Under the yoke of bloody rampage by the militant Islamic Boko Haram sect, against the background of extreme poverty ravaging Northern Nigeria, several remedies are been bandied to broker peace and turn around the flagging fortunes of Arewaland. LOUIS ACHI examines the region’s dilemma and latest suggestion by the United States for the creation of a Ministry of Northern Affairs to lead the region’s rebirth.
Land Of Promise…
That the sons of Northern Nigeria have had the lion share of the country's political governance over the past 51 years of independence contrasts alarmingly with the subsisting poverty of the region. In terms of sheer landmass, Northern Nigeria equates Zimbabwe and South Africa combined.
It has the agricultural capacity to feed West Africa. From mid last century, by its sheer size, weight, natural endowments and seeming astute brand of politics, it had dominated the rest of Nigeria.
But without that mysterious chemistry of visionary leadership, the inherent promises, unfortunately for the region, are yet to be unlocked. Successive observers have asked again; do the leaders of this land of promise have the interest of their people at heart? Various statistics have sharply dramatised the dismal lot of the north. In the past, political patronage had become almost the main source of wealth to the prominent players. But that era appears to have ended.
Can the North reclaim the 21st Century? Is this exotic patch of real estate, shadowed by Caliphal history, under a crisis of political thought or caged by the dilemma of a deformed leadership vision? The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the socio-political umbrella platform for articulation of Northern interests, is unlikely to concede that an atrophy of vision exists.
Some theorists posit that some of the human crises, often contrived, tearing at the soul of many Northern geo-political zones have linkages to a loss of faith and increasing self-doubt. They may have a point here.
The North Central zone with its political capital located in Plateau State has witnessed extra-ordinarily virulent break-down in human-communal relations. This has expressed itself in the unending blood-letting in the area.
More recently, the even more controversial bloody Boko Haram sect has waded into the fray. This scenario only shores up this theory. These internecine crises have translated to extreme human underdevelopment and pervasive poverty, in themselves, a ticking time bomb which needs to be diffused. There is more.
Security…
At a fundamental level, key linkages exist between poverty, security and politics. For the north, security was not such a major issue until recently. The subsisting northern poverty clearly has a tie-up with its politics. But today with the region pushed to the unfamiliar role of fringe politics, there has been a considerable worsening of the stakes.
But understandably, the most urgent focus area both for the region and country at large is security. And this is at the heart of one of the greatest challenges to the region and country, since the Biafran war.
Poverty…
Most indices of measuring human development will register alarming, negative ratings when applied to the region. At press time, much of the northern landscape is a human canvass seething with poverty and multi-hued hued crises. In a few cases, candles have been lighted in the stark darkness of want and ignorance by a few progressive governors and personalities. But this pales into insignificance given the scope of intervention needed urgently.
Calculations on Northern potentials show they can be exporting dairy products cereals and more. The groundnut pyramids are now text book. Contrast this with the North of the 1960s. In terms of sheer agricultural production, it lacked a match in Nigeria.
Subsequently, industries were a vibrant feature of the region. Of course add the assured grip on political power and the picture of power elite in total control was complete.
Notes Zayyad I. Muhammad, a public affairs analyst: “The ironies of this phenomenon are that for the four and a half decades of the existence of present-day Nigeria, the North is proud of producing top class politicians, senior military and paramilitary officers, renowned scholars, respected traditional rulers and bourgeoisies.
These coupled with thirty-six year access to national resources and political power, vast and most fertile agricultural land of Nigeria, having enormous population; economically-wide-spread water resources and patient commoners, the region is paradoxically,economically and educationally left behind and indeed greater majority of Northerners cannot today compete with others in a plain playing field in Nigeria, not even talking of the fast changing world, which Nigeria herself is a mere spectator.”
In recent times even the ACF at a time shifted blame for the cause of the poverty searing the soul of the north to the national leadership provided by southerners. Not to be outdone, chairman of the Northern Governors Forum (NGF), Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State took a swipe at northern emirs as the forces that fuel poverty and corruption in the region.
A Ministry Of Northern Affairs…
Recently, the United States recently urged President Goodluck Jonathan to establish a ministry tasked with the specific development of the region, like the Ministry of the Niger Delta, as a way of addressing poverty in the region and ending the Boko Haram insurgency.
It hinged its advice on the argument that the establishment of the Ministry of Niger Delta by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua administration helped to douse tension in the region, and ended the militancy that crippled economic activities in the zone.
This position was contained in a recent address titled “Nigeria: One Year After Elections,” delivered by Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, Jonnie Carson, at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC. Carson monitored last year’s general election in Nigeria, as Under Secretary for African Affairs.
Possibly echoing this line of thinking, Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola also recently called for the creation the same ministry, holding it could be a solution to the security challenges in the North. He made the call while delivering a speech at symposium on “Islam and Peaceful Co-existence in Contemporary Multi-Religious State” in Abuja.
Carson’s was a compelling case. “The Nigerian Government should consider creating a Ministry of Northern Affairs or a Northern Development Commission similar to what it did in response to the crises in the Niger Delta.”
He frowned at continued alienation of Nigerians from government and warned that “to fix the Boko Haram problem, the government will have to develop a new social compact with its northern citizens. It will have to develop an economic recovery strategy that complements its security strategy. It will have to draw on the support of northern governors, traditional Hausa and Fulani leaders and local officials and organisations.”
According to him “northern populations are currently trapped between violent extremists on one hand and heavy-handed government responses on the other. They need to know that their president is going to extraordinary lengths to fix their problems.”
“Resolving the problems in northern Nigeria will require the government to act more swiftly and to make a strategic course correction. It will need to adopt a comprehensive strategy and remain disciplined and committed in its implementation, especially at the state and local levels, where accountability is low and corruption high,” Carson stated.
In his view, “Boko Haram has grown stronger and increasingly more sophisticated over the past three years, and eliminating the Boko Haram problem will require a broad based strategy that employs the establishment of a comprehensive plan rather than the imposition of more martial law.
“While more sophisticated and targeted security efforts are necessary to contain Boko Haram’s acts of violence and to capture and prosecute its leaders, the government must also win over the population by addressing the social and economic problems that have created the environment in which Boko Haram can thrive.
“The government must improve its tactics, avoid excessive violence and human rights abuses, make better use of its police and intelligence services, de-emphasise the role of the military, and use its courts to prosecute those who are found to be responsible for Boko Haram’s kidnappings, killings and terrorist attacks.
“Nigerian officials should focus on the political environment that makes Boko Haram so dangerous. By demonstrating the benefits a pluralistic society has to offer, the government will deny Boko Haram and other extremists the ability to exploit ethnic and religious differences.
Panacea Or Albatross…
Some analysts hold that the very idea of establishing special bodies for structural problems is one of the many bad ideas that Nigerians have inherited from years of military rule. Even at the level of kite flying, because the federal government has not expressed a clear position on this, the idea of creating a Ministry of Northern Affairs is seen in several quarters as condescending and insulting to northerners.
Even the experiment in Southern Italy in the 1950s where the government of Italy intervened to stimulate economic growth and development in the less developed southern regions of Italy came to grief with extreme corruption and mismanagement of funds.
According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, the Cassa del Mezzogiorno (Fund for the South) was a public effort by the government of Italy to stimulate economic growth and development in the less developed southern regions of Italy. It was established in 1950 primarily to construct public works and infrastructure (roads, bridges, hydroelectric and irrigation) projects, and to provide credit subsidies and tax advantages to promote investments. It was dissolved in 1984.
It focused mostly on rural areas and many say that it assisted Southern Italy to enter the modern world, although there is evidence that some of the funds were squandered due to poor financial management by the government. Historian Denis Mack Smith noted, in the 1960s, that about a third of the money was squandered. Steel mills and other projects were promised but never built, and many irrigation projects and dams were never completed as intended.
In Nigeria today, the much touted Ministry of Niger Delta is mirroring that Italian misadventure. Transcending intellectual laziness which has come to define governance and policy conceptualisation in Nigeria, many believe it would be better to find out the causative factors of northern poverty and resolutely deal with them.
Why should a region of extraordinary promise become arena of human misery? If the federal government has neglected the north to the point of needing a Ministry of Northern Affairs, why should it be called upon to rescue the same north?
The emerging consensus is that the core issues of quality and accountable governance must be addressed to reverse the socio-economic decay of the north. Both the federal government, the democratically elected and traditional leaders of the north must wear their thinking caps.
But for the northern masses who bear the brunt of failed regional leadership, its morning yet on creation day!