Only the North Can Genuinely Save the North

By Ogiri John Ogiri

It is no longer news that the North, particularly the Northwest and Northeast and recently the North-central, has faced insecurity problem for over a decade now. So far, it has been reported by several news media that thousands of lives have been lost, millions have been rendered homeless and properties worth billions of naira have been destroyed with more still counting. Amidst these disturbing figures and scenarios, the North looks forward to an end to insurgency and banditry in the region. But how did the North find herself here? I think the North created her own problem of insecurity.

The North created her problem of insecurity from the day her almajiri system lost direction with many of the children left to roam the northern streets without shelter, adequate food, clothing and good education. These children became easy recruits for insurgency by various religious fundamentalist groups such as Boko Haram among many others.

The north created her own problem when she allowed preachers of extremist religious ideologies to guide and shape debates on ethnicity, politics and political choices by the people. Religious and tribal sentiments have been very instrumental in the choice of who gets what, when, how and where as well as in the choice of who is given the authority to allocate values in the northern oligarchical society. 

The north created her own problem of insecurity when she started paying bandits to stop killing people. Who allowed banditry to fester in the first place? It is difficult to prove if the money paid to the bandits by a particular northern governor at that time was not heavily invested in the acquisition of more dangerous weapons.

The north created her own problem of insecurity when people who raised voices of dissent against some institutionalized  injustices in the northern oligarchical society were tagged "bigots" and seen as anti Islam. Today the chickens have come home to roost. 

But who will save the north at this time? 

While many looks away from the North to the outside for a solution, it is my honest opinion that only the North can save the North. It is a timeless fact that the one who creates a problem can solve it more skillfully and sustainably than the one who has little or only a biased knowledge of how the problem began.

Issues of religious extremism, unregulated preachings by religious leaders, inadequate opportunities for quality education particularly for the poor, intolerance of dissenting voices of reason by those in power should be honestly looked into. Northern government should stop paying bandits to stop killing people because they will not stop after the payment. Some of these issues among others, if addressed in all sincerity, can help to stem the tide of insecurity in the North.