THEIR NORTH, OUR NORTH, OUR COUNTRY.
By Kassim Afegbua.
What we hear now in political discussion, hovers around Politics of Entitlement and of Monologues. It is now Politics of “Our North” and their Nigeria. Politics of sprawling poverty and weaponization of destitute rural folks; a tailored army for political thuggery drawn from the barracks of the Almajiris. These people were the trump card for the Northern politicians, who out of season are our collective conundrum. If anyone took a tour from Gwagwalada to Kaduna, Kaduna through Zaria to Kano, Jigawa to Katsina, Abuja to Jos, to Bauchi through Damaturu to Maiduguri, the obvious would be the numberless able-bodied wastrels littered along those routes, aimless, jobless, with burnished voices for praise-singing. They wake up from their homes on day X, and take to the highways, without undergoing the usual rituals of one who is hinge and its goodbye: unbathed, unclothed often times, with rags that have never known water, patched skins, as they clutch chewing sticks between their lips, enduring hunger and poverty, and not sure from whence the next meal would come. Their “ranka-dede” political demagogues continue to play on their intellect and intelligence; at the shout of “ranka-dede,” a pittance is shared amongst those present and they run off jubilant about the immediate spoil. It is political season again, and the discourse has now come full circle; “Our North” and their Nigeria.
When some Nigerian Leaders of Northern extraction speak for the collective, I often gnaw at their foolishness and political exploitation which they try to extrapolate in dealing with the South. They appropriate the North to themselves as if its collective destiny is rooted in their living rooms. Their North is ruthlessly wanting and wanton, steeped in corruption and poverty, and hunger is rife. Their area now a veritable recruitment ground for bandits and kidnappers, where poverty is ravishing those not in the clique still goes unattended and the discussion from these ego-defensive ideologues is how to harvest Buhari’s famed “12.7m votes” from famished rural folks roaming about, half clad, to be able to rule Nigeria again. The conversation is that of political exploitation and expropriation, using imaginary figures as the overriding force for power acquisition. Was Buhari not alive in 2023, what was the figure? Was Buhari able to affect and impact those hapless 12.7m voters, and take them out of squalor and want? Reconcile this trump card with the tumultuous dancers at the death of Buhari; and the celebrations that suggested that the man had lost touch with his ardent followers; that is their North today. Even those who cannot deliver real electoral votes within their neighbourhood are the noisiest of all. They see themselves as juggernauts; and in their wildest dreams, they are headed for Armageddon. On the flip side, we see them as a joke!
I would have thought that in a 21st century world, with growing discoveries and footnotes of development, what should interest us should not just be the number of mass marriages often sponsored by their dithering government, but the sustainability thereof; through platforms for innovation, development and growth. If five hundred males, and five hundred females were assembled and paired as husbands and wives, without any skills or assets to forge ahead, those marriages have simply been reduced to a matter of procreation only- a breeding ground for the numbers. The real developmental challenges remain and even increase. It is indeed heightened exponentially, by the mismatch between population growth and lack of provision. “Their North” is a curious cosmos, where poverty and hunger are in order, and generosity is the euphemism for sparing crumbs for their interned kin. They seem to pay obeisance to an unwritten creed of neglect of their own people whom they steep in political domination. And when power goes on temporary holiday from their grip, they react as though the rest of nation falls into the class of their lackeys, who should never be able.
I am very tired of hearing those indecent verbiage of our collective political halotry, religious bigotry, and ethnic parochialism driven by nepotism and prebendalism. Most of those noisy fellows who want power ceded to the North in 2027 are scaredy cats; they fear incarceration in the EFCC, for their ugly deeds. Rather than proffer credible rational arguments, they launch tribal political discourse to divert attention from their self-serving world of infamy. Ask them to offer ideas that could be a direct response to hedge against the challenges of underdevelopment in their immediate localities, and you are sure to slump from paralytic disappointment. They cannot and have no roadmaps for their own carbuncles but they ostensibly want to “heal” the nation. They probably never heard that charity begins at home. Formal Education, the singular bedrock of development is almost becoming a sacrilege up there; armed banditry is the normative order, their Chief “Executhieves” roam their forests in search of bandits to construct the next negotiation. The scruffy looking bandits and their well armed troops sit in their conclaves dishing out diktats on the next MoU. They now even collect taxes from farmers before they allow them harvest their products; they collect levies as any bureau would. And when the politics season comes round again, the terms assume a scary dimension, suggesting that some people who understand economic policies and correlations, are in bed with these dark warriors
Of what use really was the late former President Buhari, to the average Northern folk that invested so much in being his foot-soldier? What did he do for them in particular, to affect their lives positively? What can we point at as the defining moment of his intervention at the leadership level for them? If curses could kill, I’d say they killed him. What is the easy reference to underscore his leadership? Was he able to impact the lives of the 12.7 million itinerant voters that became his sing-song? I recollect that he generously created a few billionaires and millionaires in the Hadi Sirikas, Sabiu Tunde Yusufs and Maman Dauras of this world and a few members of that inchoate cabal that turned Nigeria on its head, and set it in retrograde for their selfish interests; but in terms of real impact, Buhari’s reign would be well captured as the “period when Nigeria was run aground.” I didn’t see the notoriously famous Tunde Sabiu Yusuf at the final rites, when the former President was interred; he was one of those who “loved” the former President even more than he himself. Indeed God is great! If General Muhammadu Buhari hadn’t been president this last time, legion of folks would today, go to his graveside to worship him as the best President Nigeria never had; but God allowed him to demystify himself. He was a hot cuisine of poor leadership marksmanship- he died as the worst President that ever graced mother-earth in Nigeria; hence the rationale for those spontaneous dancers at the news of his death is easy to fathom.
To all Nigerians, both at home and in the diaspora, the next time anyone tries to bully you with electoral statistics, please make haste to juxtapose their speeches with the lot of the people in the North. Ask them to show you what they can do for Nigeria, using their land as a microcosm. When they start their shucking and jiving in discussions along ethnic conclaves, using dubious population figures to throw gut punches at you, don’t capitulate; and don’t give in- air it! Let us now think more as true Nigerians driven by one destiny, who want better for posterity. Prosperity is a sweeter condiment than poverty. Hunger and deprivations are as hellish and bilious as those who use them on their fellow humans. Poverty does not know boundaries and ethnic classification; it’s an old weapon. It is the same anywhere it sets it roots. What we desire now as a people, is a growing and robust country with equal opportunities for all. It shouldn’t matter whether one is geographically rooted from or located in the North or South.
What should matter to us, is the necessary dynamism that can grow and develop our collective patrimony and heritage. We need to build and sustain national cohesion, through actions that address our peculiar challenges, rather than allow ourselves to be kept backward on the alter of dichotomies and parochialism. Nigeria needs every geopolitical zone to flourish. We need a clear direction as to where we are headed, and matching actions to call the national vision, a mission; we need to be able to shape the therapeutic paradigms that would better our lot. Vaunting nebulous discourse of 12.7m votes that would come from people who are contrapuntal to our mission is like threatening to paralyze this nation, which is in dire search of direction. Legacies live after the demise of the leaders. Like photographers who create pictures that can tell sweet stories far into the future; please let us FOCUS- focus on what is important.
