NIGERIA, THE LARGEST COUNTRY in Africa by population, got independence on October 1, 1960. That, ipso facto, was supposed to mean that the country was free from British colonial influence thenceforth. With the benefit of hindsight, nearly 65 years afterwards, the built-in crisis that came with the independence has been haunting the country. Today, many Nigerians run back to the colonial Britain and other European countries and North America for safety, social protection, economic security and career fulfilment. On the face of it, this seems innocuous and okay, but deeper introspection would reveal troubling facts. While it is acknowledged that emigration is a global phenomenon that dates back, even into pre-historic times, the scale of it today is troubling, even becoming serious political and ideological issues within the immigrants’ destination countries. 

Why can’t Nigeria, a nation so well endowed with abundance of wealth from minerals, sustained for the past half a century, have a stable and sustainable economy that would keep its citizens within, with minimal emigration? Well, over time, it has proved one thing. It all boils down to leadership. It is true that all politics are local. But the international dimensions of the outcomes of politics could be far reaching. The built-in flaws in Nigeria’s political leadership have contributed greatly to its backwardness, socioeconomic crisis and the current state of anarchy. At this point, after more than two-thirds of a century of independence, the zero sum argument about military or civilian government as the cause of Nigeria’s crisis can no longer be validly sustained. Attention now has to shift to the underlying factors, particularly those underpinning the national misgovernance. Beginning with the coup d’état that has come to define the dichotomy and mutual distrust, leading to a penchant for subsequent coups d’états, Nigeria has gone through twists and turns under military rule as well as civilian rule. 

Underlying the attendant crisis has been the preponderance of one region over others in political dominance through various machinations. Under the country’s constitution since independence, Nigeria is supposed to be a secular state, with no one religion dominating any other in a multi-religious setting. Embedded in the constitution also is the provision for regional equity, under the federal character provisions. Both have been grossly abused, with neither contributing significantly to nation building and economic prosperity. Religious bigotry, intolerance and dichotomy have eaten deep into governance and polity of Nigeria. The most recent case of Muslim-Muslim presidential candidacy was one such insensitive political gambit with wide ranging and far-reaching future social implications. Same with the federal character, a policy that was meant to uplift the disadvantaged parts of the country and bring them up to speed with others who have been ahead of them. Decades into the implementation, the outcome of the policy has been largely a mixed bag of the good, the bad and the ugly. In particular, the policy has thrown up much mediocrity while meritocracy has suffered serious assault, as regions considered backward or disadvantaged have failed to put forward the best but the well connected for public offices, whether through elections, or by appointments or in the civil service. 

In addition to the poor results of a lowering of bars at the state levels in such disadvantaged states, those emanating from such states at the federal levels have created untold crises in their respective areas of functions in the public service. Destruction of public institutions since the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of the mid-1980s under the military leadership headed by General Ibrahim Babangida further expedited the quality control and accountability problems, emboldening corruption that has since become the norm, with public servants from all over the country now brazenly dipping their hands into the till without suffering serious consequences for their actions. One easy way to cover public office misdemeanours has been to seek refuge under regional and religious sentiments. These two sentiments are now more powerful and more influential in decisions over culpability or acquittal in criminal matters.  

The biggest industry in Nigeria has been, and still is, politics. More pronounced is this in northern Nigeria than elsewhere as the political actors have been more strident in opposing and resisting non-notherners in power. The 1993 annulled June 12 presidential election was a test case. From the records and the interview granted by the electoral umpire, Professor Humphrey Nwosu, it was clear that parochial interest of a section was what led to the annulment. Perhaps the results would have been upheld and the winner allowed to take over power if it had been the rival aspirant that actually won. Fast forward to 1999. Subsequent events lend credence to this as the decisions purportedly taken by those who midwifed the return to democracy, choosing rather that a candidate programmed to win the first election be from the same region as the one denied the victory of the 1993 election. A country with such power imbalance will surely continue to have social and economic crises, especially as its politics and governance system do not take the global landscape into consideration. Its internal politics will continue to be retrogressive and could ultimately lead to a nation’s implosion. 

The return to civilian rule in 1999 was greeted with cold shoulders among well-meaning and morally upright Nigerians, especially those with vision and valour. The vacuum created by their indifference was quickly filled and exploited by many actors and aspirants with base characters. As subsequent events would show, many of those who took over the reins of power at the federal and state levels became reckless with public resources. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), an agency of the federal government that was created to rein in those excesses and call culprits to account, became a tool for selectively hounding those not so well favoured at the centre. To circumvent or weaken the influence of EFCC, many corrupt politicians leaned on the back of their older mentors to escape being called to account for their official misdeeds. While many governors who mismanaged their states’ funds were left untouched, a few were arrested, tried and jailed. The selective handling of crime among the politicians threw up many issues. In the northern 19 states, Joshua Dariye of Plateau State and Jolly Nyame of Taraba State were scapegoats for similar offences that many other northern governors were let off the hook. In particular, one governor who spent most of the period of his first term in office living abroad later became a senator without any account for mismanagement of his two governorship tenures. So far, the EFCC has lost its bite. It can only bark at politicians as it has shifted its energy and attention now to internet fraudsters whose victims are mostly outside Nigeria, but has left those who sabotage Nigeria’s economy from within. Or, at best, many culpable politicians have found an easy way out in the form of ‘plea bargaining’ in which case a politician is allowed to return a fraction of what he has stolen and left free to go and enjoy the rest. This, of course, has become a national problem as culprits are found all over. 

The upsurge of negative religious and regional sentiments has led to serious economic setbacks for many parts of the north. While the most popular of them is Boko Haram that brought the economy of Borno and parts of the northeastern states nearly on their knees, those of Kano, Kaduna and Zamfara states seem to have been forgotten. Zamfara was the first state to officially pronounce Shari’a as a state law in the early years of the fourth republic. That decision affected many things and exposed the hypocrisy of using religion as a wildcard for gaining and retaining political power. Over two decades after the commencement of Shari’a as state law, Zamfara remains one of the most backward states in Nigeria. Kano has lost much of its industrial base over the past 25 years. Thanks to bad politics and attendant worsening economy, it is yet to recover. While the national discourse about state police was being vehemently opposed in the political circles, Kano State established and got away with Hisbah, a religion-based police that operates with its own rules in parallel with the Nigeria Police Force. A test case of Kaduna’s economic failure is that of the closure of big manufacturing companies within Kaduna. The 2002 religious-motivated killings and burning of houses and churches within the metropolitan Kaduna sealed its economic fate. The buzzing airport of Kaduna has become a shadow of its old self. While its proximity to Abuja makes it unattractive to airlines on the logistics economics, hardly are there regular flights to or from Lagos, Nigeria’s economic hub. A northern taxi driver in Kaduna, lamenting the plummeting fortune of airport taxi drivers, once told this writer that (mu muka kore su) “our people have driven away” those travelling by commercial flights. If the sudden cessation of daily bombings immediately after Governor Patrick Yakowa died could not send any message about what is killing Kaduna, what else could? Or, if the lucrative businesses thriving on the back of insecurity involving abductions, ransom taking, arms dealing and broker’s role are not anything worth worrying about, what else are?

The gradual loss of intentional diversification is affecting the north’s internal revenue base. Civil service job openings have narrowed down and private sector job openings have stalled. Like other parts of the country, large scale industries have collapsed and small scale operators are struggling, especially with harsh operating conditions of power, credit facilities, infrastructure, weather and security. Ask any banker, and you will be told about multiple risks associated with lending to private enterprises in the region. Many young and energetic men are moving away from rural areas to urban centres, leaving agriculture for uncertainty and urban unemployment. That has huge implications for the future of rural development and food security, especially when pitched in the context of growing spate of insecurity, especially in the northeast and northwest regions. The population issue in the north has long been used for political purposes, with opacity in population figures such that these mask poverty-affluence divides in the region. The multidimensional poverty data of 2022 in Nigeria tilted more towards the north in terms of preponderance. The opacity in population figures affects internally generated revenues in states and efficient budgetary allocation for public goods, services and infrastructure. Not many erstwhile governors have been held accountable for their tenures in office. 

The fixation in emphasis on regional over national considerations has created socio-economic cocoons around the north. Many leaders from the north seem to define their national scope or universe around the north only. But, even then, the idea of the north seems more of a political north than geographical north as it fails to address the wide ranging diversity of issues within the region. Many politicians in the north — now in opulence — only use the rhetorics of their political hero, Ahmadu Bello, to gain traction but they fail to live according to his modest life. The outwardly outlandish approach to running political affairs and offices while inwardly sustaining a conservative culture is a conflict and an anathema to economic progress. Yet, vital statistics on malnutrition, under-5 mortality, and early child education are not very encouraging. Alongside this conservative culture is the practice of designating some issues of existential relevance as “sensitive” and not open to debates over the years, whereas the world is moving far beyond those issues. Now, the younger ones from the north are kicking against the old ways. Dan Bello Galadanci, the China-based skit maker, typifies such resistance. And he is already upsetting the status quo among the northern political elites. Many northern politicians routinely visit Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and other Middle East countries and see the rapid development they have made in the past 30 years, but they have not been motivated to replicate such in the north.

The tendencies to mix Islam with secular government affairs have not helped the north. Political leaders in the north need to do a thorough review and observe the experiences of Egypt under Muslim Brotherhood, Afghanistan under the Taliban, Bangladesh, Sudan and Pakistan and the impacts on their socioeconomic and political lives. Even in homogeneously Muslim states, the impracticality of the brand that a former Zamfara State governor tried to implement in 1999 to 2003 should serve as a useful case study. Creating state laws that contradict federal laws should be put under the spotlight. While federal government operators and pundits argue against state police, what could the Hisbah in Kano State be called other than state police? For the fact that most states in the north are a mixture of Christians and Muslims, religion should be less emphasised at governance levels. This is what made the Muslim-Muslim politics of the 2022/2023 election cycle an absurdity in a country that is crying for religious harmony.

Northern Islamic preachers that preach caustic sermons capable of inflaming base passions and hate against non-Muslims and non-northerners should be put under surveillance and checkmated. Their influences are somehow sometimes stronger than those of most state governments. They affect the tolerance levels for heterogeneous populations. Politicians who pander to them should also be disqualified. The limited concerns over climate forebodings have put the future of the north on the path of jeopardy in matters of food security and global warming. The Great Green Wall that was essentially meant to check desert encroachment had no firm political backup from the northern political and traditional authorities despite the huge financial resources spent so far. The north therefore faces existential risks of climate induced crises that will affect food security further, put social security under strain and will upset population stability. It is time the political and thought leaders in the north began to review the region’s peculiar challenges realistically, which will involve frank and truthful x-ray analysis of the accumulated problems. It can now be said that the path to the north’s greatness does not lie in having a northerner or a north-centric leader as a central ruling figure in power. The north has had a fair share of that. Anyone else from another region who appreciates the potential of the north will do the needful for the region, but not necessarily by stoking parochial sentiments. The northern leaders’ impacts on the north as a geopolitical region can be interrogated. The immediate past president of Nigeria was an army General who ruled for eight straight years: yet, under him, insecurity grew to unprecedented proportions. For instance, he can be posthumously called to account on how his government has helped or hurt the north, in a narrower sense and the whole Nigeria in a wider sense. Time is moving on. The entire country cannot afford to wait to develop at the pace of a particular region. Every region should now be encouraged and enabled to develop faster, though at their respective chosen rates. They should also be open to help from other regions where and when it becomes necessary.

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