The north has produced more presidents than the south, but if one goes to the north and sees the poor embarrassing level of human and structural development in that region, the troubles they birthed, nursed to maturity and the dangers still incubating presently – in Amajiris and the number of children out of school and those who are not even in school – under the watchful command of these very few clique of so-called leaders, one will sincerely understand that the problem of Nigeria is not where the president comes from, but insincerity, parochialism, incompetence, corruption, absence of political will, hypocrisy and lack of qualitative leadership etc.
When one painstakingly looks at the pitiful conditions of Nigerians, an objective mind will agree that ordinary northerners, like in other regions, are victims and equally in pain and agony. They equivalently need help to be rescued from the hands of their merciless political leaders, who think only about themselves, their immediate families, relatives and their cronies, while using religion and tribe to divide all and protect their evil.
Ordinary northerners, whether Fulani or Hausa, are not really the problem, they are just victims of brainwashing and mental cruelties – badly used and abused for too long and schooled wrongly by their leaders. The longevity effect of their neglect by their successive leaders have narrowed their thinking into believing that it is normal that a male teenager, who is supposed to be in school and still under parental care should be given cows by their leaders and sent into bushes to rear. And he is schooled to believe that he could destroy people’s crops with his cows, kill and rape women etc. in bushes without any consequences, because he would be protected.
Meanwhile the same leader, who sent him into the bush sent his own biological children to high quality standard private schools – since public schools have been overlooked and abandoned to deteriorate by government officials. Mothers have also been conditioned to accept it as a normal thing that their minor females are mature enough for marriages. To put this one mildly here, the northern politicians shamelessly considered it very wise to make an embarrassing and absurd educational policy that lowered the standard of education for the northern children to gain admission into Nigerian universities.
While the average JAMB mark for the southern children to gain admission into any Nigerian university is 200, the scores for some states in their northern counterparts are as low as 40 and 50 marks etc. for them to gain admission into the same university a southern person will not be admitted with 150 marks. Why this high level of insult on northern children? Are the northern children inferior to their southern folk? Consequently, an ordinary northern child is a victim of longevity of mental cruelty, who deserves not only pity, but also our collective help and not vindictiveness.
Unless one is a sycophant, otherwise it is obviously clear that the past and present leaders of this country failed the people of Nigeria woefully. How else can one sum up the irony that Nigeria has no steady electricity supply, has no reasonable structures like industries that employ people. Former governor of Lagos State, Chief Ahmed Tinubu, recently attacked Buhari while addressing some Nigerian youths in Lagos in view of him becoming the president of Nigeria in 2023. He accused the president of failing to provide electricity for Nigerians and as such cannot call Nigeria youths lazy people. But he forgot that he was part of the problem and one of those that promised to give us electricity in six months under APC.
The leaders of this country did not fail us, but they are very cruel. They syphoned the Nigerian airways monies, destroyed posts, killed railways, mismanaged Ajaokuta Steel Mill etc. and kept air and sea ports in sorry states. There is virtually no government owned company or structure in Nigeria that is still working properly or that government officials have competently handled and cared for appropriately. The only industries they have been able to sustain perfectly well are fraud, corruption and embezzlement. Many of the newly built roads they constructed for our use are all death traps. Government owned schools and tertiary institutions are at the lowest ebb as teachers and lecturers are not paid well, even sometimes they are owed months of salaries.
We produce oil, yet we have no fuel. We have refineries and yet we import refined oil because we are too corrupt and cannot manage and fix our refineries as we prefer to import refined oil from smaller neighbouring countries and give fraudulent subsidies. What kind of country is this? If there should be any government company still functioning properly in Nigeria, it simply means that they are still stealing from such, like the way invisible ships come to steal our crude oil on a daily basis without notice by any of our security agencies. Unfortunately this is our story, and that is where we are today.
The narrative above that described the high level of injustice, moral decay, cruelty and corruption in Nigeria today and without any sign of ending does not give joy, and it is very sad. Therefore, let me unambiguously and ardently too, state that the erroneous statement that Nigeria is a non-negotiable entity is a fallacy that the incompetence of President Buhari, his nepotism and the disaster of APC as a national ruling party have nakedly unmasked and exposed beyond comprehension and cover. Make no pretence about this; the people of Nigeria are in excruciating sufferings and intense pains under Buhari and the APC-led government. The situation of Nigeria from all perspectives has never been so bad and catastrophic like it is currently. While it is true that every problem of Nigeria today cannot be solely traced or blamed on Buhari and his government alone, far from it, but the ugly truth is that the current disjointed and discontent voices of separation currently on the lips of many people from different ethnic groups are in response to the nepotistic, brutal and unfriendly policies and the general failure of governance under his command.
To be continued.
***Uzoma Ahamefule, a refined African traditionalist and a patriotic citizen, writes from Vienna, Austria. Mail: uzomaa@yahoo.com, Mobile: +436607369050 (Please, SMS – WhatsApp – messages only)
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