” Change will never happen when people lack the ability and courage to see themselves for what they are.” Bryant McGill
By Abdu Abdullahi
For all these years, the North has tragically been engulfed with multifaceted crises that have devastated its indivisibility and monolithic character owing to perennial and violent ethno religious uprisings that culminated in deaths and destructions of properties.
Consequently and regrettably, the glorious era of one north is now a shadow of its former self and the ambitious and mischievous elite are now more conscious of igniting disunity than unity among northerners to attain their zenith of self aggrandizement. With the inspired conspiracies by the elite class to wipe out northern force and hegemony, what we are grappling with is the existence of an intra regional dichotomy which is more ruinous than the mainstream North South dichotomy. Thus, the north has since fallen apart on the parallel of the Core North and the Middle Belt, the Muslim North versus the Christian North, the Hausa Fulani and the other ethnic groups.
Of course, the root of all these troubles are associated with
perceived domination, mutual mistrust, ethno religious zealousness and intolerance, blah, blah among others.
Since we are currently undergoing identity crises as well as crisis of confidence which have crippled our collective mission and vision, it is a paramount deal to have deep musings on the larger part of the north known as the Core North which essentially consists of the North West and the North East. This is particularly to showcase the pathetic situation of a people who are constantly fired and crucified by different elements in the country for our national woes and underdevelopment, a kind of giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it.
These false and malicious accusations against the core north as
responsible for the nation’s predicament do not corroborate with the prevailing realities staring at its people such as the rising
insecurity which is gradually destroying us. Where in this country do we have the highest rate of kidnappings, unemployment and poverty and yet its people are accorded constantly undeserved and uncharitable bashing of being agents of political domination and marginalisation?
If these misleading claims were a reality, all these regional units
would have been more troubled than we are. The fact remains that the core northerners are guilty of the region’s underdevelopment but we are made a scapegoat of our national malice. If all these and other unguided aspersions against the core north were true, why are we then dwindling as the most underdeveloped region despite our huge population, vast agricultural land, and producing the highest number
of Nigeria’s leaders? These are all matters for fair and just
assessment.
In dealing with our lingering and frightening problems, we must not only lament over our insecurity, poverty, unemployment among others just as symptoms rather than identifying the real disease with a view to eliminating it for our prosperity. We must not perpetually bark like dogs and then eventually go slumber and keep aside our multiple problems to solve themselves. Have we forgotten the sound philosophy of Frantz Fanon that ” We must discover our mission and fulfill it or betray it.”? This is the appropriate time to discover our mission and fulfill it for the collective benefits of today and tomorrow. We
missed our mission when others discovered theirs and are currently enjoying the yields. Can you tell me that with the exception of our core north, all the other geopolitical zones don’t have a laudable and life mission to achieve? If we squander this last opportunity, we are going to be consumed through the tragedy of self destruction as we are now living witnesses and the future generations will definitely despise and curse us. Only a few days ago, more than 90 innocent people were mercilessly murdered by the bandits at different villages in Sokoto. While in parts of Katsina, many people were reported fleeing their homes to escape bandits attacks! Sadly, we are behaving
as if a human tragedy had not occurred! If this human catastrophe had erupted in the southern part of the country, their response would have been very result oriented. Our pragmatic response to this regional turmoil is to go beyond condemnations which are now becoming traditional routines and being suggestive as the best we can contribute to end the mayhem. Actions they say speak louder than words. It will be gladdening if all the stakeholders in the core north can marshal their collective and stupendous resources to give a befitting fight against this regional epidemic in the same collective force we are now deploying to defeat covid 19. Remember again that the
battle must focus on the real disease and not the symptoms. To swing into real action, It is now or never.!!!
In the wake of these senseless killings of defenceless people by
bandits, terrorists and kidnappers in the Muslim North, reducing its population and destroying its economy, we have no choice than mounting the courage and ability to view ourselves for what we are because this will enable us agitate and champion a new core north composed of peace, tranquility and progress. Our present core north is not fit for the purpose of positive development. It is a region of human tragedies! It is a theater of blood, tears, sorrows! It is the land where terrorists rule untamed .And who cares?
How can we think of development and progress when human life is no longer sacred and respected? How do we make progress when our farmers who produce food abandon their farm land for the fear of bandits? How do we keenly compete with other parts of the country when we are killing ourselves and forcing our schools and markets to be shut down while in the south they are brothers’ keepers and have gone to not just next level but extra levels in educational and industrial revolutions? How long will this madness continue? Would this craziness have lasted all this time if the victims were not ordinary people? I
still recall with great disappointment what transpired during the 2019 electioneering campaigns. There were incessant attacks by bandits in many parts of the North West and those by the insurgents in the North East which resulted in deaths, distress and sorrows. The NTA in particular did not consider it news worthy to inform us how many children were suddenly turned orphans. They violated professional
ethics to report the continuous killings of innocent citizens who
committed no crimes. The inferno was ignored by the NTA as if the killings were justified. Just like the management of the NTA exhibited blatant insensitivity, also many core northerners who were not touched by the traumatic dimension of those killings and the political elite
were more concerned with the outcomes of the election results. While there were tears and spilling of blood that would make the heart to break, a large section of the society was more interested in watching the mammoth crowd Buhari was pulling in his campaign tours on the television. The next day, it was a theme for discussion while the victims of those attacks did not bother most of us. What a people! At this point, It is up to us to learn the lesson of the prompt responsiveness demonstrated by the South West when they shifted into actions to create the Amotekum security outfit before their emerging insecurity got out of hand. They did not have to wait all that long before they would be caught unawares. They unanimously spoke with a single and loud voice. It was the unmistaken voice of unity that echoed throughout the South West region to forestall an imminent security challenge .The same kind of response from the governments of
the core north is still not forthcoming. It is a regional failure that
instead of us to devise our own security network to defeat our
enemies, our elite spent colossal energies criticizing the establishment of Amotekum. As usual, they invoked the powerful spirit of ethnicism, diverting our attention from the enemies within our midst as if Amotekum was another terrorist group that would unleash terror on us.
But under our watch, Amotekum has come to stay while the story of Shege ka fasa is still a hallucination! And the reckless killings in
the core north persist with maximum brutality.
What is peculiar about this regional conundrum is that our president,who has been at the helm of affairs for five years, is from this part of the country. The Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Air Staff, Defence Minister, Security Adviser, Director SS are all from the core north
and under their watch we are under going the process of self
destruction. Our core north is therefore defying all military
operations to get rid of these brutish and devilish elements in our
midst.
It is therefore necessary to look for the remedy of our problems from the realistic point of view. Thus, we need to effect a change in our scheme of affairs because something is fundamentally and structurally wrong with our collective existence. In pondering over this matter, we must readily accept the fact that we have for long created the monster of a class society which widens the gap between the haves and the have nots. This has given rise to class antagonism which has no significant recognition for human values. In the core north, the well to do think
that they have no moral and social obligations towards the oppressed, the deprived and the exploited. In this regard, many potential youths have continued to be ignored, their rising hopes and ambitions often crash violently, they continue wallowing in abject poverty as the government alone cannot cater for all their aspirations.
Consequently, they are therefore left at the mercy of the devil’s
workshop. Indeed, the devil is now having a field day manipulating the disgruntled youths who have lost contact with human reasoning as well
as rationality.
Get this point clear, the more terrorists or bandits are killed and
announced by the military, the more they are recruited and we are
still not having the last laugh. Ideally, it is when terrorism is
killed that terrorists will be wiped out. We should focus on killing
banditry so that we will no longer have bandits in our domain. It is
then not only military assault that can change our security character in the core north. This, indeed, is a serious case warranting sober reflections from all faithful core northerners.
As part of our lasting solution to this lingering predicament, we must seek for change by first of all seeing ourselves for what we are. It is a fact that we are allowing our unfavourable circumstances to overwhelm us rather than changing them. In other words, we know these
damaging conditions but we deliberately fail to summon the ability and courage to alter them for our present and future survival. By this unhealthy trend, opportunities in this part of Nigeria are monopolized and surrendered to the highest bidders, forfeiting the philosophy that the only security on earth is opportunity. What do you think will be the end result of a people whose opportunities are relegated to the background? Of course, this is our sad story which many of us don’t like to hear because of its huge challenges which we are not ready to
confront.
We must also see ourselves for what we are as having our political class to compose mainly of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, forming the backbone of our political community. In the philosophy of Aristotle, ” The best political community is formed by members of the middle class.” In other words, viable political leadership is vital to our progress, an end to our lingering insecurity because such a leadership will be democratically for the masses, of the masses and by the masses. And if we opt for Aristotle’s philosophy, our survival largely depends on the choice of members of the middle class to assume the mantle of leadership. But then, how will that be possible when our
political community is fundamentally structured to perceive power as an end in itself and thus consider mantle of leadership as a do or die affair that requires enormous capital which the middle class members do not possess? How will these political gladiators be defeated by the middle class members in the quest for usurping political structures to improve our lots?
In a nutshell, the core north may not have sustainable peace and the desired progress until we see ourselves as passing through regional degeneration and to bail ourselves out of this predicament is to produce a viable political class that can deliver masses oriented governments and the well to do must emulate philanthropic adventures of the late Fawehimis, Abiolas, and the Okorochas, who gave and are still giving financial assistance to our youths to discover their future. Regardless of ethno religious bigotry, these champions of the masses succeeded and are still succeeding where we have failed just to make our core north a better place to live in.
Abdullahi wrote in from Galadanci Quarters, Ringim, Jigawa State
Via aaringim68@gmail.com, 07036207998
