How to uplift the North, By Wole Olaoye

Six years ago, in my column in Daily Trust, shortly after he broke the existing code of secrecy by revealing his humongous salary of N13.5 million as a senator, I said the following about the political activist, Shehu Sani: 

“Shehu Sani has not disappointed those who swore that he was bound to shake things up in the national legislature. Having emerged from the trenches of social activism from where he was plucked and incarcerated by the Babangida, Shonekan and Abacha regimes, it was reasoned that Sani was well prepared for the battle of dredging the marshes of the Nigerian Senate even though he was but a first term legislator. (It seemed centuries ago when he was sentenced to life in jail by Abacha’s kangaroo tribunal!)” 

Sani’s recent comments on the political manoeuvrings going on in the North are quite noteworthy. It is an open secret that many northern politicians have been meeting to persuade President Tinubu to grant them more favours, otherwise…

2027 Calculations 

The 2027 elections are on the line even though we are still in 2024. You’d wish that the discussions were about advancing the cause of the poor. I know that political alliances are matters of give and take. But when a group gangs up with a demand supposedly on behalf of the North, and threatens that their continued support for the president in 2027 would depend on whether their demands are granted or not, the whole situation seems to reek of blackmail.

Thank God for patriots like Shehu Sani whose outlook makes it possible to discuss the most serious problems confronting the northern states without guile, suspicion or bad blood. I have always argued that every journalist in the public space ought to be able to comment on any subject under the sun without let or hindrance. But some self-appointed gatekeepers of regional interests always demonise ‘outsiders’ who dare to comment on ‘Northern affairs’. I dare say there are soulmates of these xenophobic elements in the South as well. I have happily broken this rule over the years. People are people. Development is development. There is no Hausa poverty or Igbo hunger or Yoruba penury. 

That is why Shehu Sani’s interventions are heart-warming. The socio-political activist has proved to be one of those unflappable Nigerians whose opinions are not coloured by religion, ethnicity or other provincial considerations.

Power Vendors

The North has been in power longer than any other part of the country but that fact has not led to the upliftment of the people. The North still lags behind the southern states in most indices of human development. So, it ought to be clear to power mongers in the North that being in power has only favoured the elite while the people are left to wallow in poverty. The power vendors who are presently crisscrossing various states in the quest for alternative 2027 alliances are wasting their time, says Shehu Sani. In his view, the focus should be on what the current government can do to help uplift the poor people of the North and what the North itself can do to help itself.

In his words, “For the fact that the North has been behind in a number of indices of development, there should have been a concerted effort in terms of bringing development to that part of the country. But look at what we are having now— in the last eight years before the coming of this administration, in 2015, there was so much hope. There was so much belief and faith that the leadership that took over at that time would address these fundamental issues, but it has not.

“Today, the states in the North-West are facing serious problems of banditry, kidnappings, and killings by all sorts of violent groups. In the North-East, Boko Haram, ISIS and other terrorist groups are still holding sway, despite the fact that not only has the North been in power from 2015-2023, but major organs of government were headed by people from that region, and they have not actually used it for development. So now, I think the fact that someone from the South has taken over, there appears to be an organised attempt for them to resurrect their power base and see how they can return to power.

“So, power should be of use to the masses… in the North, power should address their poverty, should address their insecurity, should address the issues of development, and not power should be used to enrich an insignificant few who simply are parasitic on the economy of the country.”

Almajiri 

The almajiri system, which the Northern elite has refused to reform because it captures only the children of the poor, is one of the areas where Sani advocates urgent reform because it is a ready-made breeding ground for bandits and terrorists.

According to the senator, “Many parents in rural areas hand over their children to a religious teacher in the city, who depends on the children to beg or steal in order to feed himself and his family. For ethnic, religious, and sectional reasons, we have protected, defended, praised, and refused to hold accountable all our kinsmen who led the country at every wasted opportunity for five decades.

“The bandits and terrorists who kill and kidnap our people, deny our farmers access to their farms, and prevent our children from going to school, are not from any foreign country or from the South; they come from our homes and families up north. We worship with them in the same mosque. …

“We concoct and spread all sorts of religiously inclined conspiracies to deny our children free health immunisation against diseases, resulting in hundreds of thousands of blind, lame, crippled, and deaf children who grow up as victims of polio, glaucoma, or leprosy, begging in northern and southern cities.”

Northerners used to be very enterprising, as anyone who witnessed the first republic would testify. The virus of dependency and lethargy became widespread over the decades when Northerners sat on federal power. This situation has to be reversed for the region to make progress. 

On a rather doleful note, the senator notes that, “All the spare parts, building materials, and pharmaceutical stores in the North are private businesses owned by people from other regions who were not backed, funded, or supported by any government… The FCT is in the North. Can anyone explain why people from the region couldn’t dominate the private businesses in the FCT, Suleja, and Mararaba? Who should be blamed for this?”

Making a clarion call for the elite to change their ways and look inwards, he asserts: “God gave us the largest land mass, the largest number of people, most of the rivers, and resources and livestock, and gave us power for the most part of our history. Which of the favours of our Lord can we deny? In the North, 80 percent of our problems are ourselves and not anyone outside of ourselves.”

A problem identified is a problem half-solved. It’s time to reverse the culture of ‘one millionaire  surrounded by one million beggars’. A massive, region-wide campaign for attitudinal change to encourage skill acquisition, entrepreneurship and give access to loans would be a good starting point.

When next the conclave of Northern power vendors gathers, let them concentrate on how to end banditry and other criminalities, and then map out dedicated programmes to make the populace productive. The ongoing conspiracies regarding realignments towards 2027 can only birth a few concessions for the political elite while the overwhelming majority of their people remain empty-handed. 

Wole Olaoye is a Public Relations consultant and veteran journalist. He can be reached on wole.olaoye@gmail.com, Twitter: @wole_olaoye; Instagram: woleola2021.