What Does the North Want?

THEFRONTLINES

Last Wednesday, two WhatsApp posts from my brother and activist Agba Jalingo with the following messages: Cross River State has a thriving Hausa community with senior government appointees and Sarkin Hausawa. Which one is Emir of Cross River again? Emir over which Emirate? What is all this provocation? another post read: We have a Sarkin Hausawa of Calabar. There is a Sarkin Hausawa in Ogoja, Ikom, Obudu, Ugep etc. Who is creeping this Emir title into our State? Where is the Emirate in Cross River state? got me thinking and set the tone for this piece today.

Indeed what does the north want in Nigeria? In recent times, especially under President Muhammadu Buhari, there have been frightening rumors of an imminent jihad soon to be declared across the country by renegades who are infiltrating our porous borders from Niger, Chad, Mali, and other volatile countries.

Apart from that, on the ground are morbid accounts and physical pieces of evidence documenting the killing of local farmers by these marauding foreigners most of who are identified to be of the Fulani ethnic group. It is the activities of these renegades that have heightened speculations and provoked fears of both Islamization and territorial occupation plots in the country.

From Plateau, Benue, Kaduna, and Kogi states in the north, Enugu, Delta, Oyo, Ondo, and Ekiti states in the South, these renegades invade farming minority communities, destroy their farms by unleashing their cows to eat up their crops; kill, maim and dispossess original land owners of their ancestral land rendering them homeless as internally displaced persons. In all these, the security agents are either watching without intervening or in some instances protecting the militia as they wreak havoc on these helpless farmers.

What does the North want? The North has never hidden its preference to perpetuate itself in power to lord it over the south forever. So as 2023 beckons, the intrigues are getting more brazen and the schemings have reached a crescendo. Its struggle to perpetuate itself in power is regardless of the fact that Buhari, a northerner, is in the terminal stage of his two-term tenure. Even a party like the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which had enshrined zoning in its scheme of things suddenly did a volte-face by giving its presidential ticket to Atiku Abubakar another northerner.

So what emboldens the North to always spite the South when it comes to power-sharing? On the surface, the north prides itself on having the numbers and flaunts its landmass as twin advantages it maintains over the South. According to the National Population Commission, Nigeria’s population as of 2019 was 201m out of which the North has 128m and the South 92m with the north controlling about 70% of the land mass.

So how has this benefited the north? The north is interested in power solely as buccaneers to control resources that it contributes almost next to nothing to generate. Every month, the 19 states benefit from almost 56 percent of revenue from the federation account and contribute less than 5% to the federation account while the south with 17 states which generates almost 100% is left with a paltry 34 %.

The most painful part of this arrangement is that revenue sharing is based on land mass and population which the north flaunts with reckless abandon. At what point would the north wake up from its slumber and put both its population and landmass to work, generate revenue, and contribute to the federation account?

Three prominent northerners, Aliko Dangote, Sanusi Lamido, and Balarabe Musa, expressed their apparent frustration at the abject condition of the 19 northern states at the fourth edition of the Kaduna Economic and Investment Summit recently. Dangote pointed out that “60 percent” of northerners lived in abject poverty in a region with vast arable land for agriculture, adding that “in the next 10 years, it can generate more revenue and prosperity than oil” with the right commitment. He queried the region’s pathetic contribution of only 21 percent of the total sub-national internally generated revenue in 2017, despite its claim to having 54 percent of the population and 70 percent of its landmass.

Sanusi lamented that whereas 20 percent of every 100 poor Nigerians lived in the South, the North accounted for almost 80 percent of the poverty-stricken people. The same sentiments were echoed by the former governor of old Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa, who also placed the blame on the state governors, who, according to him “engaged in massive stealing and waste of public resources.”

The claim of having the numbers promoted by the north is just a myth and very dubious. Right from the colonial days, controversy dogged the last census conducted by the British before they relinquished power. Many in the South see the population figures which are periodically updated along the same parameters as skewed in favor of the north against the south. Even the claim that Muslims outnumber Christians in Nigeria is a fallacy that is conveniently used by the north to prosecute its religious and political agenda.

Let’s face it, what has the north benefited with power even from the Buhari administration? Do you just struggle for power just for the sake of it without adding value? The northern elites consistently promote One North when it wants to bamboozle the Tivs, Taroks, Kataf, Nupes, Zurus, and Chiboks to give the false impression of a monolithic north.

The so-called monolithic north is a contraption created by the minority Fulani tribe to perpetuate its feudal hegemony and further its political agenda of grabbing power. In all the Hausa states where Othman Dan Fodio succeeded with his Jihad, all the traditional authorities have been replaced and it is on record that all political offices are occupied by people of Fulani extraction in these states.

The most bizarre part of this grim reality is that even the Fulani tribe does not recognize other ethnic muslims as pure Muslims and are not Muslims themselves. But religion is being elevated to an art form when it comes to politicking because it is used to divide the population to mobilize voters. But the time has come for the north to reverse its current narrative. How would the north react if population and land mass are used as criteria for the generation of revenue for contribution to the consolidated fund?

Indeed the time has come for the north to change its current rhetoric of rent-seeking and being a liability to a productive hub where its land and people would represent its biggest assets and strength. That would be the day.