Wednesday, 27 June 2012

The CIA In Nigeria:Coups Past, Present, And Future



The car in which the late Murtala Muhammed, former military head of state, was assassinated 35 years ago has continued to attract an average of 2,000 tourists monthly, from within and outside Nigeria.

When Muritala Mohammed was killed on 13 February 1976, suspicions were widespread that the CIA had a hand in assassination. This much is reflected in a secret report prepared by the U.S. Information Agency, the propaganda office that oversees VOA broadcasts and U.S. Information Service (USIS) installations around the world. The USIS 1976 Country Plan for Nigeria, declassified only five years ago, acknowledged that the political climate in Nigeria following Mohammed's assassination had been one of "uncertainty, distrust and suspicion." It further advised, "Charges of U.S. (CIA) backing for the attempted coup were prevalent [and] the Chancery and all USIS posts were physically attacked."

The USIS document leaves no doubt about American intentions toward Africa's most populous nation. Indeed, the same confidential report called Nigeria "the primary external source of crude oil for the United States," and repeatedly stressed the need for increased American influence.

Many of the State Department's Nigeria cables for the months prior to the assassination of Brig. Muritala Mohammed are still classified. Others, which have been released to investigators in recent years, are inconclusive. But the record nonetheless illustrates the paranoia that existed in the United States at the time about access to oil and about Nigeria's growing capability to influence the rest of the continent.

A 26 September 1975 communique complains, for instance, that Nigeria had supplied several thousands of dollars to leaders of the then-banned African National Congress in Lusaka. Another, written in January of 1976 and classified as "confidential," cited rhetoric heard with increasing frequency from Nigerian leaders about the "uncompromising supremacy of Nigeria's national interest," as well as opposition to what Mohammed himself had reportedly described as "blackmail and vicious propaganda" from the west.

Perhaps worst of all was the unpardonable sin committed by Mohammed when he declined an official visit by U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger which was proposed for May of 1976.

U.S.intelligence-gathering operations likewise escalated at an alarming pace during Mohammed's rule. In a 20 January 1976 cable from Lagos to Washington, for example, U.S. Ambassador Donald Easum warned:

"If Nigeria wants to use oil as a political weapon to promote its foreign policy, this would not necessarily involve further nationalisation. But could mean FMG is considering ways it might assert greater control over which consuming countries get Nigerian oil, depending on positions those countries take on foreign policies issues of interest to Nigeria. We understand several other possibly important papers/addresses delivered at senior officers meeting, reportedly including Un/Ife scholar's advocacy of Nigeria's using oil weapon. We and consul Ibadan will attempt obtain relevant papers and will report further if warranted."

And yet another secret dispatch, written less than two weeks before Mohammed was killed, hints that U.S. officials were prepared to sabotage Nigeria's booming economy. Nigeria, wrote Ambassador Easum on 2 February 1976, "desires to play leadership role, [and will] require modern army if its power (within African context) is to be credible. Further, it likely that given foreseeable internal political realities, Nigeria will maintain relatively large army for some time to come."

The same telegram listed a series of modern weapons likely to be acquired by the Nigerian government, and asserted the belief that a "civilian government might exercise a more restraint." But it ended on an even more bitter note:

"One development would act as a constraint on Nigerian arms purchases: a sharp drop in the price of petroleum. Defence budget would presumably have to be cut proportionately with fall in revenue if government were to meet minimum developmental and social demands on its resources. Easum."
Apartheid South Africa had maintained to the Europeans and the Americans that a self-sufficient Africa would trigger trade competition and incent investments in Africa, with below market labour cost that would threaten the Apartheid government's ability to exist.

Therefore, Pan-Africanists had to be defeated. Three leaders were targeted -Murtala Muhammed, Joe Savimbi and Muhammar Ghadaffi.


Obasanjo's Curious Alliances


To track the careers of the high-ranking U.S. policy makers of the 1970s into the present time is to follow a sequence of bizarre coincidences -- or perhaps something far more sinister. It is here that Obasanjo's ties to the "inner circle" in Washington and New York become apparent.

At the time of Mohammed's assassination, the United States Ambassador to Nigeria was Donald Easum, who enjoyed a cordial relationship with Henry Kissinger, then U.S. Secretary of State.

After leaving his overseas post up through the early 1990s, Easum headed an outfit called the African-American Institute, which is headquartered across the street from United Nations in New York. The African-American Institute is an establishment created in 1954 with CIA money to promote an "exchange" of ideas between the United States and the people of Africa. It is essentially the "liberal" face of CIA-inspired meddling in Africa's internal political institutions.

Although Easum was the chief of AAI, Obasanjo could easily be called its most visible African. Obasanjo is an AAI trustee, and heads its prominent African Leadership Forum. He was specially honored at the AAI Sixth Annual Awards Dinner in November, 1989. Among those serving on the advisory board of Obasanjo's Forum is the Vietnam war era Defence Secretary and one-time World Bank president, Robert McNamara.

In June of 1990, McNamara was charged with planning a four-day World Bank conference in Lagos, at which population control was the only agenda. The birth reduction programme, as the Kissinger-era National Security Council paper shows, was aimed at crushing Nigeria not only militarily but also economically. Larger populations produce more wealth, and more wealth in the hands of Nigerians would mean less dependence on western "development" institutions and heightened regional influence. So obvious was the ploy that the Bank itself dared not make such a pronouncement. Instead, it sent for Obasanjo.

During its planning and implementation, the Lagos conference was a well-kept secret, and World Bank press officers referred inquiries to Obasanjo's office in New York. After the meeting, however, Obasanjo publicly called upon Nigerian leaders to implement mandatory birth curbs barring families from having more than three children.

And while Obasanjo was in Lagos demanding that compulsory birth control be foisted on unsuspecting Nigerians, Easum's African American Institute was busy building a shadowy political network to make it a reality. Under a tightly-worded contract between AAI and the Agency for International Development, the Institute agreed to be instrumental in producing "a policy climate conducive to the successful execution of a national family planning effort [in Nigeria] and to strengthen federal, state, and local government capability in strategic planning in order to efficiently mobilise and execute an effective and self-sustaining national family planning programme."

Another outfit with extensive ties to Washington's "secret establishment" is the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a right-wing geopolitical "think-tank" whose most conspicuous team member is Henry Kissinger.

Obasanjo's footprints can be found all over CSIS. On 15 December 1987, the former Nigerian leader delivered the CSIS David M. Abshire lecture -- an annual event of no small importance which takes its name from the Center's ambitious founder and head. Abshire was the first director of the Board for International Broadcasting and is a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

The Intelligence Advisory Board, established by presidential decree in October of 1985, is a select group of individuals chosen by the president and authorised to "continually review the performance of all agencies of the Federal government that are engaged in the collection, evaluation, or production of intelligence or the execution of intelligence policy." It makes recommendations directly to the president and, when approved by the president, "to the Director of Central Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other government agencies engaged in intelligence and related activities."

Indeed, Abshire's CSIS publishes and sells materials written by Obasanjo, including a small paperback book titled, "Forging a Compact in U.S.-Africa Relations," which is based on Obasanjo's 1987 lecture.

And roughly four years ago, Obasanjo was the featured speaker at a Washington conference on "Sudan and Nigeria: Reli- gion, Nationalism and Intolerance," which was sponsored by the government-controlled (and deceptively-named) U.S. Institute for Peace. There he presented a rambling talk that called for a "mental decarbonisation of the generality of the people in both countries [Sudan and Nigeria]" -- something his militaristic audience may well have interpreted as a veiled reference to wholesale brainwashing.

A Matter of Timing

The sequence of events that occurred in February of 1976 seems even more bizarre if one looks at what happened at the very top level of government -- the White House.

In the fall of 1975, Ford selected a new Director of Central Intelligence, who was sworn in to office on January 30, 1976 -- exactly two weeks before the coup that brought Obasanjo to power -- over the objections of many of the same legislators who had labored to uncover abuses by the secret agency. The new CIA chief had a reputation as being the nation's most enthusiastic supporter of foreign population control measures in the 1960s and early 1970s, both as a member of the House of Representatives and as Nixon's envoy to the UN, and he later engineered the oil-motivated massacre of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. His name: George Bush.

It was not until 18 February 1976 -- five days after Mohammed was killed and more than two weeks after Bush took charge of the CIA -- that President Ford signed the long-awaited Executive Order 11905 on the subject of "United States Foreign Intelligence Activi- ties." The directive stated: "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." By then, of course, Obasanjo had been safely installed as Brig. Mohammed's replacement.

To track the careers of the high-ranking U.S. policy makers of the 1970s into the present time is to follow a sequence of bizarre coincidences -- or perhaps something far more sinister. It is here that Obasanjo's ties to the "inner circle" in Washington and New York become apparent.

At the time of Mohammed's assassination, the United States Ambassador to Nigeria was Donald Easum, who enjoyed a cordial relationship with Henry Kissinger, then U.S. Secretary of State.

After leaving his overseas post up through the early 1990s, Easum headed an outfit called the African-American Institute, which is headquartered across the street from United Nations in New York. The African-American Institute is an establishment created in 1954 with CIA money to promote an "exchange" of ideas between the United States and the people of Africa. It is essentially the "liberal" face of CIA-inspired meddling in Africa's internal political institutions.

Although Easum was the chief of AAI, Obasanjo could easily be called its most visible African. Obasanjo is an AAI trustee, and heads its prominent African Leadership Forum. He was specially honored at the AAI Sixth Annual Awards Dinner in November, 1989. Among those serving on the advisory board of Obasanjo's Forum is the Vietnam war era Defence Secretary and one-time World Bank president, Robert McNamara.

In June of 1990, McNamara was charged with planning a four-day World Bank conference in Lagos, at which population control was the only agenda. The birth reduction programme, as the Kissinger-era National Security Council paper shows, was aimed at crushing Nigeria not only militarily but also economically. Larger populations produce more wealth, and more wealth in the hands of Nigerians would mean less dependence on western "development" institutions and heightened regional influence. So obvious was the ploy that the Bank itself dared not make such a pronouncement. Instead, it sent for Obasanjo.

During its planning and implementation, the Lagos conference was a well-kept secret, and World Bank press officers referred inquiries to Obasanjo's office in New York. After the meeting, however, Obasanjo publicly called upon Nigerian leaders to implement mandatory birth curbs barring families from having more than three children.

And while Obasanjo was in Lagos demanding that compulsory birth control be foisted on unsuspecting Nigerians, Easum's African American Institute was busy building a shadowy political network to make it a reality. Under a tightly-worded contract between AAI and the Agency for International Development, the Institute agreed to be instrumental in producing "a policy climate conducive to the successful execution of a national family planning effort [in Nigeria] and to strengthen federal, state, and local government capability in strategic planning in order to efficiently mobilise and execute an effective and self-sustaining national family planning programme."

Another outfit with extensive ties to Washington's "secret establishment" is the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a right-wing geopolitical "think-tank" whose most conspicuous team member is Henry Kissinger.

Obasanjo's footprints can be found all over CSIS. On 15 December 1987, the former Nigerian leader delivered the CSIS David M. Abshire lecture -- an annual event of no small importance which takes its name from the Center's ambitious founder and head. Abshire was the first director of the Board for International Broadcasting and is a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

The Intelligence Advisory Board, established by presidential decree in October of 1985, is a select group of individuals chosen by the president and authorised to "continually review the performance of all agencies of the Federal government that are engaged in the collection, evaluation, or production of intelligence or the execution of intelligence policy." It makes recommendations directly to the president and, when approved by the president, "to the Director of Central Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other government agencies engaged in intelligence and related activities."

Indeed, Abshire's CSIS publishes and sells materials written by Obasanjo, including a small paperback book titled, "Forging a Compact in U.S.-Africa Relations," which is based on Obasanjo's 1987 lecture.

And roughly four years ago, Obasanjo was the featured speaker at a Washington conference on "Sudan and Nigeria: Reli- gion, Nationalism and Intolerance," which was sponsored by the government-controlled (and deceptively-named) U.S. Institute for Peace. There he presented a rambling talk that called for a "mental decarbonisation of the generality of the people in both countries [Sudan and Nigeria]" -- something his militaristic audience may well have interpreted as a veiled reference to wholesale brainwashing.
The Assassination Inquiry
Even as the U.S. government was preparing for the possibility of full-fledged petroleum sanctions that could impinge on the nation's "vital interests" and planning its long-range population reduction scheme, yet another development destined to shake the Washington hierarchy was taking shape.

Congress, in response to growing distrust of government among the American public, began holding hearings into abuses by the CIA. Of particular interest was the matter of political assassinations and plots to overthrow foreign heads of state. And there was abundant evidence of CIA involvement in such actions in Africa.

The Agency's role in the 1961 murder of Patrice Lumumba, for instance, was first revealed publicly by the former chief of the CIA's Angola division, John Stockwell, in a landmark book titled In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story. In that 1978 expose, Stockwell asserts that the Congolese leader had been eliminated to preserve "a half-billion- dollar investment in Zairian mineral resources," which the west felt would end up in the wrong hands if Lumumba controlled the vast central African nation.

In his book, Stockwell also recalls a conversation with a fellow U.S. operative who told of "driving about town after curfew with Patrice Lumumba's body in the trunk of his car, trying to decide what to do with it." According to Stockwell (and confirmed in testimony given before Congress), Richard Helms, CIA director from 1966 to 1973, had ordered the destruction of numerous records re- lating to the assassination of Lumumba.

Stockwell also reveals in the same book that, "the CIA station in Ghana played a major role in the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah in 1966."

Formerly secret State Department records have also revealed that the United States worked closely with British colonial rulers in the early 1950s as part of a plot aimed at "breaking the back" of the Mau Mau movement and, in particular, at getting independence leader Jomo Kenyatta "out of circulation without due process of law," in the words of a top secret October 1952 cable from Nairobi to Washington. More recently, published reports have suggested that an American diplomat, working as a CIA contact, engineered the capture by South African police of Nelson Mandela in August of 1962.

One outcome of the hearings -- held in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate __ was that, by January 1975, strong pressures were brought to bear upon the White House to issue an Executive Order barring foreign assassinations. And that very month, then-President Gerald Ford, Nixon's successor in office, openly acknowledged that disclosure of the CIA's involvement in assassination conspiracies "would blacken the reputation of every President after Harry Truman." But oddly, the year passed without any such presidential directive.

At the time of the infamous 1976 coup that put Olusegun Obasanjo in power, there was little in the way of concrete evidence linking him to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. But over the years that followed, Obasanjo became a highly visible part of a complex network developed by the United States government to wage political and economic warfare against Nigeria.

A series of formerly-secret cables between Lagos and Washington, along with other documents from government and private sources, reveal ties between Obasanjo and at least two groups working closely with the CIA -- and also make it appear likely that the recent plot to overthrow the Nigerian military government originated.

THE U.S. CONGRESS INVESTIGATES THE MURDER OF FOREIGN LEADERS BY THE C.I.A. AND CALLS FOR A PRESIDENTIAL DECREE TO END THE PRACTICE. MEANWHILE, THE ECONOMY GOES INTO A TAILSPIN BECAUSE OF RISING OIL PRICES AND A NEAR-COMPLETE OIL EMBARGO AGAINST THE WEST. JUST WHEN PUBLIC PRESSURE MOUNTS FOR A REFORM OF THE GOVERNMENT'S SECRET OPERATIONS OVERSEAS, THE GOVERNMENT OF THE SINGLE-MOST IMPORTANT OIL SUPPLYING NATION FALLS INTO NATIONALIST HANDS. THE PRESIDENTIAL ORDER IS PREPARED AND SIGNED -- BUT NOT UNTIL FIVE DAYS AFTER A COUP PUTS NIGERIA FIRMLY UNDER 'FRIENDLY' RULE. WAS IT COINCIDENCE OR CONSPIRACY? SUSPICIONS STILL LINGER.

The ‘real members’ of Boko Haram.

OVER the months, while eminent citizens the world over have lamented and condemned the series of senseless killings, maiming, displacement of Nigerian citizens and the destruction of their property, occasioned by attacks by members of the Boko Haram sect, Northern leaders of thought kept mute.
But suddenly, they are talking.  They are saying all kinds of things.  This makes one to begin to wonder why the sudden burst of emotions.
It seems that the recent call by President Goodluck Jonathan on members of the Boko Haram sect to identify themselves, state the reasons behind  their confrontational stance so the Federal Government could enter into dialogue with them, has somehow emboldened our Northern elites who until now were afraid to hear their own voices.
I recall that immediately after this call by Mr. President, they broke their long silence even before the so-called members of Boko Haram could say anything.  Some of them have traced the causes of the insurgency and in the process have also justified its emergence.  Some have even raised their voices in condemnation of the military action taken against the sect while endorsing the dialogue option proposed by the President.
The root causes according to these leaders are injustice, lack of fairness in the polity and imbalance in resource allocation.  It looks like these ‘talking’ elites are doing a better job than the sect’s spokespersons that we know.  As an illustration, let us take a look at an article by Is’haq Modibbo Kawu, a social commentator and a Northern apologist in the Vanguard of Thursday, February 2, titled “Boko Haram and President Jonathan’s olive branch of dialogue”.
He wrote: “In Northern Nigeria, grievance and organisation of resistance to the state could only have been framed within the context of Islam given the history of the region.  Here we have Borno’s over 1000 year history as a Muslim state and the radical tradition which came out of the Jihad of Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio.  To compound the situation, the Northeast part of Nigeria also suffers the worst indices of under-development in our country.  This was the combustible mix that conditioned the rise of the Boko Haram insurgency”.
Kawu’s declaration quoted above is quite instructive.  None of the named spokesmen of the sect has ever said this much.  Again, what does his statement imply?  Have we not heard it being said over and over that Boko Haram is not an Islamic sect and that it should not on any account be linked to Islam?
Another eminent personality in the person of the Central Bank governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi also recently broke his silence on the sect’s insurgency.   In an interview he granted the Financial Times of London he said that there is clearly a direct link between the uneven nature of distribution of resources and the rising level of violence in the country.  He said: “When you look at the figures and look at the size of the population in the North, you can see that there is a structural imbalance of enormous proportions.  Those states simply do not have enough money to meet basic needs while some states have too much money. The imbalance is so stark because the state still depends on oil for than 80 per cent of its revenue.”
A respected Northern leader, Mallam Adamu Ciroma on his part, in an interview published in Thisday Newspaper of Saturday, January 28, 2012 , had this to say: “I was one of the four people who founded PDP, and when I was talking about PDP policy of zoning, of changing the leadership from North to South, I knew what I was talking about…I didn’t hide it, I told them in caucus, and I warned them that if they depart from that, it is going to have very serious consequences for the party.  And it has happened, and they know this.  That is why after the elections I have kept quiet because everything which is happening I have already indicated and warned against them”.
 
The Northern socio-political group, the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, is also insisting that it is only dialogue or nothing that will persuade the dreaded sect (Boko Haram) to end its confrontation against government and unprovoked violence against the Nigerian people.
In a press statement issued recently by the group, it maintained that no amount of force can stop Boko Haram. The group also went ahead to intimate us of what inspires the sect’s members to engage in their destructive activities, saying that the highest commitment which drives these young people is no mundane things but rewards in heaven.  Again, what we got from this ACF statement is something that the “original” spokespersons of the sect have never told us.  Does this tell us anything?
Can someone please remind me, because I cannot recollect, if any of the Qaqas (Boko Haram spokesmen) had ever spoken about injustice, marginalisation, resource allocation or party zoning policies. I thought they were mainly concerned about the evil of Western education, Islamising Nigeria and promoting Islamic ideologies in the country.  The Boko Haram members (the Mohammed Shekaus) do not seem to care so much about dialogue the way these elites are.
All “the sect’s members” have said since the President’s call (besides disowning the tape purportedly nominating some leaders to dialogue with FG on their behalf), is that Mr. President should first convert to Islam before they could talk with him.
By now you would have noticed as I have, that our Northern politicians and leaders are the only ones waving the flag of dialogue as the only panacea to peace in the region.  In this call for dialogue, they know as well as you and I that the government cannot dialogue with illusive members of the sect or a faceless group.
So, who is the government to dialogue with?  Please note also that in all their statements, they have not given government any conditions.  In my mind, they have only met the President’s conditions for dialogue.  How? You ask.  By speaking out the way they do, they have identified themselves.
 
Ms. EDO EDAFE , a social critic,wrote from Lagos.

Northern Nigeria: ‘A People In Terminal Decline’ by Zainab Usman




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Zainab Usman is a young Political economist, Political scientist and Current Affairs enthusiast
Zainab Usman - For a while now, I’ve had reason to believe that the people of Northern Nigeria, especially the (in)famous “dominant” group, the Hausa-Fulanis seem to be in terminal decline. Could this conviction have stemmed out of the aftermath of the 2011 Nigerian general elections and the rampage of the Northern youths against the so-called Northern leaders or the recent spate of Boko Haram attacks in the northern cities of Kano and Kaduna? Perhaps it is the intensification of the unfair media bias and the recent vitriolic, virulent and hateful diatribes against the mostly Muslim Hausa-Fulani Northerners in the mainstream and social media or the serial decline and retardation of the economy in the north and/or the region’s growing political irrelevance in the scheme of things in Nigeria. This conviction is coupled with a growing realization that little or nothing is being done by us, the victims, of our mostly self inflicted problems to salvage our future which is in dire jeopardy.
The most obvious problem is the serious leadership deficit in the North which became magnified before and after the 2011 general elections. There is almost a general consensus that Northerners who were at the helms of affairs in the country for several decades did little to better the life of ordinary people in the region in terms of provision of healthcare, education and other infrastructure, direction of useful investments and creation of economic opportunities for the population. The leaders are seen to have enriched themselves and their cronies while using an adept mixture of religion and ethnicity to keep people subjugated in the shackles of illiteracy, ignorance, poverty, and misery. Few leaders have utilized accumulated wealth towards establishing profitable enterprises that employ people, philanthropic organizations that empower others or other productive ends. Rather accumulated wealth is squandered in consumerist behaviour, in opulence in the midst of absolute and abject poverty. Interesting exposés on the leadership deficit have been written by analysts such as Dr. Hakeem Baba Ahmed and the columnist Adamu Adamu amongst several others.
While the deficit of transformational leadership is not exclusively a Northern phenomenon, it is more magnified in the North. It is these leaders who are perceived by many to have “sold out” the north during the 2011 elections hence the rampage of the youths against various emirs, a former speaker of the House of Representatives amongst others. Consequently traditional, religious and political leaders who used to command tremendous respect from people have lost their credibility, and to an extent legitimacy to speak on behalf of the people. Certain enigmatic “geniuses” have been de-robed of their toga of mystique. The people in turn are plagued by frustration, helplessness and hopelessness in the wake of un-inspiring leadership. The newbreeds like Nuhu Ribadu and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who are viewed with suspicion or seem more interested in embroiling themselves in political controversy provide virtually little solace.
alt
Groundnut pyramids of North Nigeria
Closely following the heels of the leadership deficit is the economic decline and retardation of the region. This economic decline has been accelerated by the Boko Haram insurgency, thanks to which the holy grail of foreign investments will now become ever so elusive. Once the basket of the nation on account of its agricultural productivity – the legendary, towering groundnut pyramids of Kano come to mind – and its budding industrial activity, the north is now plagued by rapid de-industrialization.
Buildings housing hitherto bustling factories lay derelict and abandoned in ominous gloom in Kano, Kaduna and Zaria. Poor incentives to farmers, lack of storage facilities and access to credit has led to a decline in agricultural productivity as state governments are embroiled in one fertilizer corruption scandal or the other. With the exception of Kano and to a lesser extent Kaduna, few businesses, and enterprises especially SMEs are owned and managed by Northerners. In many state capitals, the bulk of the labour force engaged in the formal sector are civil servants. The neglect of agriculture, manufacturing and other economic activity for easy oil money coming from the federal government by the state governments has aggravated this situation as the allocation is hardly directed towards reviving infrastructure, capital projects, empowering the populace or investment in non-oil sectors of the economy. The CBN governor recently stated that many states, especially in the North are economically unviable without such allocations. Instead, monthly allocations which run into billions of naira each month are expended towards recurrent expenditure and unproductive ventures such as subsidies on annual Hajj and Umrah pilgrimage trips mainly to reward cronyism. This dependence on oil revenues which has done little to benefit the ordinary Northerner has created an impression of the North as an unproductive region, a “liability” which contributes virtually nothing to the nation’s kitty but consumes so much because of its population and its size. Though a cursory look at history deflates this impression since the proceeds from agricultural produce of the North virtually sustained the nation before the discovery of oil.
A socio-cultural aspect of our numerous problems and which lies at the heart of it is our mind set as a people, especially amongst the Hausa-Fulanis . We have developed a mind-set that paradoxically makes us feel culturally superior when infact we are progressively retrogressing in many aspects. We look down on fellow Northerners of a different religion and ethnicity, we feel our own brand of Islam is better than the Islam practiced by a Yoruba man, an Igala or a Tiv such that you’d forgive anyone for thinking the Holy Qur’an was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in Hausa language somewhere in Kano. We feel many career choices especially those which involve working our way to the top are demeaning; our educated youths have been brought up with the mind set to only aim for the ultimate “secure government job” or bust, and as a result many an enterprising and creative youth’s dreams have died at stillbirth by the patriarch’s final fiat.
Related: NewsRescue- Democracy Fails Africa
This paradoxical superiority complex has pitched us against other “minority” groups in the north who used to be our brothers but now regard us with contempt and derision and has been played upon by mischievous people to ferment ethno-religious tensions. Many are quick to blame Islam or the mixture of religion and politics, but a comparison of predominantly Muslim societies who are doing relatively well-off such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Malaysia and Indonesia for instance shows Islam is not the problem, rather a crude cocktail of ignorance, and the perversion of religious teachings and cultural prescriptions. While in Iran, women outnumber men in Universities as many are highly educated and articulate, female literacy in Northern Nigeria by contrast remains abysmally low, one of the lowest in the world and ditto women empowerment though attitudes are positively changing at snail pace. The problem appears as a friend once stated that we haven’t found the right interface between culture and religion in the North.
Lastly is the all-out media war and propaganda against the North. From the mainstream media to social networks, online forums to blogs, it is hunting season for anything Northern (in this context, synonymous with the Northerner of Hausa-Fulani extraction but also any of the predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the north: Kanuri, Nupe etc). At most you need an advertorial on the pages of the numerous dailies, at the very least, you need an internet connected mobile phone and you are set to begin unleashing your full arsenal against “Northerners”. The activities of Boko Haram which have claimed more Muslim lives, wreaked more havoc to Northern cities than anywhere else are attributed to desperate Northern politicians who lost out in the political chess game, a view peddled around even by erstwhile respected intellectuals; sectarian crises and conflict which abound in every part of the country, but more frequently in the North are mostly attributed to the Hausa-Fulani Muslims who are seen to be the culprits even in situations where they are victims; even the lacklustre performance of the Jonathan administration is attributed to the “evil Northerners”. The problems highlighted above: leadership, economic decline and socio-cultural challenges have rendered us a voiceless people in this media war and propaganda, we are unable to tell our stories strongly from our own perspective while others do it for us, and they paint their version of the truth in whatever colour hue they deem fit.
Alleged Boko Haram terrorists, 2009
We are a people bedevilled by so many challenges which of course, this writer has barely scratched the surface of. The leadership deficit has aggravated our economic decline and retardation, and threatens not only our social cohesion but our very identity as a people. In times like these, a strong and transformational leadership is what is required to mobilize our abundant human and natural resources for us to realize our full potentials, but this deficit forms the bane of our problems. Paradoxically, while we acknowledge the failure of leadership, and the incapacity or inability of the present crop of leaders to do much to salvage our pathetic situation, we are still waiting on them. Obviously our leaders cannot do much because they are constrained, because they are not interested or because it is a Frankestein’s monster has turned on Dr. Frankestein situation. While we “wait”, Boko Haram seems to be the only force filling this leadership vacuum in a very destructive and warped sense by co-opting the vast number of idle, unemployed and frustrated youths as willing recruits to its campaign of death and terror. Gradually, Boko Haram could become the only thing that defines us as a people, if this leadership vacuum persists and by then we WOULD BE DOOMED!
Abubakar Shekau on Youtube
To further buttress my point, when I googled “Northern Nigeria” and “Arewa Nigeria”, at least 50% of the images that came up in the search results were of Boko Haram, scenes of its attacks or images of its victims. That speaks volumes.
Whatever the case, it is our generation which will suffer most because the present crop of leaders have little to lose; we will live with the consequences of their actions while our children’s future becomes increasingly uncertain. Perhaps the tone here is a tad too pessimistic when this writer concludes that the numerous problems we face in the North crowned no less by Boko Haram’s deadly insurgency gives a gloomy premonition of a bleak future . We are in a terminal decline, the question is are we doing enough to address this? What can we or should we do to reverse this certain reality?

Read more: http://www.newsrescue.com/2012/02/northern-nigeria-a-people-in-terminal-decline-by-zainab-usman/#ixzz1z2XoZWzZ

19 Northern Governors: The Certified Parasites!- Salihu Tank Yakasai





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February 26th, 2012
NewsRescue- Northern Nigerians, visibly perturbed with the state of events up North, including its recent global branding as a terrorist epicenter, with Boko Haram terror group committing uncontrollable attacks and bombings of Church and Mosque alike, have began to vent their frustration at the state of the North in passionate write-ups. Last week, a famous writer, Ms Zainab Usman in her well composed article, assessed the North as a region in terminal decline. Describing the North, she said: ‘the most obvious problem is the serious leadership deficit in the North’. On Saturday, New York Times released a piece in which it attributed Boko Haram’s survival to some ‘support’ they got, due to the poverty level and inequality up North, which enabled Boko assume a role as an enemies enemy to some.
Below is a piece from Salihu Tank Yakasai, doing further justice to the sentiments held and throwing square blame on Northern leaders for the ‘failure’ of the Northern region:

19 Northern Governors: The Real Certified Parasites

Salihu Tank Yakasai
By simple definition, a parasite means; an organism that benefits at the expense of another, the host! Taken into account this simple definition, I wonder how an average northerner can be termed one by my southern counterparts, especially from the Oil Producing region in Nigeria, My Country!
Let me give u a simple example with my household! I work with a radio station in Kano as a Presentation Assistant, and on the days I have morning shifts, I wake up as early as 4am and by 5am am in the office! While the days that I have night shift, sometimes I don’t come back home till 1am! My wife works as a teacher, (mind you, she’s also a wife and a mother of 2 and each of these is a full-time job on its own) then let’s move on to my 1st son, 5yrs old! He goes to school at 7am to 3pm and very soon he’ll start Islamic School from 4pm to 6pm Monday to Friday! I am not a civil servant, and neither is my wife! My kids were born in private hospital and still go to one and my son is in private school! Because going to a government owned is tantamount to suicide!
Majority of our average northern families are hard working people trying to make ends meet on a daily basis! This is the case for majority of us in the north, whether middle class or poor and some of the rich ones not in government! As such, we do not come in contact with the allocation money from the federation account!
The real parasites are our northern Governors! They are demons, blood sucking vampires, they are mosquitoes that feed on us! They receive billions of Naira as grant from the federal Government! Majority of the people do not even know how much exactly they receive, only what they tell them! Most of these states are still backwards in terms of infrastructure, and apart from salaries, (which some go months without paying) there’s nothing to write home about! They mismanaged these resources, inflate contracts to exorbitant figures, some without even doing the job still, then end up at the Senate for Immunity against prosecution when they leave office! They’ve perfected their looting and pen-robbery! En massing so much wealth which can be equal to the budget of a poorer African country! Yet, the word parasite has become synonymous with northerners in this country!
New York Times on Boko
At the beginning of this democratic dispensation in 1999, when The Northern Governors Forum was formed, one will assume that the 1st thing they’ll do, is to collectively declare a state of emergency on education, especially in the core north where our level of education is one of the poorest not only in the country, but all over the world! Or on farming which used to be the major source of revenue generation in Nigeria, before “their oil” was discovered! or massive unemployment as a result of factories that are closing everyday in the region, and so many other life-saving issues that can change the lives of ordinary northerners! Even if they felt that, somehow these are not important issues that demand their outright response, one will assume the current insecurity in the region will make them sit up, come together and strategize on how to arrest this endless attacks by Boko Haram, may be have a meeting with all the heads of security outfits in the country or something like that! But for where, its not even on their plate! Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what’s in their head, cos its surely not brains! At a point I thought may be saw dust, but then again even that is more useful than their brains and I came to the conclusion that, their heads are just EMPTY!!!
Economically, the story isn’t any better! Before independence agriculture was the most important sector of the economy and accounted for more than 50% of the nations GDP and more than 75% of export earnings. That was then, now we can’t even feed the region, let alone the nation and talkless of exporting! There is about 3.14 million hectres of land that can be used for irrigation which only 7percent is currently being utilized. Kano State alone, has about 13 Dams, most of them were constructed specifically for irrigation purposes that are just sitting idle and wasted! Even the amount of fishing that can be done with these dams is enough to make a huge difference! Don’t even get me started on factories and manufacturing industries that have virtually become extinct! Yet with all these potentials, the north shamefully boast of highest rate of poverty, unemployment and so on and so forth!
To sum it up, the ordinary northerner is blessed and cursed at the same time! While we have all it takes to not only stand on our own, but we have the potential to significantly contribute to the nation, and generate enough revenue that will turn us into the Dubai of Africa if you like! God has blessed us with population, which results into not only enough manpower, but a huge market as well! You can take China, India or Brazil as a case study on how numbers are blessings! On the other hand, we are cursed with these clueless rotten leaders, From the Governors, down to counsillors! Every time, the former are better than the current ones, it just keeps getting worst, and worst, and worst!
This is a dilemma we, ordinary northerners have to deal with, our southern brothers and sisters hit us on the head consistently, attacking us verbally on the evil perpetrated by our leaders in the North, and at the same time we (just like them in the south) are also victims of bad leaders that have continued to subject us to all sorts of hardship! But I am more than certain that this will NOT go on for life! Where there is injustice, there will not be peace! The people are awakening, for the 1st time in the history of Kano, on 3rd of January, we came out to protest PEACEFULLY, which motivated the whole nation to come out and occupy! If am a political office holder anywhere in this country, I will be sleeping with one eye open! Gone are the days when the people will remain silent! We say to our leaders, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! You either change your styles, or face the music and DANCE! We in the North, have taken enough insults on their behalf! Its about time we turn the heat on THE CERTIFIED PARASITES!!!

Chimamanda Adichie: Nigeria’s Problem is Crises of Governance, not Sectarianism





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Chimamanda Adichie {Photograph: Ishara S Kodikara/AFP/Getty}
January, 2012
Celebrated Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has called on religious leaders to quell rising sectarian tensions in the country as it wrestles with a national strike and tit-for-tat violence by Islamist and Christian groups.
A wave of deadly attacks against churches, carried out by members of extremist Islamist group Boko Haram, has resulted in retaliation by Christians, including the burning of a mosque and school in the southern city of Benin.
“Christian leaders must continue to preach peace and togetherness so that Christians do not retaliate,” Adichie told the Guardian.
“Muslim leaders must strongly and repeatedly condemn the violence against Christians and make it clear that Boko Haram does not represent Nigerian Islam,” she said.
Related: NewsRescue- The Solution for Boko
Her Orange prize-winning book, Half of a Yellow Sun, documented the Biafran war of 1967-1970, which killed more than a million civilians through both fighting and starvation.
Boko Haram, whose name means “western education is forbidden”, emerged in Maiduguri, in Nigeria’s north-east, in 2002. Since then it has mainly carried out attacks on Christians in northern or “middle belt” states.
The organisation remains mysterious, but in an interview with the BBC in 2009 its leader, Mohammed Yusuf, who was subsequently killed by Nigeria’s security services, expressed a number of unorthodox theological views.
He said “western-style education”, which ran contrary to Islamic teaching, included the idea that the Earth was a sphere and that rain was a result of evaporation and condensation.
Boko Haram operates against a wider background of sectarian strife in Nigeria, whose Muslim population is concentrated in its north. The middle belt city of Jos, where various ethnic and religious groups merge, has experienced some of the country’s worst religious violence.
In November 2008 about 700 people were killed in riots following disputed local elections which degenerated along sectarian lines. See: The End of Boko Haram
“Of course I completely understand the rage and pain of Christian southerners whose relatives are murdered in the north, and whose shock and mourning are worsened by the weakness of the government’s response,” said Adichie. “But the vast majority of northerners are as horrified by the killings as anyone else and have nothing to do with them.”
Related: NewsRescue- The Middle Belt holds Nigeria Together; Middle Belt holds ‘Security Summit’
Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, said in a speech on 8 January that “the situation we have in our hands is even worse than the civil [Biafran] war”.
In the same speech, he revealed that he thought Boko Haram had sympathisers in various arms of government and the judiciary.
Responding to his comments on the war, Adichie said: “I think that is a mere rhetorical flourish. What matters to me is that our president has publicly said that Boko Haram has backers and supporters in the national assembly. If he has this knowledge, why has nothing been done to and about these supporters of terrorism?”
Related: NewsRescue- Nigeria Targeted For Destruction: Gordon Duff, US
Nigerian workers took to the streets on Friday for a fifth day of strikes over the lifting of the fuel subsidy, after trade unions broke off talks with Jonathan and said they would not restart until Saturday.
The government scrapped subsidies on petrol imports at the beginning of the year, more than doubling the pump price to about 150 naira (60p) a litre, and sparking bitter protests across the country. {NewsRescue- IMF Forces African Nations to Remove Fuel Subsidies}
Pressure is mounting on Jonathan to reach a deal. Nigeria’s main oil union has threatened to shut down output from Africa’s biggest crude producer from Sunday if the government does not reinstate the subsidy.
Niger Delta MEND group
Adichie believes the root of Nigeria’s problems is not sectarianism, but a crisis of governance.
“Right now, all over Nigeria, from Kano in the north to Port Harcourt in the south, people are protesting the same things: the increase in fuel prices and the lack of basic government services.
“Nigerians have divisions but they are largely united in their dissatisfaction with and distrust of their government.

Read more: http://www.newsrescue.com/2012/02/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-nigerias-problem-is-crises-of-governance-not-sectarianism/#ixzz1z2Tqpsav

MISGOVERNMENT 101

“Governments Never Learn. Only People Learn.”`
(Milton Friedman, 1912 – 2006).

Students of politics are often told that democracy is government of the people, for the people, by the people. Sadly many of them believe it. They also mouth it so often, that millions of people untutored in the nature and dynamics of power believe it as well. The tragedy, as billions of people who live under systems they believe are democratic have found out, is that democracy is very often just a means of changing leaders who do more or less the same things to the people. Leaders emerge from elections which may or may not be credible; and they exercise mandates within the limitations of their personal capacities, and the demands of the very few who influence what they do. The only time people are substantially involved in democracies is during elections, and even these are so choreographed or fixed that they successively alienate more of the electorate at every successive election.
President Goodluck Jonathan is re-writing the basic rules of leadership, such that established theories, strategies and ideas about governance, accountability and competence will have to be re-evaluated. On the face of it, you would think that he has read the late British statesman, C.R Atlee (1883 – 1967), who said: “Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking”. Or that he has literally taken the view of P.S. Buck (1892 – 1973), the American writer who said, “People on the whole are very simple-minded, and in whatever country one finds them. They are so simple as to take literally, more than not, the things leaders tell them”. Perhaps his long-term vision on the outcome of his contest with the Nigerian people over the fuel subsidy is informed by the insight of August Bebel, (1840 – 1913) the German politician who said that “All political questions, all matters of right, are at the bottom only questions of might.” If he believes that brawn alone will win him this battle, he clearly has not read Machiavelli, who said that a good leader should be both a fox and a lion, because a fox is defenseless against lions, and a lion is defenseless against traps.
If President Jonathan has a strategy for victory against all the battles he is currently engaged in, it is possible that at its heart is the assumption that the more problems you take on at the same time, the better your chances of victory. And the bigger the problem, the more you are likely to succeed against it. Just when he is being swamped by the insurgency of Boko Haram and a nation demanding that he acts decisively against security failures all over the nation, President Jonathan lights another fire around fuel subsidy. He abandons his “consultations with stakeholders” – please note that these are not defined as the Nigerian people – on his plans to remove subsidy, and decides to go it alone. Convinced of the validity of his position, he repudiates the position of the National Assembly, labour, civil society organizations, mothers, young people, the unemployed, the wealthy and the urban poor and just about everyone else. He obviously disagreed with Milton Friedman (1912 – 2006) the American economist who said that “The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem”. Perhaps he paid little attention to history, and the experiences of his predecessors, virtually all of whom burnt their fingers very badly when they tinkered with pump prices.  
Or perhaps he had read Hegel (1770 – 1831) the German philosopher who said, “But what experience and history teach is this, that peoples and government have never learned anything from history”. Alone and isolated, he stands against a torrent of hostility from a nation which cannot understand or forgive him for serious miscalculations and serial ineptitude on vital issues around governance. Perhaps his advisers have convinced him that Andrew Jackson (1974 – 1826), a former US President was right when he said, “One man with courage makes a majority”. His economic advisers who sold him the dummy on subsidy removal as beneficial in the long run may have ignored John Maynard Keynes (1883 – 1946) who said, “This long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.”
The multitudes of challenges which President Jonathan has chosen to deal with at the same time are making him new enemies by the day. Book Haram makes Christians and Muslims feel he is not protecting them enough. Christians particularly feel vulnerable when they are attacked by a group that says all Nigerian Christians are guilty of the mass murders of Muslims in Plateau, Kaduna, Bauchi and Lagos, and they and their churches will be attacked at every opportunity. Muslims are angry that they are being blamed and made responsible for everything Boko Haram does by both the government and many other Christians. Security agencies are stretched and stressed, and it would not help their morale much when the Commander-In-Chief says they are infiltrated by Boko Haram sleepers. By his utterances and actions, President Jonathan has united former foes, adversaries and irritants into a formidable enemy. He has ignored Machiavelli’s advise, when he said, “All well-governed states and wise princes have taken care not to reduce the nobility to despair, nor the people to discontent.”
In the next few weeks, the nation will know whether President Jonathan has succeeded in transforming the live of Nigerians by making sure that everything they buy costs a lot more. Or the nation would be relieved that it does not have to go through this type of transformation. Either way, there will be a loser. Jonathan will do well to learn the lessons of dealing with enemies which Machiavelli put forward: “Men are either crushed, or pampered. They can get revenge for minor injuries, but not for fatal ones.” If he yields ground on the subsidy issue, his adversaries will punish him over and over for his weakness. If he sticks his ground, he may break the back of the popular resistance, but his opposition will warn Nigerians about their lives in the same manner Neil Kinnock, the former labour opposition leader in Britain warned his countrymen over Margaret Thatcher: “If Margaret Thatcher wins – I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old,”
Students of power have great opportunities to re-visit conventional wisdom under current developments. They may reach the same conclusions about the PDP and did Baron de Montesquieu (1689 – 1755) who said, “when a government lasts a long time, it deteriorates by insensible degrees.” If they seek to find an answer to the riddle that Jonathan says he is removing subsidy because of corruption, they will be further confounded by Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745) the British writer who said, “Politics, as the word is understood, are nothing but corruptions.” When we are faced with a choice of supporting the retention of the subsidy (and, Jonathan’s people will say, supporting the “cabal”) or supporting Jonathan, we could be further confused by the humor of George Carlin who said, “Politics is so corrupt, even the dishonest people get screwed.” Perhaps all Nigerians are coming to terms with the leadership which they elected to govern them. Henry Youngman, a comedian said, “Personally, I’m against political jokes. Too often they get elected to office.”

Towards Economic Development of the North




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Sa’ad A. Jijji
In July 2007, I published an article titled ‘Poverty in the North’ wherein I attempted to draw the attention of policy makers, politicians and members of the public to the alarming poverty situation in the North. Citing statistics from various sources, I attempted to amplify the obvious – that there is huge economic disparity between the Northern and Southern parts of Nigeria and that such disparity constitutes a drag on the progress of the nation. In the aftermath of the publication of that and other articles, a series of conferences were organized. Leadership Newspapers organised a conference on ‘De-Industrialisation of Northern Nigeria’ in March 2008 while the Conference of Northern States Chamber of Commerce organised a ‘Northern Nigeria Economic and Investment Summit’ in October, 2008. These two events provided me with a sense of what our leaders think of the current situation and what, if anything, is currently been done on the situation. I shall start by clarifying certain misconceptions I picked.
First, some Northerners (including some prominent ones) do not seem to fully appreciate the level of abject poverty in the North. They argue that the Northern economy is very informal as such levels of bank deposits is not a good measure of our level of economic activity. The argument is that the Northern economy is largely a cash-based. However, according to CBN 2008 Annual report, only 9.7% of Nigeria’s ‘Broad Money Supply’ – M2 (Economists jargon for total currency notes, coins and bank deposits in an economy) is outside the banking system. This reality is what made some bank executives conclude that overall bank deposit growth has peaked in Nigeria. The 23 million bank accounts currently in Nigeria simply account for the bulk of Nigeria’s money. It is not difficult to see this when you appreciate the amounts of money daily being pooled by the GSM companies. In today’s modern economy, physical cash cannot be a sign of strength. Furthermore, in 2007, an Economic Consultancy firm ‘Economic Associates’ published the first state by state decomposition of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  In that analysis, crop and livestock production, the major economic activities in the North, contribute only 31% of Nigeria’s GDP. The entire 19 states of the North (with 78% of Nigeria’s Landmass and 53% of the population) account for only 23% Nigeria’s GDP. According to that report, Kano state, which predictably led other northern states, constitute only 3.3% of Nigeria’s GDP. Taraba State led the rear with 0.25%. In contrast, 3 states in the South (Delta, Rivers and Lagos) constitute 36% of Nigeria’s GDP. On a per capita basis, the associated Annual Gross State Product of each indigene of Adamawa (N12,625), Plateau (N45,615) and Kaduna (N60,001) pales in comparison to the corresponding figure for Lagos (N188,716), Rivers (N409,997) and Bayelsa (N833,647). If you are thinking that crude oil production is skewing these numbers, then let’s look at revenue sharing. Using Federation Allocation Accounts Committee figures for June 2009 (shared in July) as released by the Federal Ministry of Finance, lets follow the flow of Nigeria’s wealth. June 2009 is useful because ‘Excess Crude Savings’ was also shared during the month. Let’s look at the allocation to states and local governments. In July, the entire 19 states of the North (with 53% of the population) collected a total of N44.6 billion or 39% of the allocation due to states. However, four states in the South (Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom and Lagos), with 16% of Nigeria’s population, collected approximately N33.4 billion or 30% of the federal allocation to states. The old Rivers State (now Rivers and Bayelsa states) collected 12% of the total allocation, same as the collection of the entire 6 states of the North East region. Akwa Ibom, same population as Niger, collected N9.8 billion which is approximately the same as the combined amount collected by Niger, Kano, Taraba and Benue states.  What this figures translate to is that while Governor Shekarau, in July 2009, collected on behalf of each indigene of Kano state the sum of N323, Governor Sylva, collected N2,613 for each Bayelsa indigene. You have to add up 5 indigenes of Kastina (N469) to get one indigene of Delta (N2,187). Even when you add up the share of local governments to that of the states, Kano State (N7.7b), with 44 LGAs and the largest population in the country is still 5th in share behind Akwa Ibom (N12.1b), Rivers (N12.1b), Delta (N10.5b) and Lagos (N10.1b). The LGA with the highest revenue share in the North (Nassarawa – Kano state) collected N188.9mill. which is roughly half of the N378.1mill. collected by Alimosho LGA in Lagos. Also useful to put in perspective that, Niger Delta Development Commission’s 2009 budget of N128.4 bill. is more than Kano state’s N108.7 bill. So when the former CBN Gov, Prof. Soludo, said that the entire 19 Northern states have less bank deposit than the South-South region alone, you may begin to appreciate the source of that disparity.
Related: NewsRescue- Poverty in the North – A “Mayday” Call
Second, some Northerners are convinced that the government of former President Obasanjo and the Banking consolidation program under the former CBN governor somehow accounts for the poverty in North. This is a rather simplistic argument. Poverty in the North predates Obasanjo’s and will outlive Yar’adua’s government. The problem is far more fundamental. Alhaji Falalu Bello in his excellent paper at the Leadership Conference believes the Northern economy ‘’…..as a consequence of various reforms introduced has been totally grounded…’. It may be true that President Obasanjo’s government has benefited more Southern elites than their Northern counterparts but looking at the fortunes of the average Nigerian, you are unlikely to tell the difference. It is fair to say that President Obasanjo’s government did not help the Northern poor, but then who has? Implicit in this blame game is the false assumption that if a Northerner is in power, the fortunes of the average Northerner will improve. Nothing in our history to support this. If political leadership leads to economic success, the North would have been the richest region in the country. Infact, Kastina state, with its enviable political, civil service and military fortunes, should have been the richest state. To illustrate the fallacy of this argument, let’s take one federal position that has been dominated by Northerners. Since the creation of the FCT in 1976, with the exception of the first Minister for Special Duties (Abuja), Late Ajose Adeogun, the leadership of the FCT Abuja has been monopolised by Northerners from John Kadiya to Adamu Aleiro. Yet as at February 2007, indigenes of the 5 South Eastern states of Nigeria own 73% of the allocated land in Abuja. As reported by This Day Newspaper on May 21, 2007, Nasir El-Rufai, the former FCT minister, gave these figures even as he emphasised that at the point of allocation, 68% of the land was allocated to indigenes of the 19 Northern states. We all know what happened in between.
There are many negatives to be said about Prof. Soludo’s consolidation program but it is simplistic to say he killed banking in the North. Even before consolidation, the so called ‘Northern Banks’ had the bulk of their private sector credit business in the South even as the chase FAAC and State/LGA joint accounts in the North. It is elementary economics that banking is not about who owns the bank or has the largest deposit but who gets the largest credit. Paucity of private capital, and the unproductive use of the little available, is one of the major causes of our under-development in the North. Notwithstanding the fact that you need only N20 million capital to start a Micro Finance Bank (MFB) in Nigeria, of the 899 MFBs licensed by CBN, Lagos has 211, Anambra – 84, Osun – 36 while Katsina has 5, Nassarawa – 4 and Yobe – 1. The North needs more MFBs than big Banks to build private capital. The present CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, is unlikely to change, in any sustainable way, the banking fortunes of North just as the longest serving CBN governor (late Abdulkadir Ahmed) did not. That task can only be done by Northerners our selves. It is very important for Northerners to moderate their expectations of political leadership.

What the Federal Government can do

In my previous article, I focused mainly on what states government can do to alleviate poverty in the North. I deliberately left the federal government because I felt, President Ya’adua was himself a former governor and that his government was new and needed to get its bearing. Two years after it is time to look back.
In analysing the economic situation of the North, there are two important things to consider. First, Northern Nigeria, taken as a nation, is a landlocked nation. With no access to international coastline, the North faces a peculiar challenge. The disadvantage of the hinterland compared to the coast is obvious even in today’s egalitarian China. To spur economic development in the North, the Federal government must open up the region. It is in this regard that the recent flagging of the dredging of the River Niger from Warri to Baro  is an important milestone. However, the effect of this will be limited as the effect of the Lagos coastline has been on Nigeria – namely Niger state will benefit more from the dredging than Zamfara state. What will really open up the North is an efficient railway system. When the former government of President Obasanjo initiated the $8.3 billion rail modernisation process, I was excited by the prospects it has for the region. However, I am alarmed by the fact that more than two years in to this administration all we have achieved is the cancellation of that contract and talk about a ‘Patch-Patch’ arrangement similar to the one done under General Abacha. The award of the Chinese railway contract may have been badly handled but to jettison the modernisation project for the current project is to lose a golden moment for the North. If Nigeria is unable to undertake a railway modernisation when crude oil is selling for $70/barrel, pray when Nigeria will ever to this. More than anything else, the greatest thing than this government can do to impact the lives of the average Northerner is the modernisation of the railway system. The fact that every imported item in Nigeria, from petrol to sugar is cheaper in the richer part of Nigeria (south) than the poorer part of Nigeria (North) means that the North’s disadvantage is been further compounded. It does not make sense for any manufacturer to site his factory in Kastina or Yobe if he cannot easily move his goods to markets in the south or for export. President Yar’adua’s administration must learn from the mistakes of the Abacha administration and as a matter of urgency discard those palliative measures and adopt a wholesale modernization of the railway. What the current minister of Transport should realise is that no private sector participant will be interested in investing in a 35km/hour railway grid that was designed by our colonial masters to transport groundnut from Kano and hide from Maiduguri. Government should stay away from buying engines and rolling stock and just concentrate on the rail network.
Agriculture provides the major source of employment for the vast majority of Northerners and presents the quickest way of reducing poverty in the region. The Yar’adua administration has been taking some encouraging steps. The government’s renewed emphasis on commercial agriculture, the ongoing review of the land tenure system, the ‘Buyer of last resort’ program, Silos expansion projects, massive importation of fertilizer in 2008 and the N200 billion agricultural credit scheme are all steps in the right direction.

Cotton farmers {guardianUK}
However, there is still room for improvement. Listening to the Kwara State’s ‘Zimbabwean farmers’ and Governor Murtala Nyako, during the break-out session on Agriculture at the Northern Nigeria Economic Summit, you get a sense that the major issues facing commercial agriculture are basically access to low cost finance, land tenure system and low productivity. Infact, Governor Nyako listed fertilizer and tractors, the usual suspects, as number 13 and 14 amongst the issues facing agriculture in Nigeria. Tackling the major issues affecting agriculture requires more than just money. It requires fresh thinking and innovative solutions. With regards to finance, the federal government’s recent N200 billion intervention is commendable. However, as with most government policies, the devil in the details. The guidelines for the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS) as released by the CBN and Federal Ministry of Agriculture requires that for a farm to access part of the loan (from UBA / First Bank), it is required to have assets of not less than N200 million. Clearly, this is targeted at existing large scale farmers and not at younger and more promising farmers. Although the interest rate is designed to be less than 9%, the reality is that only few farmers in the whole North can qualify for this loan. The government needs to realise that commercial agriculture in its infancy stage in the North. More than just finance, we need to find a way to encourage young people to go into commercial agriculture through a more comprehensive incentive scheme. For instance, I will expect the federal government to outline a policy that target’s young graduates or mid career workers with a whole package of easy land acquisition, access to fertilizer and mentorship program with domestic and foreign commercial farmers. I have spent 2 months in a commercial ranch in Northern Kenya and I know more than money, there are many other things required to make commercial agriculture a success. The sad reality is that the incentive structure provided by Kwara state government to the ‘Zimbabwean Farmers’ under the ‘Shonga Project’ is simply not available to ordinary Nigerians in their own country. We need to move commercial agriculture from being the hobby of retired people to an enduring profession that is attractive to young people to make it sustainable.
The land tenure reform is already part of the government’s 7 point agenda but sadly more than half way in to the tenure of this admistration; this laudable reform is nothing more than a proposed bill gathering dust in the National assembly. I hope the National assembly will realise the importance of this reform and work on the bill. Lastly, Governor Nyako listed low productivity as the number one factor affecting farming in Nigeria. Now, Governor Nyako should know because he probably has one of the best managed farms in Nigeria.
Chief Audu Ogbe, at the Leadership conference, gave the example that ‘…a Ugandan widow with one cow earns more than a Fulani man with 10 cows…’.But productivity is ‘catch-all-phrase’ that encompasses several factors including quality of seedling (or embryo), mechanisation, farming methods and a host of other factors. This is again one of the reasons why young people should be encouraged to take up commercial farming. Young people are more likely to employ new farming methods and techniques that can boost productivity. The mentorship scheme I mentioned above will also expose promising commercial farmers to some of the latest farming methods from our research institutes and commercial farmers. The fact that young Zimbabwean farmers are achieving 3 times productivity per hectare in cassava production compared to their neighbouring local farmers in Kwara shows how important younger and modern farmers are to commercial farming.
The efforts of the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency (SMEDAN) are commendable but needs to be steeped up and possibly a venture capital outfit be set up to provide equity participation. The Federal Government’s intervention in the textile sector should go beyond money. The federal government should realise that the Nigerian Custom Service has an important role to play in reviving this industry. We hope the Federal Minister of Finance will use his good office to ensure that atleast a government agency enforces government directives. I need not discuss about the power situation in Northern Nigeria. We all await for December 2009.
The federal government also needs to help in mitigating the destructive effect of politics in the North. Politics is badly affecting our incentive structure. Politics has become the most lucrative profession in the North, luring away our some of our best (and worst) brains from other productive ventures. The young man in the South will likely find career role models in many professional bankers, businessmen or workers in the oil industry. To the young person in the North, the ultimate ambition will be to join politics. The Federal government must through real and symbolic gestures recognize and encourage young men to take up ‘productive’ ventures while political office holders should realise the destructive effects of their flagrant display of wealth and power.
Finally, every northerner should realise that the economic prosperity of a community is the direct result of individual initiatives and effort. Our fatalistic attitude to life is nothing more than an abdication of individual responsibility. In the long run, no amount of privilege or patronage can take the place of initiative, hard work and perseverance. Nobody will, or should, improve a society that deliberately decides to undermine itself.