By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.

                  23-11-2024.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not known to be very enthusiastic about the Northern region of Nigeria, hence the systematic use of underhanded methods by his administration to undermine the area. Subtlety is the name of the game. The retention of the overwhelmingly underperforming ministers, including those trailed with allegations of direct involvement or complicity in the intractable banditry in the region, is a proof of sorts that the president is not friends with the region and its people, politics apart.

The number one citizen in the country, recently rejiggered his cabinet, but threw out the single-minded but performing members of his team, and allowed his apologists and cronies to remain in the cabinet, despite their abject failure in their duties. In question are the retention of the minister who supervises the regular collapse of the National Grid and the a junior minister who is constantly in the spotlight for the wrong reason of insecurity in the area he comes from.

It is somewhat ridiculous for the minister to fight the messenger instead of the massage. He is reported to  have gone to court seeing for N60 billion as damages from some journalist for airing what a bandit openly claims, and was severely echoed by some Islamic clerics.

The retention, plus the many seemingly anti north policies, eg, the pretence of fighting the rampaging insecurity, the proposed tax amendment, the incessant ‘collapse’ of the National Grid and the appointment or an almost tribal cabinet by the president, point to an agenda that was designed to go in diametrical opposition to the interests of Northern Nigeria.

Mr. President’s motive tallies with the long desire of a particular part of the country which wants the North to be depopulated at all costs, either directly or indirectly. A particular race, which is one directional in its politics, is famously unpopular for its intense dislike and hatred for everything core North, but commerce in the area. The people of the said tribe only patronise other tribes’s businesses when ‘their’ people are not engaged in the business.

According to police findings, and the discovery of many stolen Northern children at infancy and at under 10 ages, as well as the wilful murder of the grown ups at the slightest opportunity they get in the  area they come from, are meant to depopulate the area by all means.

The children belonging to both genders, are stolen and forcefully have their identities and culture changed to reflect their ‘new area of birth’. This is done for political reasons, so that the Northern part of the country can be denied the advantage of its large population. The large population is about the one thing it has ahead of the region which sees itself as the best thing to happen to the country, and must therefore produce the president or lead the country by all means, even at the expense of many lives that do not belong to their people.

Their elders, whatever may be their calling, discourage their people from doing anything with, and in, the North, apart from commercial activities, hence their close attitude for patronage to businesses owned and operated by their people, wherever they may find themselves.

As Muslims men can marry up to four wives, but the cultural background of those who hate the people of the area, discourages marriage to more than one woman by one man, hence the overwhelming difference in population, plus the abundant land that supports the people of the North to engage in farming and other related activities that thrive with abundance of land.

Meanwhile, despite the warning by the United Nations (UN) of impending hunger looming over the Northern part of the country, the high end social gatherings of the nation’s political and business ‘who is who’, are often organised by the Northerners. This calamity, which the UN and Nigerian agricultural experts claimed was partly linked to insecurity, unsafe and inadequate storage of farm produce, mass purchase of maize and soybeans by some companies, as well as illegal mining activities on some farmlands, could be mitigated to some extent by the concerted efforts of the government and the people. 

No people are better equipped and placed to team up with the government to prevent, or at least, minimise the unfortunate impact of the disaster, than the well off Northern politicians and business people. They have the connection and wherewithal to effect so, if they somehow mean well for the ordinary people among them. A very rare thing, anyway.

Many of the so called religiously learned, especially among the Muslims variety, do not make matters any better for the ordinary people as their physical presence at such ‘show offs’ appear to give the ceremonies societal  imprimatur.

 But despite this, high profile ceremonies not only show the unconcern of the political and business elite in the country in this period of all encompassing poverty and other difficulties in Nigeria, particularly in the Northern part, but expose the total absence, but pretence, of partisan politics on these shores. In Nigeria, there is what is called ‘personal interest’, but not ‘national interest’. The ‘big’ people belonging to all the major political parties, converge at these occasions, with the conspicuous absence of the ‘used, abused and abandoned’ ordinary people.

Leaders and other chieftains of the leading opposition parties, such as the likes of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP), the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), mingled with one other to give the lie to their political differences. In Nigeria, all the politicians belong to the same camp, but different parties, so as to corner the national resources for their own exclusive use. The Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, was also there.

The ‘importance’ of such people only comes during elections, when they are used to stuff ballot boxes with stamped ballot papers, snatch ballot boxes at polling units and take them to designated places, as well as to do other dirty deeds that the children of the elite would not be seen near, during the election period. And, as usual, be abandoned until the next election period. And so continues the cycle.

May God save the North from the evil machinations of those who desire its downfall, and make its well connected people wake up to the responsibility of being their next door keepers, without prejudice to the oneness of Nigeria.

Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.