A research commissioned by Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation has revealed why the North is backward in education.
The research group headed by former Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufai, said during virtual public presentation of the research work on Thursday in Kaduna, that states in the region have failed to accord education the priority it deserves.
According to her, inadequate teachers, lack of incentives, poor infrastructure and work stations are some of the challenges across the 19 northern states.
Other inhibitors were lack of security, inadequate classrooms, playgrounds, computer laboratory, libraries and information services, laboratories, textbooks, audiovisual facilities, internet connectivity and learning aids.
Rufai said that the findings also identified poverty and early marriage as some of the factors responsible for poor standard of education in Northern Nigeria.
The team leader, however, noted that the region is not lacking quality teachers as 70% of teachers in the North have national certificate of education and above, with 52% teachers being NCE holders.
She said the report covers all the 419 local governments in the 19 Northern states and FCT.
“Our key findings are that financial condition of parents to cater for their children education, early marriage, incentive to promote access to education didn’t get to most parents, majority have not benefitted from school feeding.
“Challenge of girl child education is critical to the region, integration of Qur’anic education into basic education are some of the challenges facing education.”
Rufa’i noted that poor funding and non release of funds as well as lack of facilities for special education are also dragging back educational development in the region.
The of Northern States Governors Forum and Governor of Plateau, Mr Simon Lalong commended the research, and said it should be presented to the forum, to facilitate implementation of the recommendations.
Lalong, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Prof. Danladi Abdul said, “education is one of the legacies of Sir Ahmadu Bello and the Foundation is keeping it alive.
“This legacy if well carried out will go a long way to emancipate the North. We should cascade the research down to the states for the governors to work on it.
“The challenges and recommendations are taken but we need lots of advocacy to get the political will among our colleagues.
“This research report should be given out to our governors.
“Shortly we will convoke a meeting of the Northern States Governors Forum, so, the lead researcher should present executive summary to the governors to enable us work on it,” Lalong said.
…says unending terrorism, banditry, failed anti-graft war evidence of Buhari’s ineptness
A group under the auspices of Yoruba Youth Social Cultural Association, YYSA on Saturday said Nigerians should look beyond the north in 2023 for credible leadership.
In a statement signed by its President, Hammed Olalekan said the signals of failed leadership are too glaring to be ignored.
In the statement the group alleged that: “The affirmative statement of President Muhammadu Buhari that his appointees abused trust and the unending terrorism and banditry in Nigeria are evidence of his ineptness and failed anti graft war.
“Right from the inception, President Buhari listed fight against corruption as his main agenda followed by tackling insecurity.
“He endeavored by carefully appointed trusted allies without minding the federal character and outcries for lopsidedness.
“Infact, some people supported the anomalies with the mindset that, the outcome matters, if appointing only his people is the way out to better the country’s condition, no problem.
“Disappointingly, none of his ‘saints’ performed differently. The situation in Nigeria now becoming more pitiable than it was in six years ago in terms of corruption and insecurity.
“We could neither blame the appointees not the service chiefs for both crushed anticorruption and worsened insecurity.
“Instead, the person we voted for to preside over Nigeria would be taken responsible.
“The failure of Mr President’s appointees is indeed his failure.
“In 2023, we must look beyond north to ensure that we have a formidable and competent president for us to move forward as a nation.
Professor Ango Abdullahi is an amusing character at his octogenarian age. He is a Northern varsity don, an intellectual, administrator and former minister in Nigeria, whose name should ordinarily strike profound memories. But in his latter days in life, he has proven to be a negation of whatever an elder should represent.
He is loquacious and consistently parrots too generously. He talks like a dunce in leadership. At 82 years or so, one expects to see a calm and very calculated elder statesman. But he loathes everything associated with respect.
Those who know Ango Abdullahi, the former Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU) Zaria closely should whisper into his ears that he is over-parroting and, in the process, denigrating himself. An academic anywhere is a tranquil person, who speaks wisdom and knowledge, as against sentiments.
Academics strive to see a better society for the benefit of all. And when he is prompted by any burning public issue to make suggestions, his panaceas are religiously trusted as a remedy to a public affliction. Ango Abdullahi defends herdsmen atrocities against Nigerians but thinks President Muhammadu Buhari should berth peace from heaven in Nigeria.
When commentators or public affairs analysts postulate that some Northern elders are behind insecurity in the North and other parts of the country, it sounds strange to some ears. But those who doubt it should not look far to find answers. With Ango Abdullahi’s public utterances, it’s clear to discerning minds that he is one of the shadows behind insecurity in the North.
Nowhere in the entire globe where an intellectual is wasted, even when it is reasonably assumed that he has reached the age of senility. Professors emeritus are even more respected because of their treasure of knowledge. They are considered reservoirs of wisdom, decency and uprightness, virtues which endear society to them in veneration.
Unfortunately, Prof. Ango Abdullahi embodies the opposite of everything sane or these sound virtues. He served as Minister under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and, so sees nothing wrong with that administration. He will not tell Nigerians who introduced Boko Haram into the country and nourished it because he served as Obasanjo’s minister. He has never criticized that administration which laid the foundation of the national malaises bedevilling the country now.
But President Buhari is a bad and incompetent leader in the estimation of Ango Abdullahi and his ilk because he is not patronized with an appointment. Therefore, President Buhari must be rubbished on whatever efforts he is making in correcting the ills, which a government, Ango served dutifully introduced in the system or polity.
The game of politics is played in Nigeria differently and very oddly. Only in Nigeria one plus one cannot always be two. One must look farther and search deeper to find answers to ordinarily very easy puzzles.
This country is populated by too many people who have no scruples. Do not mind the age, experience or exposure. Even the elderly, focus their lenses only beneath the abdomen alone. Plead with these elders to gaze at the open space, to see the scenic beauty of the environment and perhaps, grasp the alternative messages conveyed by even the tantalizing breeze is like the proverbial forcing of a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
Prof. Ango Abdullahi is a prominent Northern son and intellectual, no doubt. Ango leads a group of eminent Northerners and elder statemen under the aegis of Northern Elders Forum (NEF). But it’s obvious Prof. Ango Abdullahi has hijacked the association and runs it in the fashion of dictators.
He is a sole administrator of NEF. It’s been ages Nigerians read any public press statement from NEF on any decision concerning national issues. Ango Abdullahi thinks alone; takes the decisions solely and talks alone. Even at that miniature level of leadership, Ango Abdullahi has so mindlessly abused the etiquette; yet has the guts to frequently criticize the leader of an entire nation.
Ango Abdullahi has usurped the thinking of every Northern elder in that forum, so he speaks on their behest. Ask him when last, the group held a meeting, he won’t remember. It’s doubtful if Ango Abdullahi can still count who and who are still members of this otherwise revered association.
He functions alone; thinks and initiates action for every member of the association. What baffles more is his effrontery to question the government of President Buhari on poverty in the North particularly and pretend in sycophantic ululations to be also concerned about my entire Nigeria.
In his region, the North and despite occupying a vintage position, as leader of an assemblage of Northern elders under the umbrella of NEF, he has done nothing to alleviate the poverty of his people. He has no plan; no agenda or thought about it.
It’s certain that Ango Abdullahi is barren of his basic responsibility for his immediate constituency, as a Northern elder. Since he assumed leadership of NEF what poverty alleviation agenda and schemes has he contemplated? None till tomorrow. Yet, he commandeered the position of chair of NEF. Give someone else that position, he would spring surprises for the benefit of the people.
Ango has forgotten that the people who should know their problems better and contrive ways of solving it are the Northern elders in NEF. The association should not just be an assemblage of respected personalities, but it should be a platform for solving some of these problems. Ango, have you ever contemplated it? This former minister lacks the capacity to galvanize the forces at his disposal for the benefit of his people.
Talk is cheap; criticisms of those in leadership easier. But when the same people assume lesser responsibilities at lower rungs, they fail woefully, as evident with Ando Abdullahi. Prof sir, you cannot continue to live in self-denial. If the Northern region is poor, with almajiris everywhere, its also your responsibility at this octogenarian age to strive to improve the situation. The North is a community which gave birth to you, fed, nourished and gave you the global fame in academics.
NEF as a forum, chaired by a sensible intellectual would have used to it to prod Northern elders to use their wealth in assisting the upcoming generation of the North to understand the meaning of existence in a region and county which breathe life into them. Insecurity in the North is fueled by poverty.
Had the likes of Ango performed their responsibility as expected, poverty in the North would have been reduced and violent sects would not have had access to idle youths to recruit into their fold. The mindless killings in the North would STOP or at least be reduced! Leadership does not start and end with the person wearing the crown of a nation, community or a particular enclave alone.
Ango Abdullahi in fairness to you, NEF ended with the leadership of a passionate nationalist, detribalized Nigerian and international elder statesman, Alhaji Maitama Sule. If only the dead could rise, Sule, NEF’s pioneer chairman would have wept at your personalization of NEF. You are just leading a band of elders in your family and local government, but certainly, not the North.
Today, Ango presents himself as a contradictory personality and a talkative. That’s not the philosophy behind the formation of NEF. If President Buhari is not a good leader as admitted by Ango’s recent interviews published by several media platforms; it’s also difficult to discern or even understand his preference for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
It is now clearly partisan. It means Ango has gleefully taken a partisanship position as leader of other Northern elders in the association he self-crowned himself as chairman. But the congregation or its members belongs to different political affinities or persuasions. The bitterness Ango harbours on the Buhari presidency permanently cannot make NEF better.
Ango should reposition NEF first before expending energy on thinking about Nigeria. Professor Sir, asking President Buhari to resign over insecurity in the North is the most thoughtless utterance. Please, tell Nigerians which administration brought Boko Haram into Nigeria. Ango should help Nigeria and the North by telling the sponsors of the killings that the North is tired of the bloodshed. Ango, the sponsors are your friends and partners in crime and so, prevail on them to halt the killings.
Kuta is a former member of the National Assembly and wrote from Minna.
The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar lll, has decried the persistent killing of people in the country by bandits and insurgents.
Abubakar who is also the President-General of the Jamaatu Nasril Islam said the spate of insecurity in Nigeria, with particular reference to the North, should give those in government at federal and state levels sleepless nights.
According to a statement by JNI’s Secretary General, Dr Khalid Abubakar Aliyu, the monarch also appealed to security agents to put in more effort in curbing the issue of insecurity across Nigeria.
The statement reads partly: “The repeated massacre of people, as well as the senseless burning of houses and livestock in Borno, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Niger states and indeed other states such as Adamawa, Kaduna and Taraba, should give governments and its functionaries at both federal and state levels sleepless nights.
“By now, an instantaneous pronouncement followed by robust actions should have been made by the government of the day, not verbal warnings and condemnations dished out to the perpetrators of the murderous acts.
“Isn’t the government of the day a popular government? Is it not a participatory government?
“Why doesn’t public opinion(s) matter to it? Or isn’t public opinion(s) considered an ingredient to the government of the day?”
The Sultan’s remark is coming at a time President Muhammadu Buhari urged Nigerians declared that his capable of dealing with terrorism and banditry in the country.
He called for patience from Nigerians as the military explore areas to deal with the menace of insurgency and banditry.
A few days ago, a coalition of Northern youths had given Buhari 14 days to end insecurity in the region.
They had vowed to take over the government, if Buhari failed to end insecurity in the region within the ultimatum given.
Today i want to take up a topic the former Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and his friend, Governor Nasir El Rufai, broached a few months back, which is that the north must change its attitude and stop being a clog in the wheel of Nigeria’s development. Like them, i want to tackle northern leaders and the elites who have allowed the north to be the stumbling block to themselves and indeed to the rest of Nigeria. Lets not get it twisted though: Nigeria’s problem is not caused solely by the leaders and elites in the north. They are only worse than their southern counterparts in that regards.
The cheery news from the north, recently, has been the disclosure by Governor Nasir El Rufai that northern governors have finally resolved to man up, to end the disgraceful almajiri scourge. By United Nations Children Education Fund, (UNICEF), figures, as at 2015, there were as many as nine million children, fathered by irresponsible men; neglected by the governments and elites, in the core north, roaming the streets; out of school.
El Rufai’s disclosure, came at a time the global pandemic, Coronavirus, had started having a death grip on, and spreading its tentacles in the north. El Rufai it was, who confirmed, too, that the mass deportation of the almajiris to their home states, which followed was an agreed decision by the governors. Kaduna alone, he confessed, deported over 30,000 almajiris to other states of the north, where they originated from. What he didn’t, however speak on, was the trailer loads of northern youths who were sent to the southern parts of the country, during the lockdown. He also didn’t speak on the timing of the mass deportations. Unfortunately, that was the major instrument through which the pandemic was spread fast across the northern states. It was like deliberately setting fire to a keg of gunpowder. A fatal mistake. The explosion in the number of figures across the north bears a gruesome testament to a poorly thought through resolution. But we digress.
For too long, the northern elites and leaders, including President Muhammadu Buhari, have paid scant attention to these large number of children and youths roaming and begging in the streets without hope, and, or an assured future. They have no home or a place to lay their heads. No parental care. No government. Born to parents who have no business producing more children than they can carter for. They are dumped on supposed Islamic schools which have no means or ability to fend for, or train them. They easily become children of the streets: hopeless, abandoned, deluded; fit only for under-aged election voting purposes.
No one has put the almajiri problem more succinctly than the deposed Kano Emir, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. In a speech, most suspect is part of the reason he was casually deposed by the governor of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi said: “these children that we see as almajiri and we laugh at them and treat them as victims…these children are not criminals, they are victims. What part of the Islamic law, what part of the Quran allows a father to give birth to a child and leave the child to go and fend for himself?” Sanusi is of the opinion that bad economic policies and wrong priorities by the leadership in the north is to blame. And l agree. Think about it for a moment. President Goodluck Jonathan’s government attempted to tackle the problem and built over 165 Tsangaya (Almajiri) Model Schools across some states in the north. Till date, President Muhammadu Buhari who before he became President professed so much love for the poor in the north; and successive state governments in the north, have simply ignored the schools, did nothing about the Almajiri children.
Yet, it was not always so. It is on record that before colonialism, there were islamic recital schools fully funded by the governing authorities, then represented by the emirs. Parents who wanted their children to be well versed in islamic studies sent their wards to these schools to study but took part in their upkeep. But that was before infantile greed, political stupidity, and self-centredness of uncommon proportion, took over.
That we are talking of a large swat of young Nigerians who are on the streets begging instead of being in schools in the 21st century is a ready evidence of the disgrace that northern leaders and elites have brought upon the memory of the late Sarduana, Sir Ahmadu Bello. He, it was, who strove to build a modern competitive northern Nigeria in his life time. As it has turned out, the greatest benefactors of the legacies of Sir Ahmadu Bello are his greatest betrayers.
Three areas where this betrayal is very visible are in education, leadership recruitment and a shared vision for the north and Nigeria.
It is on record that the late Sarduana traversed the entire northern landscape to fish out the best and brightest young northerners. He sent them to schools locally and abroad. He recruited others into the many arms of the Nigerian armed forces. There was a deliberate attempt to create a leadership cadre that is brilliant and able to compete with the best, not just in southern Nigeria, but globally. The core of the then Kaduna mafia were beneficiaries of the large heartedness and vision of this great northern leader. There has been none like him since then. Rather a selfish feudal class of parasites has evolved. Sad.
Evidences abound. Unlike most of the current elites and leaders who people the north, the Sarduana did not discriminate between Christians and Moslems and animists in his vision for the north. He didn’t also go for only the children of the nobles, the rich or highly connected. He simply went for the best. Can we truly say that today that that is still the trend followed by the elites and leaders in the north? Objectively, the answer is no. Instead a bunch of power crazy, self centred, self and family promoting wealth mongers and special caste gang rule the north. And in their quest, they have succeeded in not only holding down the development of the north, they, with their southern collaborators, have held the nation down. They have impoverished it, and made it a laughing stock globally. Their born to rule, post civil war conquerors mentality, first targeting the south has now dovetailed into a special class system where only their children and relatives are favoured.
Today, bright, young educated northerners, who do not have the fortune of their parents and relatives being in the the exclusive class of their oppressors leaders, have no kind words for them. For example, if you go to any of the well heeled national establishments like the NNPC, CBN, NBC, and so on, all the secret and open employments going on, are channeled to the children of those who now see themselves as having conquered the rest of Nigeria, who pillage it as they will, without consequences. Take for a concrete example, one of the establishments, under this regime got a secret approval to employ 70 persons but ended up with close to 250, all children and relations of the conquering powers that be. Of these of course 90 percent came from the north in utter disregard to the constitutional requirements of geographical spread. Even the names of those employed from the south had only well heeled political insiders children. I have seen the list. It truly turns the stomach. It fuels anger. It is the height of impunity that rubbishes the claimed integrity of President Buhari.
Unlike the late Sarduana, this class of northern leaders and elites do not have the interest of the commoners and poor at heart, except that they use them as bargaining chips to corner the goodies of the land for themselves and their families. The sheer bigotry. The Almajiri and the poor of the north who thought they had seen a saviour in President Buhari are today disappointed and embittered.
The chickens are now coming home to roost. Sanusi and El Rufai saw it and started shouting for a northern rethink. For truth be told, there is hardly any top northerner who can easily go home to his state or village anymore. Abuja, for those who do not have their mansions in Lebanon, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, London, etc., has become the safe haven. But for the truly “big men northerners”, their families are all relocated out of the country. Their wives and children are ensconced in the developed cities of Europe and in the Arab enclave.
Gone are the days when Abuja used to be empty on weekends. Today, the roads are flooded with traffic more than ever before. If you ask most of them, you get told that they dared not go to Kaduna or Kano or any of the major cities by road. Its just damn too dangerous. The alternative is to go by air.
Take the issue of Fulani herdsmen when they were solely ravaging Jos, Benue and the southern states. How did the average elite northerner react? There was a silence of acquiescence, a nonchalance, a “serve them right” attitude that hung truth upside down in the air. Not a single northern elite was bothered that the herdsmen were mostly non-Nigerians, possibly criminals from Libya, Niger and Chad. Not until they graduated into kidnapping and cattle rustling took a devastating, deadly new turn, did they belatedly realise the war has gotten to their doorsteps. But by then it had become too late.
Apart from President Buhari being the life patron of Miyetti Allah, it was clear that their silence can be attributed to the fact that the herdsmen were employees of some of them. Some of them are like President Buhari, who are into animal husbandry. We all know the cattle do not belong to the poor herdsmen; we all know that the AK 47 they are using to commit havoc are not bought by them.
Thank God the oil wells are no longer going to be the goldmine after Coronavirus pandemic. Easy money on the streets is gone and gone, perhaps forever. It has come to abbreviate what electric cars, 5G and other technological advances were already threatening. It is interesting the scenario that will unfold in the north when the elite turn on themselves as the booty can’t go round anymore.
At first it was convoys of 18 seater buses that caught the attention of those who were enforcing the lockdown nationwide in the southern states. In some instances, as many as ten 18 seater buses, in bumper to bumper motorcades, mostly late in the night and early in the mornings, were intercepted.
In what appears a well coordinated mass movement of these youths even the usual food trucks and Dangote trailers joined the train, in ferrying them, with most of the young men hidden in between cows, tomatoes, yams and some other perishable items. When the various state lockdown task forces grew wise to this, the convoys left the highways and diverted to bush paths. Curiously, most of the young men intercepted, when interrogated, speak neither Hausa, English nor any known Nigerian language.
In its highly acclaimed investigative report titled: TNG SPECIAL REPORT: Unveiling sinister motives behind planned, mass intrusion of ‘almajirai’ from North to South during lockdown, “ TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) noted with concern that what started briefly as mere intra-deportation of underage almajirai by the northern governors as one of their responses to the COVID-19 fight in their region has now developed to a full blown mass intrusion to the South, a region in Nigeria alien to the Almajirai system…
“Sometimes numbering over 500 in a 40-feet trucks, these so-called almajirai who are old enough to have fathered several offsprings, according to the tradition in that part of the country, move like they are on a mission. Those who are not bold enough to travel alone hide in between their cows to escape the prying eyes of the law enforcement agencies stationed at the various inter-state borders. Their movement is not restricted to a particular time of the day as arrests have been made in broad daylight and at night.”
The Guardian newspaper too, last week, did an editorial on the same issue titled “Almajirai’s provocative exodus to southern Nigeria”. According to the Guardian editorial “It is indeed curious that the northern governors decision to relocate the Almajarai to their states of origin to control the spread of a pandemic has become an anti-climax. The ostensible logistic is to contain the spread of COVID-19, which might spread by the nature of living of the Almajiri with no fixed address…The exercise still on going has virtually turned arbitrary beyond the reciprocity of repatriation of Almajirai among the states of the North. The trend is that they are now being relocated to the South and Middle Belt that are not native to this social practice in the country.
Truth be told, those among the thousands of young men and a few women, who are Nigerians, have the constitutional right to freedom of movement and to abode in any part of the country they so wish. What is curious, and which the TNG (TheNewsGuru.com} report unearthed, which raises the eyebrow of the people in the south, is the seemingly clandestine, but coordinated, ferrying of these thousands of youths across the many state borders between the northern states, say Kano and Cross River state, at a time there is a nationwide lockdown on movement. Why are they conveyed in convoys; and when that failed, why in goods trucks?
What is their mission at this time the nation is fighting to curtail and defeat the coronavirus pandemic, a time movement across states will jeopardise the efforts? If these are indeed Almajiri being deported to their home states, as the agreement among the northern governors seems to suggest, why the mass movement to the south where there is no tradition of almajiri? Who is coordinating these movements, who is paying for them, and what is the purpose, at these times?
Before now, it was commonplace to see trailer loads of youths being ferried from the north to the south with each coming with brand new motorcycles to commence, ostensibly, “okada”riding business. To the chagrin of southerners, most of these youths, assumed to be from the northern states, are later discovered to be from Niger, Chad and so on. As the experience in Lagos, in recent years, has shown, it is from these groups that security agencies have discovered sleeper cells of boko haram, ISIS West Africa and some kidnapping gang members.
As my own personal experience with armed robbers who invaded my home in Lagos sometime ago shows, all the robbers were non Nigerians, but they had a Seriki, who though also not a Nigerian, has lived in that part of Lagos state for more than 10 years. They nonetheless had identity cards supposedly issued by some local governments in the north, which turned out to be fake.
Over time, it has been commonplace to see that jobless youths from across the West African sub region, in a quest for a better life, slip into the country from the ever, and some say deliberately porous northern borders, from where, possibly, well organised human trafficking and recruitment gangs, ferry them to the south,
deemed a little better economically than the north, to come and hustle for a living; legitimate or otherwise.
But the current movement, coming during the lock down, at a time we are told that Boko Haram and the other terrorist gangs who currently hold the northeast of Nigeria hostage, in a bloody, gory vice grip, are in total disarray and running for dear life, should raise the worry ante in all who truly love Nigeria.
Yet, the collaborative, greedy hands of the hundreds of various security men and women, along the thousands of kilometres, from the north to the south, are easily compromised. The situation is even more scary given that there are usually no consequences. The various breaches of the law, the instigators of the mass exodus of this questionable “almajiri, easily perpetrated through the greased hands of security men, go unchallenged, uninvestigated, and unpunished.
As usual, both the federal government and its armada of security forces turn a blind, seemingly unconcerned eye to the exodus of these youths to the south, ignoring the obvious implications. Leaders on both sides too are keeping an uncomfortable silence, repeating the same mistakes they made when the violent felons masquerading as herdsmen started invading the south and the middle belt states. As it will be recalled, the leaders in the south became kidnap targets while their towns and villages became easy targets for the marauding herdsmen. Northern leaders, some of whom own the cows and are therefore complicit employers of the heavily armed herdsmen, initially felt unconcerned and some even condemned those who dared raise a voice of condemnation of their uncontrolled activities. Not until it hit their doorsteps did they suddenly realise that we were all in serious trouble.
The fulani herdsmen having found an easier route to wealth beyond just herding cattle, initially dived into cattle rustling and eventually into the more lucrative business of kidnapping. Today, the criminal elements among the herdsmen have totally taken over the north. And northern leaders, for the first time since this attempt at democratic rule, can’t go home, as they won’t anymore, until a reasonable action is taken to arrest the very troubling development. No interstate road in the north is safe from the kidnapping gangs. Even going to spend a weekend in the village or to attend the usual ceremonies has become a foolhardy expedition.
Like southern leaders, Abuja and Lagos have become their cities of refuge. Mecca, Lebanon, Qatar, UAE, London and select cities of Europe are now the holding cities for the wives and children of the northern and southern elites. That way they delude themselves that they and their families are safe.
My fear, post COVID-19, is that when all this is over, we will all live to regret the unchecked, instigated mass export of these youths, supposedly from the north to the south. My gutsfeel is that there is more to these movements. A mastermind, or group is at work. They seemingly have collaborators in the various security arms. My fear is that, like with the Fulani herdsmen, who unleash mayhem on farmers in the South, the security collaborators will provide a shield, a cover for whatever nefarious intentions these new groups of “Almajiris” flooding the Southern states might have. It could be religious. Maybe, aggravated criminality.
Plain disillusionment over their rising expectations about a better life in the South, leading to rising frustration will ensue. This is even more so, given the expected harsh economic realities, the South and indeed the entire country will be embroiled in. We should brace up, begin to prepare, for a rash of insecurity, of bloody encounters, of possibly sectarian clashes, of a Hobbesian life that is brutish, harsh and gory.
Only essential service providers with approved permits from appropriate authorities were allowed the right of movement across the country.
30 persons found tucked between goats in the trailer
However, despite the subsisting ban, one of the regular, almost cliche kind of news stories during the lockdown is the arrest of trailer loads of young able bodied northerners (98 percent males) hiding under the ‘almajirai’ camouflage to sneak into the southern region of the country.
For clearer understanding of the terms, Wikipedia defines ‘Almajiranci’ as a system of Islamic education practiced in northern Nigeria. The male gender seeking Islam knowledge is called ‘Almajiri’ while the female gender is called ‘Almajira’, and the plural is ‘Almajirai’.The system encourages parents to leave parental responsibilities to the attached Islamic school. Colloquially, the word ‘Almajiri’ has expanded to refer to any young person who begs on the streets and does not attend secular school.
Unlike the typical almajirai who are usually underage, malnourished and dependent on alms for survival, the pictures and videos from the scenes of interception across the southern states showed that those arrested so far are adults and people of sound mind.
Sometimes numbering over 500 in a 40-feet truck, these so-called almajirai who are old enough to have fathered several offspring according to the tradition in that part of the country move like they are on a mission. Those who are not bold enough to travel alone hide in between their cows to escape the prying eyes of the law enforcement agencies stationed at the various inter-state borders. Their movement is not restricted to a particular time of the day as arrests have been made in broad daylight and at night.
Trailer load of humans intercepted in DeltaThis worrisome development has further tensed the security situation in the country and also cast aspersions on the sincerity of the COVID-19 fight.
While it is safe to say that COVID-19 has permeated the entire length and breadth of the country (except for Kogi and Cross River States) with Lagos being epicentre followed distantly by Kano, one then wonders the aims of such illegal and deceitful movement at this sensitive time of our national lives.
So far, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequential ban on inter-state movements, full truck loads of these northerners have been intercepted and arrested in all the South South, South East and South West States.
Expulsion of almajirai to home states totally a northern affair
A major pointer to the strangeness of the sudden invasion of these all-men northerners to the South is that the ‘deportation’ and reception of almajirai to their home states has been a northern intergovernmental affair.
TNG reports that governors under the aegis of the Northern Governors’ Forum (NGF) had in April issued a statement where they “discussed the risk that Almajiri children are exposed to due to the virus. They unanimously decided to ban the Almajiri system and evacuate the children to their parents or states of origin.
“They vowed never to allow the system to persist any longer because of the social challenges associated with it including the perpetuation of poverty, illiteracy, insecurity and social disorder.”
Kebbi State Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu later confirmed the development saying: “Some states have already started implementing this decision by taking back such Almajiri children to their own states of origin. I do believe that all the states in the region will soon commence the repatriation and this is for the common good of the states and Nigeria in general.”
The Kano State Commissioner of Education Muhammad Sanusi-Kiru recently explained that the deportation was to safeguard public health and stem the spread of the pandemic.
Stressing that the exercise would be continuous, he said in a statement: “The Almajiri students will be evacuated to Katsina, Kaduna, Jigawa, Yobe, Bauchi, Zamfara, Gombe, Nasarawa States and the Niger Republic.”
However, the deported almajirai are decently transported in a convoy of government and security officials and handed over to the receiving governments in a civil manner. So far, none of the coordinated deportation processes which began in April involved use of trucks or other dangerously exposed, insecure means of transportation to deliver the almajirai to their home states as witnessed with the arrests so far.
It is however important to note that the monstrous virus has further claimed more territories during the deportation spree. Several of the children transported back and forth have tested positive for the virus, therefore questioning the timing of the eradication of the Almajiranci policy.
Timeline of arrests
While the movement trend of northerners into the South is not new, however, the planned, consistent and massive intrusion into the region particularly since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic (through any means possible) amid a subsisting ban on inter-state movement of people and vehicles cannot be waved off as normal.
In what has become a daily news item, TNG recalls the following intrusion and subsequent arrests of the ‘almajirai’ at various border points of southern states:
How intruders cross inter-state borders unhindered
It still remains a mystery yet to be solved, why Nigeria operates porous borders. At national and international levels, our borders are all porous and the officials stationed there are most times willing to compromise with few wards of naira notes.
The unhindered inter-state movements during a subsisting lockdown order couldn’t have been possible if the borders aren’t so porous and officials negligent and corrupt.
All the arrested intruders allude to how they easily ‘greased’ the palms of the officials at the borders. Most of the arrests made were either by the State Task Force on COVID-19 or the executive governor of the particular state.
A concerned citizen said to unravel the easy movement of these intruders, these security questions must be asked with verifiable answers. “Where were they (the intruders) coming from?
How did they pass the other cordons in the many States, in between, to get to the cape of the sea as Rivers State or Akwa Ibom or Cross River or Delta or Edo or Enugu, etc?
Who failed to do what he was supposed to do all the way from wherever they started the journey?
How had they been feeding as they journeyed?
Who was planned to receive them as they arrived their destinations?
However, in what seemed like a response to the questions above, one those arrested by Governor Wike in Rivers last week, Ahmed Aliyu said they were contracted from Adamawa State to bring cattle to one Alhaji at the new slaughter in Oyigbo. He said that he thought that the lockdown will start by 10pm. He informed that the moved into the state after they bribed security personnel with N1500.
Those arrested so far are not almajiris, they are terrorists on a deadly mission – Concerned Nigerians
Nigerians, particularly of the southern extract have expressed their unreserved concerns (online and offline) over what they term a likely security crisis that may bedevil the region if the aim behind the calculated and massive intrusion of the northern youths is not uncovered and thwarted.
Ex-Niger Delta militant, Asari Dokubo in a video warned of the imminent danger inherent in the forceful encroachment of the northerners down South. According to him, the movement is questionable and smells of ulterior motives, He advised governors, ministers, lawmakers and other leaders in the region to plan a counter-strategy before it is too late.
A prominent South South figure who does not want his name in print also expressed his mind thus: “Those trailer/container loads may not even be almajiris. They may be well trained fighters of the extremist Boko Haram.
What a window of opportunity for them to come down en masse! The annihilation has been long planned out.
No doubt, the governors strutting about, shouting and gesticulating under the sun, in public shows of efforts at stopping the spread of Coronavirus may never have given it a thought. They sincerely believe they are working hard, and very hard, to stop the spread of Covid-19.
But what has presented ought to be seen to be different. Few weeks ago, Boko Haram was quoted as saying that it would strike in the South-south and South East. Many may have considered it preposterous. But what do they know. Now, Boko Haram has been largely walloped in the Chad region due to the efficiency of the Chadian army. They must find bases, and they may have rolled down south.
And the governors have been caught pants down.
The evidence is there. They just intercept lorries or trailers and ask them to return to where they came from. Matter closed! Really? In a country which has been held by the throat by a terrorist organisation since 2009? Strange!
Even our much talked about special intelligence units? They all bought the idea that these were almajiris? Nobody followed them to find out if they actually moved a few metres away from the last point the governor and his clean-shaven officials could see?
And for God’s sake, almajiris ought to be kids or teenagers. Those in view are spirtely young men, some quite smart to pass any entry physical test of any army. Some are kitted with clean cans and backpacks. There was no single forlorn look on the face of any of these i observed. They looked poised and happy like tourists.
The governors are simply being emotional. They ought to know. Those being moved down are not almajirtis. They are young men on a mission.”
Popular columnist and journalist, Lasisi Olagunju in an article titled ‘Almajirai’s expedition to the South’ and published on May 11 in the Tribune Newspapers said: ‘COVID-19 may be composing a requiem for Nigeria. Or do you sincerely think the country would be the same again if the North’s unhealthy conducts explode in unimaginable deaths as is gradually evolving before our very eyes? The South’s zest for life or what the French call joie de vivre, won’t let them allow the North infect them with suicidal foolishness. If the present resistance to infiltration of the South by the almajirai is sustained and the push from the North is unceasing, what do you think will be the result, ultimately? A new traditional ruler was enthroned somewhere in Borno State a few days ago, we saw how suicidal the crowd behaved. Why is it difficult for the far North to live in the 21st century like the rest of humanity? That part of Nigeria cannot continue to treat civilized protocols of safety in a pandemic with disgust and still want to share the Nigerian room with people who don’t want to die. The North needs be told clearly that suicide is not a native of southern Nigeria.
Recent spikes in coronavirus cases are traced to the almajirai moving across the country. The South is aghast; the North is unbothered. And we are in the same country.
The almajiri system is at the core of northern Nigeria’s politics of national domination. It is a key component of the North’s “infrastructure of violence.” Almajirai are the region’s well-nurtured, purpose-grown, ever ready troops, useful at all desperate times – elections, censuses, riots. Now, they are suddenly made a major vector of this bad season. That northern governors see the almajirai as a problem to be solved with COVID-19 is suspect. When you look into the angry eyes of those street boys, you see ghostly destinies frozen by accidents of their geography and birth. The almajirai we see regularly are predominantly male. Where are the girls? The ones not killed by random diseases have their destinies ruptured by the rape of child- marriage. Those who created them as problems are now pushing them South through unimaginable channels. They are daily hidden and daily discovered in unseemly, unlikely enclosures. Some under sacks of beans, some in millet and onion bags; some in suffocating containers and inside empty petrol tankers. They are dispersing them everywhere but nobody wants them anywhere near; no one, not even those who created and raised them to be street children forever. The most unwanted people in Nigeria of today are the almajirai — used, abused and now unleashed to spread viruses. And they are doing it very well; one of the COVID-19 patients who escaped quarantine in Oyo State last week was a 10-year old almajiri. He is still at large’.
Their consistent, distributive movement across South sign of hidden, dangerous agenda – Security experts
Meanwhile, some security experts who spoke exclusively with TNG said a study of the movements since the trend became noticeable showed that the immigrants were consistent and made deliberate journey to cover the all the southern states. They noted that beyond the popular fear of deliberate spread of the virus in the region by the intruders, a much more dangerous motive maybe unlocking sooner than expected if governors and other authoritative people do not act fast.
Bernad Dickson has been in the security business for decades. Speaking on the northern youths’ invasion into the South and the looming danger, he said: “You cannot take this for a coincidence. A careful examination of it all shows they have made a stop at virtually all the Southern states. That tells you that there is a deliberate attempt at causing coordinated chaos across the South at an agreed time. This is beyond the casual thought that they are coming to spread the virus. It is beyond that. People have recovered from the virus. But they may wreak a bigger havoc than the coronavirus or any other virus for that matter can. The governors or whoever is in charge of the arrests should stop the foolish trend of just turning the intruders back. They should be interrogated and made to give information that can help avert the looming crisis in their region.
One thing that we have come to establish as security experts is that terrorists are not afraid to die. They are ready to offer their lives in the course of carrying out whatever evil assignments they are commissioned to do. Yes, sniffing out information from them might be difficult because most times they have sworn allegiance to their benefactors but some will confess the sinister motives upon cajoling, torturing and ‘de-brainwashing’ albeit all done as professionally as possible.”
Ex-Niger Delta militant leader, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari has raised the alarm over the recent influx of Almajiris from the north to the south.
Dokubo in a 5-minute video said the southern leaders should be worried over the indiscriminate migration that has continued unabated in recent times. He said the movement is questionable and advised governors, ministers, lawmakers and other leaders in the region to plan a counter-strategy before it is too late.
North Has Already Destroyed Itself, It Remains South To Demolish – Dele Sobowale
Out-of-school children constitute security risk in Nigeria.” – Senator Lawan, Senate President, VANGUARD, March 11, p 44.
I did not know whether to laugh or cry about that news report. Lawan, Ph.D, well-educated in any country on earth, and a leader in the North for some time, is suddenly discovering, like other Northerners, what ordinary commonsense should have told all of them more than half a century ago. A society cannot go about multiplying the number of people with nothing to lose indefinitely without reaching a breaking point.
Readings in Sociology and Criminology have already established that those with nothing to lose, e.g almajiris, always account for most of the crimes in society and they never quit. Northern leaders had been contented to breed them, exploit them during elections and then discard them after the dubious votes were counted. We watched under-age children on television voting for President, Governors, Senators etc – people who did not give a damn about them before and after the elections. Nobody thought very much about the long term consequences or the possibility that a judgment day will come.
In a manner of speaking, the judgment day is here for the North. Unfortunately, it is wealth created in the South that will be used to pay for the rehabilitation of those kids fathered by lunatic parents — if the South is stupid enough to continue in this untenable federation. There must be an expiry date to this economic rape.
If Nigeria ranks as the poverty capital of the world today, the North makes it so. Draw a straight line across the North and South and computation of per capita income of the Southern States will never place them among the poorest in the world. More likely they will rank among the top half. Southerners are now treated with the contempt visited on poor people universally and at all times on account of our association with the North. It would have been bad enough if this is a temporary discomfort. One can counsel patience and prayer. But, the truth, which sends the chills down the spine, is more terrifying.
All the indices which generally account for positive and sustainable economic growth and social progress, and which can reverse the headlong dive into deeper poverty point to a bleak future for the North. The best estimate for Northern recovery is twenty or more years as a matter of fact. Given the precarious situation at the moment, that is also sufficient time to turn the region literally into a desert. The deeper it sinks the more of the wealth generated by the South will be siphoned to help save a place which is now almost beyond redemption.
“If gold rusts, what then will iron do?” Geoffrey Chaucer, 1342-1400. VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 78.
Federal and State Governments as well as traditional and religious leaders in the region had been slow, they are always very slow, to understand the inevitable impact of the globalisation of information and the consequences for social transformation. The recent muddle concerning the dethronement of the Emir of Kano is symptomatic of the barbarism, covered by immaculate babanrigas still lurking in the hearts and mind of the leaders in the new millennium. The main author of the Kano atrocity also holds a Ph.D – or so we were told.
The ex-Governor of Zamfara State virtually abandoned his state to bandits. He spent more time out than in Zamfara. Nobody called him to account. He returned to arm-wrestle the rubber stamp State House of Assembly to sign a bill granting him a stupendous pension package for a “job well done.” The money for that monkey business will come mostly from the South. Zamfara has nothing and can never pay the pension without oil and VAT money.
“You cannot stop terror with appeasement. You fight terror with terror.” Adolf Hitler, 1899-1945.
Hitler, one of the greatest terrorists of the last century had a word of advice for Nigerians – especially Southerners. This is very important because this is our destination with this article. Let us examine what appeasement had purchased.
Kaduna offers a perfect and last example, among several ways the North had annihilated itself and wasted money. Regarded as one of the most intelligent Northerners, very erudite El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State will qualify as somebody to be described as “intelligent but not wise.” When bandits commingled with Fulani herdsmen first invaded mostly Christian communities in Zonkwa and Kafanchan area of the state and the people abandoned to self-help managed to kill some of the invaders and destroyed their cattle, Rufai, by his own admission compensated the herdsmen but not the people in the Christian communities. I was in Zonkwa area after one of those attacks.
If you ask El-Rufai why, he would probably justify the one-sided payout by asserting that it was done with good intentions. He must have forgotten what he learnt in Barewa College, Zaria. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It was akin to feeding a dragon with goats in the vain hope that it would become as docile as your house pet. In reality, appetite grows with eating good food. The bandits received the hand-outs and learnt only one lesson. There is more where that came from. They went hunting on their own when the free issue from Rufai stopped. Kaduna is now a No-Go area for those who want to see tomorrow. Appeasement failed. Kaduna which should have been the flagship state for Northern recovery is now leading the region back into the Dark Age.
The reason for pessimism about any Northern recovery in the next twenty years is not hard to discover. There is no leader to bring it about. Cast a glance across the Northern landscape and tears of despair must come to your eyes. I don’t want to publish the names of individuals known to us only to demolish them. Better to make a blanket condemnation and challenge whoever thinks he has an answer to the region’s myriad challenges to step forward.
“Nothing in this world is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” Victor Hugo, 1802-1885, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ p 96.
The most important thing is for all Southerners to boldly confront the questions which lurks in all our hearts. One, should we continue in this broken “shot-gun marriage” which Lugard forced on us in 1914? If not what should we do as the South about it? Who will lead the effort to re-write our history? When do we start the irreversible movement leading to a new political and social contract? These are difficult issues to determine; but not impossible to achieve. We can all hang together or die separately. The Northern knives are already held at our necks. As you are reading this, there is no single Southern terrorists operating anywhere in the North. There are several groups of terrorist herdsmen occupying large areas of land in several Southern States — kidnapping, raping, robbing with impunity – with the nearest Army Garrison Commander, state’s Commissioner of Police and the Directorate of State Services, DSS, apparently unconcerned or helpless because one of the Life Patrons of the terrorists is in Abuja sending condolence messages to relatives of victims. Obviously, only a bloody fool Southerner or a slave to the Northern power bloc can deny that the Federal Government, FG, is either incapable or unwilling to help us. More likely, elements at the top level of the FG are not only impotent, or unwilling to stop the carnage in the South, they are accomplices. Some are collaborators because the flocks of cattle being used to seize our ancestral lands in the South belong to them. Shocking as most of us might find it, one of the Life Presidents of the mass murderers of our people is ex-Emir of Kano. I rose to Sanusi’s defence last week because of Christian charity (“Do good to those that persecute you”).
Three things the south must do to save itself from annihilation.
“Any man who wants to be a cowardly slave can have no honour.” Adolf Hitler, 1899-1945, VBQ p 95.
Southerners are allowing themselves to be treated as slaves by some of the Northerners. Only a slave can have his wife and daughter raped, his farm destroyed, his land occupied and his farm produce eaten and rendered unfit for human consumption without being able to lift a finger. Our British overlords, being more civilised than the barbarians who have invaded our region did nothing as horrible as these. Yet, our founding fathers confronted them asking: “Let my people go.” A new generation of Southern fathers must now summon the courage to tell our Northern brothers and sisters, who have become parasites in this Federation the same thing. “Let my people go.”
“The man who eats in idleness, what he does not produc,e is a thief.”
Jean Jacques Rousseau, VBQ p 97.
Engineer Galadima, former close associate of Buhari, last year disclosed that a lot of new palatial mansions have sprung up in Daura in the last five years by people with no visible means of income. Meanwhile millions of Southerners are working themselves to death and still cannot eat two meals a day. Southerners account for almost seventy per cent of the revenue derived from Value Added Tax, VAT, on alcohol. Several Northern states discourage alcohol consumption and even destroy them eg Kano’s Hisbah. Yet, the hypocritical North collects the lion’s share of all VAT – including those on alcohol which they claim to abhor. We drink; they collect the proceeds of VAT and share them.
There is no need to list seriatim all the ways by which Southerners have made themselves indentured slaves to Northerners. We were in many respects our own worst enemies. As Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of late US President, once said, “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” We partly allowed inferiority complex to creep into our relationships. Already, we notice how those infected with “2023 Virus” worship their god in Abuja. Those who, for years, espoused True Federalism are now asking us to define it. Those who wrote restructuring into their manifesto in 2013 are now suffering from amnesia. They cannot remember discussing it. We the people of the South are now on our own. In our march to freedom, we must leave the North with its mental slaves – those who are scheming to be President in 2023 in a Nigeria just as it is at the moment. We know some of them. They remind me of a small boy, years ago in the U.S., who after being rescued from fire ran back inside the inferno. He wanted his favourite toy. There are political leaders who will be nothing without politics in Nigeria as it is. We must discard them and march to our destiny as free people.
That still leaves the question: what is to be done? The answer remains the same for all time.
“Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not who would be free must strike the first blow?” Lord Byron, 1788-1824, VBQ p 67.
Most of the South missed the first boat. We did not act fast enough. We failed to notice when Fulani herdsmen moved to the Next Level. They have had three things since 2015 – a strategy to invade the South, lots of weapons to actualise the plan and a commander in chief all their own. For its survival the South needs its own response. Amotekun is only a rehearsal of the real response we must urgently develop
Katsina State Ministry of Health, says it has recorded a first suspected case of coronavirus ( COVID 19 ) in the state.
Speaking with journalists, the permanent secretary of the ministry, Kabir Mustapha, said the patient who is presently on self-isolation returned from Malaysia and developed symptoms that warrant further investigations.
Already, the blood samples have been taken and result is being expected by tomorrow. “He said that the people that the patient had contact will be traced as soon as results are out” He said the ministry is taking all precautionary measures and closely working with National centre for Disease control (NCDC) on the matter.
According to him, the patient’s history of travel was a high index and the symptoms reported at the clinic prompted actions noting that since his arrival into the state.
The patient was taking personal protection of using face mark and self-isolation”
He advised people of the host community of Dutsinma town where the suspected patient come from to be cautious of movements and gatherings. He said that people should feel free to seek medical attention as all precautionary measures are on place to provide support.
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