Northern Elders Bemoan
Northern Elders Bemoan State of Insecurity in the
Region
(Being a text of a Press Statement by the Convener of the
Northern Elders Forum, Professor Ango Abdullahi)
The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) is alarmed and its members
saddened by the recent cataclysmic collapse of security, and the
sanguinary and indeed colossal threat to life and property in many
parts of Nigeria but more seriously in the North. We at NEF cannot
in good conscience, remain silent as criminal activities and
bloodletting escalate in Nigeria and our region. We have sadly
lived with unfortunate violence in the last few years but this
should not continue or escalate.
It would be irresponsible for us to refrain from calling on
President Muhammadu Buhari to decisively respond to the existential
threats faced by northern Nigerians in particular during these
times and beyond. NEF as a matter of social responsibility and
tradition, would never shy away from speaking truth to power,
irrespective of the partisan, sectional or whatever constellation
of political power in the nation. It would be recalled that we
strongly engaged President Goodluck Jonathan on the need to address
the Boko Haram insurgency and even proffered solutions as far back
as 2012. All our efforts seemed to have been vitiated by a weak
political will and monumental political corruption.
Today, the North still lives under horrendous Boko Haram
threats, a situation which has been aggravated by threats of
banditry, kidnappings, armed robbery, marauding youth gangs,
herders and farmers mini-wars, and seemingly overwhelmed or
indifferent governments. Large swathes of territory in our region
are now effectively bandit land. Agriculture, our pride and
national economic comparative advantage, the greatest employer of
labour and leading contributor to Nigerias Gross Domestic Product
is in ruins as animal husbandry, and crops and roots farming is in
the throes of war and damage. Our rural folk live in perpetual fear
of attacks from sundry terrorist assailants without any reprieve.
Our major highways and transportation systems are being abandoned
as they have become death traps. We see in all these the cumulative
effect of a region whose economy and people, especially the youth
have been abandoned. A dangerous youth bulge is indeed a recipe for
crime, violence and wars. We understand that poverty and
underdevelopment can create a brutish and violent society.
Should the Nigerian people continue to run and hide from
criminals under an administration that has enjoyed and received
support from especially northern Nigerians that it can address
their existential and developmental challenges? We expect the
administration to address all the short, medium and long term
challenges of security and development in a manner that minimal
security and good livelihoods can be assured and sustained. Are
these things rocket science? We believe not. What we believe is
that given the political will and commitment, Nigeria has the human
resources and ideas to address these challenges. Are the challenges
those of under-funding the policing and security apparatuses, or is
it a challenge of problem analysis or policy failure? Governments
world-wide are expected to handle these matters as a primary
responsibility.
Nigeria has just emerged from a very challenging and harrowing
set of elections. This experience should provide a strategic
turning point in the manner that political leaders respond to our
basic national challenges. We hereby demand that President Buhari
demonstrates higher levels of concern and sensitivity to the plight
of traumatized citizens in the country, especially in the states of
Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Benue, Niger, Plateau, Taraba and
virtually the entire North. We demand for decisive, comprehensive
and fundamental governmental action against poverty,
underdevelopment and insecurity. Above all, we demand that
President Buhari shows leadership and compassion which are the
reciprocal expectations of the Nigerian people from their
President. Should the citizens of the most populous black and
African country and blessed with bounteous human and material
resources be running away from bandits and criminals and become
entangled in a causative web of crime, poverty, misery and
underdevelopment?
Without justifying the emigration of our people to other lands,
we now see how and why our young men and women seek escape to
Europe across the Sahara Desert to pursue menial jobs and Perilous.
We now painfully see how desperate Nigerians running away from
home, become victims of xenophobic attacks in some countries. We
have the resources to build a better Nigeria and we the people of
conscience have the will to insist that this happens.
Professor Ango Abdullahi,
Convener/Chairman,
Northern Elders Forum.
Zaria