4-11-2024.

The discussion as usual is not going to make me any more popular among the ruling elites, but the truth is that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the crowd that surrounds him and most of the Northern elites are disastrous to the Northern Nigeria and monumental failure to the citizens of the country. All of them would rather, and do, work for themselves and the devil, than God, the nation and the citizens they are supposed to serve. Hence the out-of-this-world corruption that has been their sole reason for acquiring mundane power in country.

Unfortunately, most of the Northern journalists, especially the online variety, are not questioning the very bad situation the nation, particularly the Northern part, has found itself in. This is also an issue that would (no doubt) make me disliked by the Northern online practitioners of the trade I profess to belong. It is said ‘once a soldier, always a soldier’. To this end, I consider myself still a journalist, regardless of how long ago I might have retired from active practice of the profession’.

Most of the Northern online journalists are not good at how to analyse and or criticise a bad government policy, even if they are victims. All they are good at is to praise governments all the time by way of reporting positive news for the obvious purpose of getting the proverbial ‘brown envelope’. What they fail to understand is the fact that their colleagues from other sections of the country analyse and criticise any policy they think is hostile to their interests, and still make the money. Some in millions, even.

Take Mr. Shegun Adeniyi for example, he is a very successful journalist and writer from the South Western part of the country, but criticises the President, his own tribe’s man, for the catastrophic failure that he turned out to be. Look at one of his comments on the Nigerian President: 

"While some may have ignored the fact that the economy has been handed over to the Lagos crowd on the pretext they have the expertise, the evidence of the last 18 months undercuts that concession. Maybe Nigerians would not have minded if these Lagosians (many of whom throw themselves around in Abuja with incredible arrogance) were performing. Unfortunately, most don’t even appear to know what they are doing. And the president himself seems detached from reality.”.

Many of the South West media, including the online ones, do not spare the President, they seriously take him to the cleaners for leading Nigeria into the nightmare that it is today, even though most of them are based in Lagos, the home state of the nation’s number one citizen.

Still, many of their journalists staff are very financially contented, with sumptuous patronage coming from Nigerians, many of them Northerners. Some of the Southern journalists working there could get more money in one day than some of their Northern counterparts could make in one year.

The Northern online ‘journalist’ is the creator of so many obsequious words to describe some actions of the so called big shots in the country. The most memorable for this writer is the word ‘DONATION’. It is a word used mostly on the political elites whether serving or retired, active or inactive in the society. Every time such people give something whether in cash or in kind, the ‘journalist’ calls it a ‘donation’.

Most of the time one hears or reads from some of these supposed journalists is the regular praise of their very oppressors, who ‘executed’ this, ‘executed’ that, ‘donated’ this, donated’ such amount, and so on. But those who ‘executed’ are not doing any favours that would warrant their being praised; it is what they promised to do, anyway. And, you do not ‘donate’ to the people whose Commonwealth was taken without their say so. The  ‘donor’ is only giving back a negligible fraction of what he ‘made’ to those that had the Commonwealth in the first place.

But a number of the ‘donors’ were just as needy themselves of such donations BEFORE God gave them a government position. After leaving the office for whatever reason, they ‘miraculously’ find themselves among the stupendously HAVES, obviously achieved at the expense of the citizens, whose Commonwealth was seriously mismanaged by its supposed protectors.

Their crass under performance is informed by the fact that the possession of a smart phone automatically makes some people ‘journalists’, even if they understand not the rudiments of the profession. But since journalism becomes an all comer’s profession, many swarm into it with the purpose of making it big quickly.  But promoting your traducers is certainly not the way to go about it.

Not many online ‘journalists’ would tell you that Mr. President used his seemingly bottomless pocket to get to buy his way to the Villa, which most of the Northern elites could not claim to be ignorant of. I am taking about the political and religious elites, majority of who only work for their advancement (self benefit, if you like). But for the rest of most of the citizens, his ‘electoral victory’ has turned out to be what the Nigerian abundant crude oil is to millions of Nigerians. The country is crude oil-rich, but most of the citizens wallow in abject poverty.

The country’s leader did not win Lagos and some other South Western states, he lost them to the opposition candidates of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), yet preponderant of his ministerial and other aides are from the same part that rejected him at the polls. Not only do his Lagos people occupy more positions in his administration than any other ethnic group, but they have the choicest of appointments, as they head all the commanding heights of the country’s economy.

As for the Northern elites, most of them would rather fight for themselves, not for the region or their people. The Northern region was a victim of power ‘failure’ for about 12 days, yet the Northern so called power brokers were not heard or seen to have done much about it at the time. Even now when the power was said to have been restored, the restoration is only haphazard, as the electricity is supplied for only a few hour, then taken off for longer period, before it is returned again for the same or similar short period.

But the Minister of Power, Dr. Adebayo Adelabu, who had performed so underwhelmingly, was still retained when the shambolic cabinet reshuffle was effected by the President. It looks like the power failure to the North was not due to the actions of the bandits, as claimed by the relevant authorities. So, it would appear that his retention in the federal cabinet was a way of thanking him for implementing a plan long scripted for him.

The most topical issue of the moment is the detention of some 76 Northerners (many young boys, some of them adolescent children) charged with treason by the federal government. But for pressure from some humanist individuals and organisations in and outside the country, the children would have remained incarcerated as awaiting trial detainees in the Kuje prison, where they were detained for more than three months. The leaders from the North did not consider the boys, including minors who are under the age of eight (8), too important to agitate and urge for their release.

Even the ‘elected’ members of the National Assembly (NASS) from the North were not found to be up-and-doing in the matter, since it does not involve the huge pay they get at the end of every month. A member of the Nigerian House of Representatives claimed that each one of them received not less than half a billion naira (N500 million) in salary and allowances annually. And many of them are mare sit warmers who contribute nothing to the debates in the bi-cameral federal legislature.

The youngsters were arrested in Kano state during the #endbadgovernance protest. Some of them looked clearly malnourished when they were taken to court which, to add insult to injury, gave them a very stiff bail conditions that even killers could not be restricted with such strict conditions. For their bail each one of them was asked to bring N10 million and a guarantor who is on federal salary of not less than Grade 15.

Some days to the commencement of the end bad governance strike, Mr. President summoned the Northern ‘movers and shakers’, which mainly comprise of political actors, religious leaders and traditional rulers, to a meeting in the Villa. At the end of the meeting, huge amount of money to each of the participants was alleged to have exchanged hands.

Although many of the Islamic clerics, who attended the meeting, denied receiving any money from the presidency, they however, went ahead to urge their flocks not to participate in the expected nationwide protest. Even yours sincerely agreed that Islam does not condone protest or any form of insurbodination to constituted authority. I so agreed with them that I wrote an article with the title, ‘Count Me Out of The Planned Nationwide strike’. The other Northern leaders too, played a significant role in ensuring that the strike was a failure in most places in the region. 

Meanwhile, the Inspector General of Police asserted that some of the detainees, who fainted in the Abuja High Court because of the visible hunger on their bodies, were just “FAKING” so as to attract sympathy from the judge. And the spokesman of the Police Force added that even at age of seven (7) years, a person was mature enough to be arrested, detained and tried in court for an offence.

Now, if those arrested, even if they were grown up adults, from other sections of Nigeria, in no time all hell would have broken loose in the country, as leaders from their part of the country would troop out on the streets demanding for their unconditional release by the federal government.

None of the organisers of the protest is still in detention, to the best of my knowledge, for the IGP to allege that they were faking, or for the spokesman of the Force to claim that a suspect  can be arrested, detained and tried in court even at the age of seven (7)).

To be sure, Nigeria has never in its history as a republic, had it so terrible in terms of bad governance and poor economic management, as it is the case NOW. The country arrived at the situation due to the corrupt and clueless leadership in the country gets from its rulers.

Many Nigerians are saved by the philanthropic gesture of some large-hearted people who daily offer them free FEEDING and other forms of assistance. May their fortunes increase in manifolds.

May God in His infinite mercy continue to bless Nigeria with more large-hearted people who would be, and continue to be, their brothers and sisters’s keepers, even when the extreme poverty is behind us. May He also rid the country of people who make this unsavoury condition in the country possible.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.