Why Nigeria needs the North

August 12, 2025 by Jide Oluwajuyitan

To observers of Nigerian politics, there was nothing new in Bashir Dalhatu, chairman of the ACF Board of Trustees, accusing the President Bola Tinubu’s government of neglecting the north as he did during the recent two-day citizen engagement forum organised by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation. The only difference this time around was that Tinubu, who said he is always ahead of his political adversaries, was ready with over 60 prominent northern members of his cabinet to expose the hypocrisy of those who pretend to speak for the north when indeed, it was all about self-preservation. But perhaps more damaging to the case of the hegemonic ruling class is the emergence of young educated and well informed crop of northern professionals and politicians who have now seen the danger of being enslaved by old prejudices especially with yesterday’s abandoned children of the poor who are today challenging the status-quo.

Leading the battle to save the old order was ACF’s Bashir Dalhatu who called attention to the completion of Lagos-Ibadan express way and the second Niger Bridge, all in the south while the north that gave 64% of its votes to ensure Tinubu’s victory in the 2023 election got nothing. Echoing him was Babachir Lawal, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF). According to him: “No projects are going on—at least they are not visible to the eye, maybe in their imagination, maybe in the spirit—but we don’t see them.”

For Hakeem Baba Ahmed, Tinubu needed to be blamed for “neglecting the suffering of their people” warning that it’s the “people Tinubu is treating as if they don’t matter who will judge all politicians against their exposure to violence, death, and poverty”.

Leading Tinubu’s foot soldiers was the Governor of Gombe State and chairman of the Northern States Governors Forum, Inuwa Yahaya, who confidently declared: “Today, we gather not for empty rhetoric but to examine those promises and assess the level of progress so far. What we find is an administration that has delivered meaningful results. He went on to list several federal projects, including the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano expressway, Kano-Katsina-Maradi rail line, the rehabilitation of the Kaduna refinery, the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline, and the continuation of drilling in the Kolmani oilfields”.

Kaduna State governor, Uba Sani’s task was to remind the current crusaders under whose leadership “insecurity grew, education declined, and poverty deepened “ that the time for playing the ostrich was over because educated young northerners today understand that “insecurity, poverty, and educational backwardness” was the result of these leaders’ “culture of negligence, silence, and inaction”.

While Tinubu’s northern political appointees were cautious, refusing to frontally confront the hegemonic ruling power in the north, the young unrestrained non-political office holders including Farouq Aliyu, former minority leader of the House of Representatives and Alvan Hassan exhibited no inhibitions.

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For Farouq Aliyu, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) “is an opposition group and supporters of Atiku Abubakar who cannot speak for the north”. For him ACF members love neither Nigeria nor the north but themselves. They only live for themselves.

For Alvan Hasan, “instead of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) serving as custodians of northern aspirations, they are openly partisan”. For him, what the north needed is not infrastructure but unity. He strongly believes ACF is using religion to divide the north

Looking Seun Okinbaloye, his host on ‘Politics Today’ show, directly in the face, he asked “as a Christian from the north, can you aspire to become governor of Kwara?” Adding without waiting for an answer, that a Muslim from Plateau State cannot aspire to become secretary to government of Plateau state just as Christian from Borno State can never aspire to become governor of Borno State.

Although he stopped short of directly accusing  the self-appointed custodians of values of the north of sponsoring Muslim attack on Christians, the innuendo was unmistakable in his assertion that for self-preservation, those who should unite the north end up sponsoring Muslim attack on Christians while Christians’ attempt at retaliation leaves everyone a loser with even farmers unable to go to their farms.

Hasan was saying what most Nigerians including our leaders who often play the ostrich know the truth which everyone is afraid to admit. Sheik Gumi in February 2021 admitted on Seun Okinbaloye’s ‘Politics Today’ show, that the Fulani herdsmen were victims. He defined them “as herdsmen fighting ethnic war” and for him, the solution was dialogue and teaching them Islam. If you have seen them you will discover they have nothing like civilization other than the guns they carry”.

Today everyone seems to have forgotten Lamido Sanusi Lamido’s directive to Fulani herdsmen hosted by Benue State to the effect that they must disobey Benue State anti-open- grazing law duly passed by the state House of Assembly and assented to by the governor. We all pretend not to be aware that, the directive ’found expression in periodic harvest of death of innocent subsistence farmers who are mostly Christians in the alluring Benue trough.

We have no evidence Usman Bugaje was ever questioned for confessing not too long ago that APC then in opposition, imported some Fulani herdsmen from the Sahel region for the purpose of 2015 election.

But Hasan was not done. Even if we were to accept infrastructure is the problem of the north, he threw a challenge at the custodians of the values of the north and the author of “the south cannot have whatever that cannot be replicated in the north” which started with the derailment of Dr. Majekodunmi’ attempt at introducing a form of insurance cover for Lagos workers by northern back benchers in the first republic.

Asking if the south is not part of Nigeria, he wants them to identify the equivalent in the south “of -the ongoing 1000km Sokoto-Badagry High way or Sokoto-Kano-Maiduiguri dualised over 500km expressway.

As an aside, let me help Hassan. Apart from Lagos-Ibadan 120km expressway that has been under construction since 1999, I know of no 30 kilometres of smooth federal road from the part of Ogun, Oyo and Osun that I take to my small town, Ogotun Ekiti. In 1986, it used to take me two hours 30 minutes from Lagos to Ipetu Ijesha (when I tried it four years ago, it took me five hours). But the story is that from that border town is Awolowo’s 1959 eight kilometre scientific marvel of a narrow, dangerous, undulating road that meanders through valleys and crevices of hill to Ogotun Ekiti. At the period, it was the only road that connected Ekiti with the rest of the Nigeria as both Ilesha Ado and Ado Akure roads were in a state of disrepair.

Seven years ago, I heard Chief Afe Babalola, the founder of Afe Babalola University complaining of those two federal roads. Last week, I saw Kayode Fayemi, the immediate past governor of Ekiti State lamenting about the state of the two federal highways.

But let us return to the serious issue at hand. Our northern compatriots need our help and support even if it involves conceding all infrastructural projects to the north.

First, freedom starts from being conscious of your position on the social structure ladder. Our northern compatriots have today realized that those who did not see them beyond article of political bargaining have for long used tribe and religion to exploit their innermost fears. The rest of the country have also now realised that it is no more in our enlightened self-interest to continue ignoring their plight because of blackmail of those who falsely swear in their name for power bargaining.

instead of the competitive north of Ahmadu Bello, we have seen the northern ruling hegemonic class inspired social engineering efforts such as JAMB, quota system of admission to tertiary institutions and to our bureaucracy, all designed to slow down the rest of the country, take their toll on our bureaucracy, universities and teaching hospitals that once ranked with the best in the world.

For a perfect union, the south needs the north more than the north needs the south. Obafemi Awolowo, a foremost nationalist and an unrepentant federalist warned in the run up to independence, that except we first solve the contradiction within the northern society, we will continue to move in circles. For over 75 years, it has been motion without movement.

This is why I think no sacrifice is too much in the interest of our nation if only to honour our founding fathers including Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahamdu Bello, Obafemi Awolowo and members of their tribe who made personal sacrifices to bequeath onto us a working federal arrangement, tragically truncated by ill-educated military adventurers.