of food as it supports a multitude of agro-allied industries.

The meeting-point between Yuguda and Mark is the need for introspection, of self-probe and the need to make the best of available resources, and not sit idly by and fan the embers of ethno-religious divides, greed, selfishness, and indeed, lack of industry. The North, in their views, has the history, the right people, the resources and the ability to check the violence in the Northern parts, if indeed, the leadership replicated the virtues and values that the founding fathers bequeathed.

That indeed was the tone set by the December 5 dialogue, which also gave Vice President Namadi Sambo the opportunity to list efforts being made by the Federal Government to boost the economy of the North. They include improving the transportation sector, boosting water supply, transforming agricultural, and educational sectors, and boosting healthcare  delivery for the people. The Federal Government, according to Sambo, will also boost access to financing and entrenchment of good governance anchored on transparency,  probity, accountability and the rule of law.

These are naturally the basic ingredients needed by a state to build a strong infrastructural base, and by extension, a strong economy. With a large expanse of arable land and rich in minerals, a strong infrastructural base would no doubt attract the right investors and that way create jobs and boost economic activities.

Rather than think in that light, some Northern leaders have been busy, clamouring for hand-outs from the Federal Government sourced from  the sweat, sacrifice and suffering of the long deprived oil producing states of the federation, in addition to blaming their security woes on all others, except themselves, their greed and misapplication of funds in recent past.

Rising from their recent meeting, Northern leaders introduced an old debate in a strange manner that offended the very logic they relied upon.

The Northern position can be summarised as follows:

1.         That the Northern is not only under developed, it parades the biggest majority of poor people.

2.         That the spate of violence in parts of the North is caused by the level of poverty that obtains in the North.

3.         That the state of abject poverty and want prevalent in the North is as a result of the ‘huge” monthly allocations, based on derivation, that go to the South-South and other Southern states as against the North.

4.         That the South is developing at a quicker Space than the North and that in itself amounts to two republics in one federation.

5.         That to reverse the trend, allocation to Northern states should be reviewed upwards in line with prevailing realities.

6.         That unless that was done, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to address in a lasting manner, the state of insecurity in the North.

Reading in-between the lines, it is clear that Niger State Governor, and Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Dr. Babangida Aliyu was not merely flying a kite, when the said, oil bearing states were receiving too much from the Federal Government and should be reversed. That, he was, in fact, speaking for the North, without appreciating the history of derivation, the years of marginalization suffered by the Niger Delta, and indeed, the true tenets of federalism.

If the Northern states consider development

Soye Wilson Jamabo