The #EndBadGovernance protests across the country may have come and gone, but they clearly have exposed the fact that northern Nigeria is on the precipice, which has the potential to spread to other regions.
While the protests affected many states in the South West, their impact was particularly severe in some northern states, where massive destruction on public and private facilities, as well as loss of lives were recorded.
Though security agencies have debunked the reports that at least 40 protesters were killed by security operatives who were desperate to quell the protest especially in the region, the fact remains that several lives were lost.
While many believe that a timely broadcast by President Bola Tinubu could have helped douse tensions across the country, the level of anarchy and looting observed in the northern states exposed a troubling lack of crisis management skills among the governors.
The northern region is particularly hard-hit by the current hunger and poverty in the country, exacerbated by the removal of the fuel subsidy and the devaluation of the naira, which have driven up food prices.
This situation is further aggravated by rampant insecurity and the inability of people to access their farms.
Despite producing the highest number of presidents and heads of state, the northern region remains the most backward in terms of development indices.
“Despite producing the highest number of presidents and heads of state, the northern region remains the most backward in terms of development indices”
For instance, a recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics highlighted this stark reality.
Northern states rank among the poorest in Nigeria according to the Multidimensional Poverty Index.
Specifically, the index revealed that the region has a total of 86 million poor people across the three sub-regions. The number represents about 80 per cent of Nigeria’s poor people.
The MPI measures various deprivations at the household level in health, education, and standard of living, painting a grim picture of the region’s socio-economic conditions.
States such as Sokoto, Taraba, and Jigawa consistently top the list of Nigeria’s poorest, illustrating the depth and breadth of poverty in northern Nigeria.
This enduring poverty is aggravated by low literacy rates, with many children out of school, while inadequate healthcare services, leads to high maternal and infant mortality rates.
The region has also been battling divergent security challenges, including the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East, farmers-herders, as well as religious clashes in the North Central and banditry across the North West. Thousands of people have as a result, been killed or displaced in the crises that seem unending.
From having the highest number of states that cannot sustain themselves without federal allocations to a growing number of out-of-school children and a lack of sufficient manufacturing industries, northern Nigeria has been groaning in pain as the fight for survival continues, albeit in a difficult situation.
Unfortunately, the leaders, particularly the state governors despite huge allocations, have failed to address the problem of high illiteracy level or come up with a united position on ways to stop the killings and kidnapping of innocent citizens.
Added to the above challenges, experts argue that some retrogressive cultural practices which have retarded progress in the region need to be abolished.
Speaking at the 4th edition of the Kaduna Investment Summit (KadInvest 4.0), Chairman of the Dangote Group of Companies, Aliko Dangote, berated northern governors for doing little to end poverty in the region.
He added that northern Nigeria would continue to remain poor unless state governments collaborate with the private sector to create investments and close development gaps in the region.
According to him, “Nigeria is ranked at 157th out of 189 countries on the human development index. While the overall socio-economic condition in the country is a cause for concern, the regional disparities are, in fact, very alarming. In the northwestern and northeastern parts of Nigeria, more than 60 per cent of the population lives in extreme poverty.
“It is instructive to know that the 19 northern states, which account for over 54 per cent of Nigeria’s population and 70 per cent of its landmass, collectively generate only 21 per cent of the total sub-national IGR in the year 2017. Northern Nigeria will continue to fall behind if the respective state governments do not move to close the development gap,” Dangote explained.
The Northern Governors’ Forum has repeatedly voiced deep concerns over the alarming increase in the number of out-of-school children in the region, labeling it as a pressing issue that demands immediate attention, but has done nothing to check this growing trend.
Speaking at its meeting in Kaduna, the Chairman of the forum, Governor Muhammadu Yahaya of Gombe State, decried that northern Nigeria currently shoulders the unfortunate burden of hosting the highest number of out-of-school children globally.
He emphasised the urgency of addressing the ‘unacceptable reality,’ asserting, “Every child deserves access to quality education to thrive in today’s dynamic global economy.”
He stressed the moral obligation of investing substantially in education, healthcare, and social services to unleash the full potential of youth and empower future generations.
Northern leaders have continued to unwittingly encourage and promote illiteracy and poverty among the common people by encouraging certain practices.
Speaking after paying a courtesy visit recently to the Emir of Zazzau, in Kaduna State, Ambassador Nuhu Bamali, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, said the country needs to urgently tackle the devastating effects of poverty and insecurity in the northern region of Nigeria through agriculture and industrial revolution.
Obi lamented that the majority of the vast arable lands in the North are uncultivated while most of the industries in the region have shut down due to a lack of political will and inconsistent government economic policies.
“The way things are in our country today requires that all of us must get involved in one way or the other. Nigeria has nothing to do with poverty if those of us who are political leaders, including my humble self, had decided to serve the country faithfully. Because if we do, Nigeria will have nothing to do with poverty.
“Looking at the North, we can make more money from agriculture than we are making from oil. We have vast uncultivated land in the North, which can help pull people out of poverty, provide food for Nigeria, provide raw materials for industrialisation, and support export. We need to invest in the North. Insecurity is driven by poverty; the more you pull people out of poverty, the more you reduce insecurity,” he said.
Vandalism, arson, killings in Northern Nigeria
Throughout the period of the hunger protest, there was no case of vandalism, arson and/or killings like in the Northern region.
The South East is perhaps the only region that shunned the protest totally. Defending their position, Vice President of the Ohanaeze, Damian Okeke Ogene, had said in a statement that the region decided to shun the protest because of what the region suffered from past protests and did not want to be made the scapegoat.
According to him, “We usually bear the brunt,” adding, their indifference was not an admission that things were well with Nigeria.
“We are not saying all was right. We are also facing what others are facing,” he said, adding that the South East believed in the leadership of late President-General of Ohanaeze, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, who asked the Igbos before his death on 25 July to shun the protest to avoid being made the scapegoats.
In the South South, apart from the August 1 outing in Agbor, Delta State, where youths blocked the highway to Benin, Asaba and Onitsha, only Rivers State recorded fierce protest.
The state was already embroiled in a political crisis involving the current Minister of Federal Capital Territory, who is also the immediate past governor of the state, Nyesom Wike and his erstwhile, political son, and current governor of the state, Siminalayi Fubara.
The tussle is about who controls the resources and political machinery of the oil-bearing state.
However, it was not so calm in the North. The protest witnessed wanton destruction of properties and bloodshed. A dangerous introduction to the protest was the display of a foreign flag by the angry youths.
Though it is normal for protesters to carry the flag of their country, the impact of the #EndBadGovernance protest was something else.
With some of the angry protesters bearing the Russian flag, they descended on places in Kaduna, where they destroyed one of the first-generation banks in the Tudun Wada area.
The spokesman of Kaduna State Police Command, Mansir Hassan, confirmed how the protesters broke into the bank, carted away some valuables and also destroyed some vehicles parked within the bank premises.
Hassan, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, also related how the protesters attempted to hijack a police armoured personnel carrier at Tundun Wada area by climbing on top of the vehicle since it was carrying live ammunition.
The driver, he explained, who couldn’t have used maximum force against the crowd, had to professionally resist them.
The police also confirmed the burning down of a security patrol vehicle belonging to the Kaduna State Vigilance Service at Rigasa in the Igabi Local Government Area of the state as well as the razing of the Zaria office of the Kaduna State Traffic Law Enforcement Agency by the hoodlums.
Also vandalized was the headquarters of the Kaduna Investment and Promotion Agency where valuables were carted away. Similarly, at Kastella headquarters the hoodlums carted away hundreds of seized motorcycles including tricycles.
The protest was not without its casualties. There were reported cases of killings in some parts of the state.
No fewer than 10 people were said to have lost their lives including an 18-year-old Ismail Mohammed who was gunned down by a trigger-happy soldier in a bizarre manner in their home at HayinDogo in Zaria.
The protest was not limited to Kaduna State as other states, particularly in the North West zone got a taste of youth’s red fury.
In Kano State, the NCC digital skills centre office was vandalized by the protesters, who reportedly carted away over 300 computers at the centre.
Also, in Niger State, there were reported cases of two teenagers killed during the protest.
In Zamfara State, both public and private properties of citizens were not spared by the protesters while they similarly vent their anger on some politicians they perceived as not helping their people.
Two lawmakers in Jigawa and Yobe States were some of their targets as well as some other residents, who claimed their valuables were looted by the rampaging youths.
One of such victims is Mrs. Chinaso Obi who lives in Sokoto road, Kaduna metropolis. According to her, her apartment was vandalized by some of the protesters.
She said they stormed her residence and looted her valuables.
“The hoodlums broke into my house and carted away my items. They packed my TV; they removed my deep freezer’s compressor.
“Everything usable in the house was looted in my house. They packed everything including my clothes and shoes,” she narrated.
But why were the protesters angry? Some individuals who spoke to journalists revealed that the North, especially young people, was angry with the president over the removal of fuel subsidies.
They had expected him to announce the restoration of the subsidy or review it when he took over the government from Muhammadu Buhari.
Most of them, it was learnt, were disenchanted because the cost of fuel which is now N900 per litre and has made the cost of transport very expensive, therefore forcing up the prices of food and other items.
Abubakar Saad, who also joined in the protest, explained how the removal of fuel subsidy had particularly affected him, saying “you can’t remove subsidy when you did not provide an alternative. We expected the president to do the needful before he announced the fuel subsidy removal,” but according to him, the president did not do the needful but went ahead to remove the subsidy arbitrarily.
Though there are other reasons, hunger is perhaps the most crucial, according to a female protester who pleaded for anonymity.
“Scarcity of food has hit most communities and is now very expensive,” she explained, claiming she joined the protest because she could no longer bear the economic hardship.
Another reason the youth are angry and by extension the North is the intractable insecurity bedeviling the region.
“The spokesman of Kaduna State Police Command, Mansir Hassan, confirmed how the protesters broke into the bank, carted away some valuables and also destroyed some vehicles parked within the bank premises”
Some of the placards the protesters bore said as much.
Inscriptions like “Enough of these killings”, “We are suffering. Our farmlands have been taken away by bandits”, “We say No to insecurity”, “We say No to Boko Haram, Banditry, Kidnapping and terrorism in our region,” graphically describing how they felt about the situation of the region.
One of the aggrieved youths in an interview said that thousands of innocent souls were killed, women, including young girls, had been raped by the bandits.
“Our communities have been wiped away. When will this carnage end?” he asked.
Worried about the situation in the North, a non-government organisation, Advocacy for Advancement of Peace &Harmony in Africa Initiative, urged political leaders as well as other leaders of thoughts in the region to quickly wake up to their responsibilities to avert imminent explosion through violent revolt by the majority of idle youths.
ADAPHAI, in a statement signed by its national coordinator, Sulaimon Suberu, was alarmed by the raw anger displayed by the protesters as well as destruction they did to public infrastructure.
The group said the looting spree and level of vandalism recorded in the North was a total departure from the notion behind the nationwide strike, but a reflection of a volatile society of the North, where the majority of the youths are practically uneducated and idle.
Shettima appeals to northern leaders on region’s backwardness
Meanwhile, Vice President Kashim Shettima has called on northern political leaders to join hands to address the lingering insecurity and poverty which have continued to affect lives in the region.
Speaking in an interview with BBC Hausa Service aired on Saturday, the vice president said northern leaders are not yet late to come together and face the reality regardless of political differences.
Shettima said Northern Nigeria has everything it takes to develop and alter current socio-economic misfortunes that undermine its progress compared to other regions of the country.
“All patriotic political leaders of northern political extraction have to come together regardless of political, tribal and religious differences to brainstorm and solve the problems of the region,” Shettima appealed.
The vice president said President Bola Tinubu is aware of the current economic challenges facing the nation and is doing everything possible to solve the problems. “Things will get better soon,” he added.
Shettima also discredited insinuations claiming that the APC-led Federal Government is indifferent to the northern region in allocation of resources, saying, “out of 46 ministers, 24 are from the north.”
