There is a war going on against the
north. This war has been going on for a
long time and believe it or not, it is war of attrition. Pretending otherwise, will be stupid. This war is waged right from 29th May
1999, the day Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn in as a civilian president. The region has continuously being under siege
since then and this resulted in the total collapse of all economic
activities. This in turn led to the
current insecurity experienced all across the region. The north, as one leg of the fabled troika
that made up the country, has effectively being pushed out of Nigeria, believe
it or not. Disbelieving this by any
northerner, no matter his station in the current scheme of things, may be at
his peril. The mistake we all do is to
assume that everything is all right so long as we are not affected.
In the beginning, the north as a region was
noted for its political sagacity and military prowess, therefore the region
exercised some sort of dominance in these areas in contradistinction to the
other regions – the southwest had control of the civil service and the
financial and economic sectors while the southeast was in charge of commerce. But this informal tripodal arrangement was
destroyed with the advent of the current civilian rule. The north has been sidelined in those spheres
its people excelled in the past – military and politics thereby rendering the
region an appendage of the south (an unwanted dependant territory) in every
sense of the word. The north is under
siege from particularly those who the northerners fought a war to protect from
their very powerful neighbours. The
presence of gun-totting military men in almost every northern city attests to
this, the highways are worse.
For those northerners who believe they are
safe from the on-going war against the region, I advise them to have a
rethink. The killings, the economic and
political warfare affects all and everybody in the north. It is not targeted at a particular group or
that only certain sections or groups are feeling the heat. The worst of this warfare is the targeting of
economic activities in the north for annihilation with military precision and
our so-called northern elites are watching with folded arms like people on
hypnotic drugs. The only way money
change hands is either when salaries are paid or through blue-collar businesses
like achaba operators, roadside food
vendors, cobblers, itinerant manicurists, etc.
The macro aspect of our economic activities has for long being grounded. Travelling by road anywhere in the north is
now an ordeal worse than the numerous curfews periodically imposed on us. A curfew in the cities is another weapon used
as a tool for stifling northern economic and commercial activity, which has
been on life support for long.
For those of us who travel across the north
by road, we are gradually getting used to the humiliations meted out by
ordinary mortals like us who derive their power from the guns they hold to
their waist. You are forced to display
your most personal belongings to total strangers in the name of “security
checks” while the bombs keep going off in our metropolitan areas where economic
and commercial activates are concentrated.
A trip that may, at most be completed in eight hours is now done in a
minimum of eleven because of the numerous checkpoints. Meanwhile the hosts states of these JTFs/
STFs spends hundreds of millions of naira just to make life comfortable for
those strangulating their economy and humiliating their citizens.
But if truth be told, have we really tried
to identify, isolate, arrest and prosecute those behind the unprecedented insecurity
bedevilling the north? The pattern of
the attacks and the arrests made so far should give us pointers as to who are
responsible. I still maintain my stand
that some people out there are trying by whatever means possible to bring down
the north, or what is left of it to its wobbly knees. The region is now a place where bombs go off
anytime the president made a mess of governance, the most recent being the bomb
blast at a bus park in Kano coming shortly after the president granted
unpardonable state pardon to a thief and a homosexual child serial rapist. The value of both human life and dignity in
the north is not worth the price of Goodluck’s fedora hat.
While
the bulk of the military is deployed in the north as an army of occupation and/
or mischief, oil thieves are having a field day in the creeks to the extent
that about three oil producing companies have to shut down production. Being the economic lifeline of the nation, I
believe the suspension of production by oil companies is a more serious
security threat to the nation than the contrived bombings in the north could
ever do. But what has the federal
government done about it? Outsource the
protection of the pipelines and facilities to the big time oil thieves. To Goodluck Jonathan, a hungry, skinny,
unkempt and hopeless kid on the streets of the north constitutes more danger
than fat cats who holds the nation’s economy by the jugular ever could.
While all these are happening, northern governors
are busy wining and dining with the enemies of their people in Abuja. They are more interested in who becomes the
national chairman of their party than the collective grieve of their
citizens. The blood of the poor souls
that perish in Baga is only meant to water their plans to fruition. Incidentally, Baga is also another commercial
town that bestrides three nations. This
is just an aside.
