AREWA AND THE BURDEN OF TRUTH

By Ahmad Sajoh

The North of Nigeria is becoming a very big political chess board with various political groups springing up to outdo each other in preaching political correctness or creating a political commodity out of the hopeless, hapless and helpless population. Most of the assumed concerns expressed by these politicians and political actors are simply externalization of the deep rooted self deceit that threw the region into the abysmal pit we now complain about. Some of the individuals I see showing concerns today should have shown just a little of such concerns when they had opportunities to make a difference in the lives of Northern citizens. Almost all of them had opportunities to do so in the past. But today having found themselves out of political relevance or visibility in the public space, what they found appropriate is to now preach what needs to be done to address the plight of the North which to a large extent is the product of our collective negligence as a ruling elite. The most annoying is that some of them speak of the crisis as emanating from political neglect by the current leadership. It’s definitely beyond that. Let me say emphatically that a few of the persons expressing concerns are credible, but majority especially within the political class had opportunities in the past to address these same issues but failed to do so.

The irony of the North is that the first generation leaders of the North, the Ahmadu Bello’s were privileged children from royal homes or from well to do homes. Some of them had little formal education. But they created avenues for children of ordinary people to acquire quality education and to self actualize. Today these same children of the ordinary people who got everything on a platter took over the mantle of leadership and decided to shut the door on the children of other ordinary people by destroying the education system and instituting a regime that only provides quality and even stable educational calendar to their children and those favoured by them. Another group are those who obtained good jobs and leadership positions by merit without having to know anyone or have godfathers. Today they promote cronyism, mediocrity and a brand of nepotism that will make the most ardent tribal jingoist cringe at the thought of it. As a matter of fact they are so brazen in their self-centeredness that they are now instituting a hegemonic system where they now promote their sons and daughters to continue to provide mediocre leadership similar to or even worse than their own. The National Assembly and other strata of leadership positions today are full of such scions of the old guards. Unfortunately, being over pampered and full of entitlement, all these privileged children know about leadership are the spoils of office rather than its responsibilities. For them ” Leadership is a TITLE rather than a Responsibility ” A second category exhibiting the same dishonourable conduct in leadership is made up of loyal lapdogs or godsons of the powerful individuals who attain power for the sole purpose of carrying out the godfather’s biddings. They are even worse than the sons and daughters. Apart from opening up the treasuries of government to be looted by their godfathers and associates, they equally destroy the institutional fabric of government bodies by making them ineffective even after their exit. It’s really sad.

So, under such circumstances service delivery becomes secondary. All such leaders are concerned about are the pecks of their offices and the underserved fame or fortune it confers. Of course they dare not deviate from the template of their parents or godfathers. Political office becomes a vast arena for playing elite fantasy games where lavish lifestyles are the most visible dividends. Exotic SUVs are the toys of choice. Birthdays, Wedding ceremonies and even burials became avenues to display criminal opulence and flamboyant lifestyles in the face of abject poverty within society. As this mediocrity and profligacy continues the condition of ordinary people continued to nosedive from bad to worst down to ugly. And they found willing accomplices in the clergy in both major religions. It is either that a Muslim cleric preaches fatalism as a doctrine or a Christian prosperity preacher justified such recklessness as favour from God. The populace are often reminded that their station in life is decreed by God or that it is envy to begrudge a rich person his riches. Very unfortunate indeed. Instead of showing concern for such a sorry state of affairs and emboldened by the support of sundry praise singers, the Northern ruling elite found a good use for the poverty and illiteracy in the region. Too much poverty? Good. Too much illiteracy? Good. Too many hungry, despondent and hopeless young people in the streets? Oh very good. Their solution became something that created the Frankenstein monster we are now facing. They conveniently decided to weaponize the poverty and illiteracy as a means of power ascendancy. They use it to hold power in a vice grip, ceding it only to their children or those they favour. The cycle of bad leadership continues unabated. And as for the youth? Well their solution is to give them drugs and recruit them as political thugs. These are some of the hard truths that are being masked under the veneer of all the political gatherings, the show of concerns and the transactions about voting numbers, political appointments and location of government offices. However, like investigators often force the corporate veils of suspected entities to be removed, one day the veil used to mask the causes of poverty, hunger and deprivations in the North will be removed. The truth will be made known to those being oppressed. Like my people say “one day strong wind go blow and fowl nyash go comot”

Perhaps it will be necessary to take a closer look at some of these issues. There is definitely a need for closer scrutiny in order to provide proper perspectives to the issues and to provide appropriate context. Like all parts of the country the biggest problem faced by the North is social inequality which is creating tiny islands of riches in vast seas of poverty. The rich are getting richer while the poor are facing a dire existential crisis. Unfortunately the riches of the rich are directly a product of the deprivations of the poor. A system with no shared prosperity is a system destined for perdition. So, what we saw during the August protests is not simply a reaction orchestrated by some enemy political forces as is often explained by some people in authority, but rather the beginning of an uprising by a poor, despondent and oppressed class. Granted that some politicians may have cashed on it to feather their political nests and foist their evil agenda, but soon, very soon they too will become victims of the monster they awaken. When Boko Haram started in the North East, other Northerners felt it was a problem for the North East alone. Even within the North East it was isolated to a group of states identified as BAY states. BAY states stood for Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states. Today that isolated occurrence affecting three states has matured into a franchise under different names and forms covering the entire Arewa. In the North West it is banditry, kidnappings and cattle rustling. In the North Central it is farmer herder clashes and ethnic strife laced with some kidnappings as well. Unfortunately the social miscreants have loads of advantages. The availability of hard drugs in the region bouyed up by politicians giving the same to their political thugs meant sufficient numbers of able-bodied human resources for the miscreants to recruit for their satanic agendas. And with a ready reservoir of hapless, hopeless, uneducated, unskilled and despondent youth readily available, a stream of recruits becomes always available. In addition, while the social miscreants taunt us with the use of technology to advertise their dastardly trade by opening social media accounts, we have failed to use the same advancements in technology to track them. Otherwise how could kidnappers in the bush demand for motorcycles as ransom, and we send the motorcycles without at least fixing some tracking devices on them? Or am I missing something here? Playing the political card while the North is bleeding must be the most unpardonable thing the ruling elite are doing against the ordinary people of the region.

As for those who think the problem of the North is to be given more political appointments or to be given political appointments in choice departments, I find their arguments both pedestrian and self serving. The biggest challenges faced by the North of the Country today are basically three. Insecurity, agriculture and education. Perhaps you may add healthcare if you like. Today the National Security Adviser, the Chief of Defense Staff, the two Ministers of Defense and the two Ministers of Police Affairs are all Northerners. If occupying a political office alone is the solution to our problems, then insecurity should have ended in the North long ago. In Agriculture, the two Ministers of Agriculture and the Minister of Water Resources are all Northerners. We should not have any problems with rainfed agricultural production or dry season farming. Don’t believe the lie that our low agricultural production is due to insecurity. No. Many safe and secure arable lands are lying fallow because we have no commitment to provide enabling policy options as well as agro-inputs to support cultivation both at the National and sub-National levels. Unfortunately majority of the active workforce are in the cities taking drugs and serving politicians as thugs rather than help their aging parents cultivate the land. To make matters worse in a few instances when the Federal Authorities send agro-inputs to the states, they are shared to politicians who sell them to merchants who in turn sell them sometimes to neighboring countries. The aging rural farming population in the rural areas cannot meet the demands of an increasingly idle population. Need I also say the Ministers of Education and some of the key heads of intervention agencies in the education sector are also Northerners? My take is that it’s not about the appointments, rather it is about the commitments. Appointments alone cannot solve our problems. Such appointments must be backed by a commitment to deploy sufficient political will to address the issues in contention.

I get angry when I hear people talk about the Almajiri system as not structured to provide skills. That is a huge lie. First it is a lie to say that a child must be a “Muhajir” to seek Islamic knowledge. By the way Muhajir means “Immigrant”. The word Almajiri is from the root word Muhajir or the immigrant. The emphasis has always been on the immigration rather than knowledge seeking. Hence parents send toddlers to long distances without care or concern in the name of seeking knowledge that is readily available next door. Why must anyone immigrate from his hometown in order to seek Islamic knowledge? I was an “Almajiri” in the early days of my life. I was born in Mubi and I was taken to one Mallam Umaru Uba in the same Mubi to learn Islamic knowledge. Even though my parents were based in Mubi I relocated to join my mates at the Mallam’s residence. For me the Tsangaya was more of a boarding school. We were the same way as other Tsangaya pupils except that we did not beg for food because we produced our food. Why will anyone send a five year old child to a place a thousand miles away to go and seek knowledge and be expected to beg for food? My parents visited me in Tsangaya once in a while. Some of my Tsangaya mates are today Medical Doctors, Teachers and Business men. One of us is now a US citizen based in that country. But that is not the core lesson. The real lesson is that our Tsangaya had a farm where we produce food for the Mallam. In addition we hewed wood for sale and cut grasses for thatching roofs and elephant grass for weaving zana mats. We sold these items for money instead of begging. Once in a while we undertook some odd jobs like washing clothes or fetching water for neighbors for money but anyone who begged was not compelled to do so by our circumstances. Although at the time I was in the Tsangaya I never went to school many of my mates did. But all of us were taught skills such as thatching roofs, weaving zana mats and building houses using mud. I remember when the wall fencing of my father’s house fell after my return, I was the one that built it with my father and siblings serving as my labourers. I also painted my father’s new chambers as a display of some skills I learned.Those who knew me in Federal Government College Warri could recall that I was both a Barber and Photographer. These were skills I learned both while at the Tsangaya and at Mubi 1 primary school where some of our teachers such as the late Nuhu Muhammed and Bakari Fudamu spoke about developing our talents or learning some skills. So integrating skills in the Tsangaya education and at basic education was possible even at a time when available skills were limited. My mind always buggs me into thinking what’s gwan with us today. Why the retrogression even in our thinking? Why have we suddenly become so unproductive and lazily entitled?

Talking about productivity, when I was growing up every primary school in Mubi had a farm. Every secondary school had a farm. In addition we had Farm Training Centers and Agricultural demonstration farms run by the Native Authority NA. The correctional center in Mubi had its own farm while the inmates could be hired by farmers to work on their farms. Today our schools don’t even have playing fields not to talk of productive fields. All the farmlands and spaces around our schools have either been sold or appropriated by a greedy ruling elite that is only concerned with accumulating property without productivity. How can a society that is exponentially growing in population while increasingly declining in productivity not be hungry? And the leadership believes the solution is to institutionalize begging rather than encourage productivity. Palliative sharing is now an achievement in governance. Haba! The groundnut pyramids of the past, the cotton fields and ginneries of the past and the textile industries in Northern Nigeria were not products of magic. A return to them will not take rocket science to achieve.They were the results of good leadership and a productive population. What obtained then were annual Agricultural shows where good farmers display their powers and are rewarded with generous prices that encouraged more productivity the next cropping season. It was an annual bazaar where authorities interface with genuine farmers not politicians masquerading as farmers in order to collect inputs and sell. Beyond farming the Agric shows was an avenue for artisans to display their skills in other crafts such as blacksmithing, weaving and related trades and for students to express talents. All were rewarded with incentives to do more. Today we have an indolent and self indulging leadership presiding over a lazy and unproductive population. Their common denominator is a sense of entitlement represented by the relationship woven around the perpetuation of a social inequality status-quo that does not favour the citizens in any way. The leaders feel entitled to jumbo pay and lavish lifestyles. The citizens feel entitled to periodic visits with tiny gifts that neither support their needs nor change their lives. In the end it is just a lose-lose situation for all.

How do we resett the North? The first step is to stop all pretences and self deception. All the groupings parading as Northern this, or Northern that, should accept the fact that addressing the crisis in the North requires more than just a transactional political culture that uses the population as a bargaining chip. Deep rooted social inequalities and fallacies should be uprooted and reconstructed. Productivity must return to the North. Drug abuse should be fought with all seriousness. Leadership recruitment should take a different course. Aspiring leaders must present a Pedigree in community service. Building unhelpful hegemonic transfer of power from father to son or godfather to godson will eventually lead to a monumental uprising. We do not expect our populations to genuflect and worship us today, and then later do the same to our children and godsons. Soon questions will be asked by those oppressed class and even the answers we give them will be questioned. The Almajiri system must end not soon but now. Every child should be entitled to family love and care while growing up. The beggars on our streets should be a shame we should blot. The drug use in the North must be fought by all. Free and Universal education must return to the North. Skills acquisition should be prioritized. A group of uneducated, unskilled, unemployed and unemployable youth is a danger even to itself. Young people must be encouraged to replace the aging farming populations in Northern Nigeria. These old men and women can never feed us using their feeble and waning strengths.

Most importantly a fragmented Arewa that sees itself as composed of different ethnic and religious groupings is indeed a society courting and encouraging strife. We have failed to learn an important lesson from the disasters that befell our societies. Poverty has no tribe or religion, hunger has no tribe or religion. Flood and flooding does not come us in ethnic or religious form. And when insurgents and bandits strike they do not identify religion or ethnicity as the basis of their dastardly acts. They simply express their satanic prowess. The challenges we face do not respect or consider our ethnic, religious or far-North and Middle belt divisions. They affect us as just humans. In the end, we are united in our humanity. Consequently we should wake up to the fact that we cannot address a situation that does not know the difference between our people in a divided and fragmented fashion and hope to defeat it. Nurturing our societies in fear and mutual suspicion benefits none of us. Even those who use micro-nationalism as vehicles for power ascendancy eventually discover that it turns around to consume them. During the August protests no one could distinguish Muslims from Christians, far-Northerners from people of the middle belt. All the different ethnic identities we display melted sway. What we saw were simply hungry and angry rampaging anarchists on the streets. Truth be told? We must face the reality of a population gearing to revolt. They are united by their unfortunate conditions. Honestly they cannot understand entreaties by a ruling elite they see as detached from their own realities. If you need evidence consider the fact that Traditional Rulers, the Ulama and Pastors were not seen as upright moral voices during the August protests. A revolt in the North may be inevitable if something is not than to address the concerns or our ordinary people. And it even be bloody if not averted. But we can stop it by taking the right steps and ending this culture of self deception and pretences to politics. Political expediency cannot replace realistic solutions to what is obviously an existential crisis. We must come face to face with Arewa’s burden of truth.

Let us remember Alhaji Mamman Shata and his epic song “Mu tashi mu farka ‘yan Arewa…”

Ahmad Sajoh a former Commissioner for Information Adamawa State writes from No. 35 Oran Street Wuse Zone 1 Abuja and can be reached on aisajo2@gmail.com_