By joshua 
By
Nura Jibo
Fellow Nigerians, it is with unfathomable concern and seriousness that I am compelled to tell the bitter truth to all Northerners living in Nigeria and the ones that are residing and watching its events in diaspora. The Northern Nigeria situation is by now very clear to everybody.
Readers of this piece should forgive me, because a writeup like this will be incomplete and meaningless without name-calling! Hence certain people must be mentioned bare if at all we are to seek for a common front and standpoints or search for a permanent solution to the northern abyss, and hopelessness! I hope to conclude this analysis in two weeks after which I am expecting a reactionary northern brothers and sisters to crucify or abuse me of indifference. Whatever the case, I take responsibility, and I have no apology for anyone that takes offence!
If we agree to this, dear reader you are at chance and very free to call me names or even take to court to claim damages over this bitter exposition of the present situation of the people of the North.
No prophet of doom, soothsayer, fortune-teller or any northern leader so-called that can rescue the Northerners’ current quandary(s). The best all Nigerians can offer to the dejected North, including our Southern brothers and sisters is prayer. Alas, the “best” Northerners can do is to keep on deceiving themselves often by writing “Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un” on Facebook; Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp. That’s the highest an average Northern intellectual who feels he/she can read and write commentary(s) whenever topical matters of national insecurity such as kidnappings and Boko Haram are unprofessionally, but deliberately reported by the BBC; DW; RFI and other international media outfits. I shall delve into this point in a separate piece after this one. Then I expect rebuttals from my BBC and DW friends. It is well and healthy!
The Northern elite/ intellectuals’ disappointments
Before I proceed, it will be good to lay provocative backgrounds on this bitter truth with certain events that took place seventeen (17) years ago, which ended up as bundles of contradictions and disappointments.
To be precise, on Tuesday, 2 November 2004 at 12pm I and ten (10) ‘likeminded’ people sat and had a meeting at Dr. Kabiru Tsafe’s Office in ABU Zaria, Nigeria before proceeding to Kaduna to meet with late Dr. Mamud Tukur (may Allah forgive his shortcomings) at his residence in Raba Road. The following people attended that Zaria meeting:
1. Prof. Ango Abdullahi
2. Late Dr. Sulaiman Kumo (may Allah forgive him)
3. Late Dr. Mamud Tukur (may Allah forgive him)
4. Malam Adamu Adamu (former Daily Trust Stable Friday columnist/ essayist and the current Nigeria’s Minister of Education).
5. Late Malam Abba Kyari (former President Buhari’s Chief of Staff, may Allah forgive him).
6. Dr. Kabir Tsafe (former Dean of Faculty of Arts, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria).
7. Alhaji Sabo Nanono (local agriculturalist and former President Buhari’s Minister of Agriculture) who was in absentia.
8. Malam Ibrahim Waziri of Iya Abubakar Computer Centre, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.
9. Nura Jibo of the then Quantity Surveying Unit, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.
10. Tukur Dan Mu’azu of Zazzau
11. Late Idrissa Umar (Dankaka) (may Allah forgive him) of the Department of Agriculture, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.
These are the full names of the people that were enlisted by my very good friend and ally Mallam Ibrahim Waziri, Professor Emeritus Umaru Balarabe Ahmed, Dr. Sanda Mohammed Yabo and I at Professor Umaru Balarabe’s residence in Congo Campus, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. It was after concluding on the list of the persons to be contacted that I and Ibrahim Waziri on the advice of Prof. Umaru Balarabe traveled to Kano to see late Dr. Sulaiman Kumo and briefed him on the imperative of bailing out the then Northern Nigeria from its economic and political comatose.
Indeed, the whole idea of rescuing the North from its bad situation came from Ibrahim Waziri and I. It was ‘hatched’ right inside the sculpture garden of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.
The aim was to bring Northern Nigeria intellectuals, elite, and people with vision, mission and genuine commitments that we thought could help us in improving the lives and livelihoods of Northern people. Apologies please to my Southern brothers and sisters. Your situation was by then far and a little bit better than your Northern brothers and sisters! Courtesy of the Abraham Adesanya’s, Justice Adewale Thompson’s, Tinubu’s and the Harry Marshal’s of the Southern Nigeria world! But even at that time it was very clear that even yours, was not in any way holier than thou! But if time permits I hope to unravel this in a separate analytical framework on the “Issues with Nigeria”.
Now back to the point on the Northern Nigeria disappointments and sheer deceits of its Northern elite, so-called intellectuals and elders.
The eleven-man committee (names above) came out with a robust strategy on how to tackle the plethora of issues such as poverty, insecurity, political and economic instabilities and other groveling absurdities in the North. Part of the agenda was to sensitize those that we think are elite on the troubles with the North and the objectives of coming together to bring out desired actions that are capable of removing completely the North from its dwindling situations.
Indeed, our Zaria meeting was aimed at identifying resource persons and senior citizens that we thought would work with an ultimate key objective of mobilizing the status quo and the powerless and relegated former presidents such as Shagari , Gawon, and Muhammadu Buhari against the backdrop of Obasanjo’s sectarian rivalry to the North.
The senior citizens that we enlisted to approach and talk them over our common problems of poverty, lack of education and political power were as follows:
Gawon (former Nigeria’s President); Shagari (former Nigeria’s President); Babangida (former Nigeria’s President); Sunday Awoniyi; M. Yahaya Gusau; Maitama Sule; Sarkin Fadan Kano; Inuwa Wada; Shettima Ali Monguno; Ajiyan Bauchi; Ibrahim Damcida; Wazirin Fika; Idrisu Koko; Ahmadu Kurfi; Ezekiel Yusuf; Damboyi Zang; J.C. Obande; Sidi Mamman Askarawa; Hamzat Ahmadu; Tilly Gyado (elder); Ahmad Joda; Magaji Mu’azu; Gen. Victor Malu; Olu Sola Saraki; Abdulsalam (former Nigeria’s President); Sule Katagum; Adamu Ciroma; Gen. Danjuma; Justice Mamman Nasir; Justice Bello; Marafan Sokoto; and Aminu Dantata etc.
These were the people that we picked and intended to meet with them in a very open and clear manner to discuss the Northern Nigeria problems and see how we can use their wisdoms and grey hairs to salvage the region from its perturbed and pathetic situation. That was seventeen (17) years ago!
Prior to the Zaria meeting, on Saturday, 19 June 2004, late Malam Abba Kyari (a retired civil servant and very recently former President Buhari’s Chief of Staff); Adamu Adamu-the current Nigeria’s Minister of Education who was then a ravenous and prolific Newspaper columnist with Weekly and Daily Trust Stable; Ibrahim Waziri; Dr. Mamud Tukur; Prof Ango Abdullahi and I sat in Kaduna at Dr. Mamud Tukur’s residence to strategize our moves to tackle President Obasanjo’s unfair leadership treatment to the Northern region.
Indeed, one of the arrow heads of writing that strategy meeting minutes was Malam Adamu Adamu. Adamu took time to explain to Prof. Ango Abdullahi and us how to checkmate Obasanjo’s leadership ineptitudes.
Hear Malam Adamu:
“As a result of the unprecedented misgovernance, coupled with a holier than thou attitude in the leadership that does not acknowledge its mistakes or take steps to look for solutions, Nigeria has today come face to face with the possibility of its self-destruction. Even the most optimistic and tough minded believe in the inviolability of the corporate existence of the country, and have slowly come to accept the near inevitability of its eventual dissolution….”
Adamu Adamu continued thus: “…all attempts will be made to save Nigeria from an incompetent leadership , save it even from itself , and finally act on the myriad of the mistakes and problems inherent in its creation and founding, so that it begins to march in the path of purposeful leadership”.
The reason why I quoted Adamu Adamu extensively is to make a case in point by drawing a cogent comparison over the ideas that he prophesized and amply wrote when he was not in power, and when he does not know anything about political leadership besides writing long Friday essays on the pages of Daily Trust and Weekly Trust Newspapers in the name of his “Definitions in Humour”.
In view of this therefore, one may wish to, in the end, subject Malam Adamu Adamu – the essayist (not as Nigeria’s Education Minister) to the vagaries of his polemics and pathological misconception of developing the North or Nigeria via writing Newspaper literatures that he misconstrued as something that can make his region grow.
Dear honourable reader, if time permits, I may eventually reproduce in full the minutes that Adamu took in our Zaria meeting at Dr. Kabiru Tsafe’s Dean’s Office, Faculty of Arts, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. And for those that know the handwriting of Malam Adamu Adamu they will quickly identify it, especially the ones that knew him very well, because he often writes those kinds of words in the name of bailing out the North from its calamitous situation.
Hence before the concluding part of this analysis, it will be better to lay a solid foundation to practical interesting scenarios of the Arewa crises. So that the entire Nigerians could see graphically and judge on why the Arewa (North) problems of kidnappings and Boko Haram emerge and have apparently go beyond tackling and solution.
Indeed, it is the disappointments of these so-called learned elders and elite that hardly stick to their fraught sincerity that ended up throwing the entire North into a dejavu phenomenon.
As one writes this it will be very important to state that our 17-year old intention to bail out the North from its chronic crises was to realistically approach the so-called Northern senior citizens individually as listed elsewhere in the course of this analysis to discuss and have a broad spectrum“antibiotics” for the Northern abject poverty and lack of education. The essence was to have a broad-based preponderance of younger generations, including technocrats, retired people and young and upcoming businessmen and women and genuine leaders.
Unfortunately, it was not only Adamu Adamu that disappointed the strategy meeting to rescue the North. Dr. Kabiru Tsafe was also part of the heavy disappointments. Because at a point in time we found it extremely difficult to relate with him, because he was not coordinating well, and remained rather condescending and careless.
Indeed, that was the first Northern disappointments that often come and are usually displayed by Northern elite for reasons best known to them!
The point I am trying to make in telling this bitter truth to our people is to show and prove in the end that people such as Adamu Adamu that used his long essays and grammar in Daily Trust to impress the old and the ignorant pitched his tent with them very well by becoming a Minister under President Buhari’s cabinet, and it ends there! Because he has today proved to Nigerians beyond any doubt that he knows nothing about governance and political power. And the only thing that he has is the power of the pen, which is never an enough qualification to be given an education Ministry to lead. To the best of one’s knowledge it was never heard that Honourable Minister Adamu Adamu’s had contributed to knowledge or education as a primary school, secondary or higher education teacher. At best he’s a freelance writer and an accountant! He confirmed this to all Nigerians when he goofed by sacking the Universities’ Governing Councils of certain universities in Nigeria.
Really, ours was a genuine effort to emphasize on unitizing and utilizing the abundant resources in the North and freak the conscience of Northerners in the areas of science and technology (not agriculture as you were dubiously made to believe); solid and liquid minerals; and take their advantages. Our main focus was to make these so-called northern elite and elders recognize first the inherent dangers and blind investments that they presided over the people and children of the North in the name of leadership that today make the region a slave entity in whatever monster emerges as Nigeria after President Buhari is through with the country in a year or so.
To be continued.
Nura Jibo is a lifetime member, West African Research Association (WARA), African Studies Centre, Boston University, United States.