Tanko Yunusa is a politician and human rights activist. He was the chief spokesman to the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi. Yunusa is currently the coordinator Obidient Movement globally. He was also a former vice presidential candidate and national chairman, National Conscience Party; national chairman, Inter Party Advisory Council Nigeria; and member, National Peace Committee. In this interview, Yunusa recounts how the Northern leaders contributed in under-developing the region despite having produced most of the Nigerian presidents. Among other things, he said that Nigeria as a whole faces numerous fundamental challenges, while different regions also face different hurdles peculiar to them. Excerpts:
You have always talked about the challenges facing the North regarding development, what do you think can be done to remedy this?
As a young and committed Nigerian, I have always believed that all citizens of our country are intrinsically interdependent. What happens in the North, therefore, affects us all. Likewise, the South since we are all stakeholders in the Nigerian project.
I speak, therefore, as a concerned citizen of the Nigerian commonwealth, and in a spirit of brotherhood. To quote the Nigerian Head of State then, Muhammadu Buhari, when he ruled the country as a military leader, he said, ‘we have no other country than Nigeria, and we shall remain here and salvage it together.’
So, when I was called upon to make a presentation and as the title of the topic suggests, the Northern leadership and Northern development, I did justice, to it to the best of my ability, to the two key words – ‘the Northern leadership and then the Northern development, and in attempt to marry the relationship between the two. I also preferred solutions from the standpoint as well as practical remedies that, if adhered to, could solve the regions’ myriad of problems on a short, medium, and long-term basis.
Don’t forget that other eminent scholars, experts, and development strategists have offered the same in the past, and I believe they continue to bare their minds on this vital subject.
So, mine was just an addition to the volume of literature that could assist in making the Northern region a better place for its good and that of the country at large. This means that my focus is on how the northern leadership could be used for the benefit of not only the region, but the whole Nigerian project, without any acts of bias, discrimination, myopia, ineptitude, favoritism, corruption, and servitude to foreign interests, and all other tendencies that are injurious to the survival of the whole nation.
“Beyond being oblivious of any backlash to the monopolization of executive powers, the northern leaders, especially the military elite, took various decisions that undermined the cohesion and unity of the region, the country, and the peaceful coexistence of citizens”
Do you have the mindset that the North has not prioritized human capital development?
Yes, is the answer, and during my presentation when I was called upon at Arewa House, Kaduna State, the second part of my paper was well stressed, “The Northern Development,” and I suggest it has two folds. The region, and the country must create and grow wealth as well as achieve human development as a core foundation.
By human development, of course, I mean unity and cohesion among its various ethnic and religious divides, life expectancy, education and knowledge, and per capita income.
You will also note a reference to the 21st century. This refers to modernity, the implications of globalization in the march of human progress as opposed to insularity, the quantum leaps in science and technology in this century, and the imperative that Northern Nigeria and indeed all of Nigeria must not be left behind in this journey. And then, the imperative of social and economic transformation, which means I am saying that given the reality on the ground today if Northern Nigeria is to achieve prosperity, a fundamental shift in how Nigerian citizens in the North perceive, create, and respond to the world around us (the worldview) is not an option. It is an imperative.
Taken together then, what I am pontificating is that Northern Nigeria must now frame a strategic choice, which must be of prosperity for its diverse populace of Northern extraction as opposed to prevailing poverty.
To achieve prosperity, certain aspects of northern society and economic organizations must necessarily change.
What do you think affects the economy of the North despite enormous endowments?
The term Northern Nigeria is a geographical entity that comprises 19 states of the federation. It has over 360 ethnic nationalities with different tribes and languages. The region has a population of, as well as richness in fertile landmass for effectual agricultural activities and mineral resources deposits that cannot be found everywhere.
Northern Nigeria has a total land mass of about 20,131km, which is 7,773 sq. miles, and a population of about 120 million as of today. While there is no denying that the then Northern region was a monolithic entity with one leadership and one vision, the narrative is different today.
The region today comprises 19 semi-independent entities, each with its Chief Executive and independent vision, coupled with the current federal structure of Nigeria, playing a significant role in the challenges faced by the region.
The ‘Northern Identity’ created by the 1960s regional leaders that led to the development of the region and made every person see himself as equal to the other (one North) ended in the gutters with the creation of more states in the country. When we talk of capacity for development, I can also say that Northern Nigeria has the greatest government capacity and developed and organized infrastructural institutions/parastatals.
For instance, there are more international airports and local airports in the North than any in other regions. North has more Federal and State universities, Federal and State Polytechnics, and Colleges of Education. They are supposed to have more professors and graduates than all other parts of the country.
The North has more working railways and borders than any other region, even dry seaports. Nevertheless, despite all these potential, the region is backward in a socio-economic and political sense in corporate Nigeria.
Northern Nigeria matters. The region matters beyond arguments about land mass and population statistics because it is a foundational partner in the establishment of Nigeria as one country through the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorate in 1914.
More profoundly, the bitter truth that many don’t seem to accept, the North is above all, the stabilizing region in corporate Nigeria. To buttress this statement, I quote the late Sardauna of Sokoto, and only Premier of Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello in a speech before the British House of Commons during the Constitutional conference in London before Nigerian independence, he said: ‘Take away the North, there will be no Nigeria.” And as years went by, indications that the North is still the stabilizing region in the continued survival of Nigeria as a one indivisible country. But despite this and other crucial statuses of the region, there is a big problem in the North today, and that problem also affects the overall pace of economic, social, and political progress of Nigeria as a whole.
You said the North is trailing behind other regions even when it has monopolized leadership in Nigeria?
We need to agree on what exactly that problem is because we can’t overcome an obstacle if we don’t understand clearly what that obstacle is, or if we know what it is, but pretend not to know, or if we mischaracterize the problem and thus confuse ourselves and the whole picture. We want to solve the problem or overcome the obstacle and make progress. Until the Fourth Republic, the combination of the machinations of the British colonialists and the subsequent “stronghold” posturing of the northern elite almost completely ‘northernised’ the position of Head of State and Commander of the Armed Forces. Between independence in 1960, and before the inception of the Fourth Republic on May 29, 1999, the North ruled Nigeria for approximately 34 out of the 39 years. Beyond being oblivious of any backlash to the monopolization of executive powers, the northern leaders, especially the military elite, took various decisions that undermined the cohesion and unity of the region, the country, and the peaceful coexistence of citizens.
General Ibrahim Babangida annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election based on parochial and group interests that were never explained to the nation to this day. Popular Nigerian philanthropist and businessman from the South West of this country, MKO Abiola, was on his way to officially winning the election when Babangida halted the announcement of the results and cancelled the election outright for inexplicable reasons.
General Sani Abacha threw General Olusegun Obasanjo, also from South West Nigeria, into detention for trumped-up involvement in a coup d’état. Besides the marginalization of the South East and South-South geopolitical zones in his appointments, the immediate past government of President Buhari has been insensitive to the atrocities of Fulani herdsmen.
“If access to political power automatically leads to economic success, Northern Nigeria would be the richest part of Nigeria”
The herdsmen, who have now turned into daredevil terrorists, have been on a killing rampage since 2015. The death toll in southern communities and across sections of the North has long reached alarming levels.
But the Buhari administration seems anything, but perturbed, and has done little to stem the crisis. Given the insensitivity to the geopolitical dynamics of the country, there has been tension in the country. Agitation for a sovereign state of Biafra received a new impetus. The economy slipped into recession since last year, in part because of fuel prices subsidy removal, which was effected by the Buhari administration, but Tinubu implemented it, which has brazenly inflicted severe economic hardship on the whole country.
Why do you have the feeling that the North has been underdeveloped by Northern leaders?
Given the appeal to the narrow northern power base and nepotistic appointments, the national economy tends to underperform with the northern leaders.
It was Buhari who led the economy into the first recession in 25 years, which Tinubu inherited. The rail revolution that started with Goodluck Jonathan’s administration would have been afoot at least three years earlier, but for the cancellation of the contracts President Yar’Adua inherited from his predecessor.
The same is true with the recent efforts to move forward with reform in the power sector and get private sector participation in petroleum refining. But the brunt of the misgovernance has been felt the most in the North.
The North has wielded political power in the country to the effect of the under-development of the North. In vital areas of development, including access to education, and broader development indicators, the North is behind the southern part of the country.
Do you think this statistics cannot be countenanced by other Northern scholars?
According to the 2025 United Nations Human Development Report for Nigeria, “across the geo-political zones, data for 2024 shows that mean years of schooling was highest in the South-South zone (10.664), and followed by the South West zone. It is lowest in the North West zone (3.8126). The North East and North West zones had values lower than the national average figure, while the southern zones all had higher values than the national average figure.”
The country is also said to be politically controlled by the North, does that also affect them economically?
Political leadership in Northern Nigeria today is marked as in several other parts of Nigeria, but with more harmful effects in the North by selfishness and corruption. Northern Nigeria has produced heads of government for 42 years out of the 58 years of the country’s independence. But this fact has had no redemptive impact on the fortunes of the average citizen in Kano, Potiskum, or Zamfara.
There is a fallacy that if a Northerner holds national political power the fortunes of the average person in the region will improve. Neither history nor contemporary facts support this nonetheless widespread notion. This truth applies not just to Northern Nigeria but to other parts of Nigeria as well.
If access to political power automatically leads to economic success, Northern Nigeria would be the richest part of Nigeria. The northern political elite influence the poor citizens in the region with the imperative of retaining political power at the national level, but these citizens do not understand that this is simply an elite game by and for the benefit of the elite and that they should be more interested in performance-based leadership regardless of the ethnic or religious background of individual national leaders.
Psychologically satisfied that “power is with the North,” poverty seems a small price to pay, and they fail to hold their self-serving ethnic irredentists to account. The seeming preoccupation of the region’s elite with acquiring and retaining political power for the wrong reasons is, paradoxically, one of the most important drivers of the underdevelopment of Northern Nigeria. It will take a powerful mindset shift to confront, accept, and act on this truth.
You may have a good record of social vices amongst the Northern youths?
Northern Nigeria is riddled today with severe social tensions that include high levels of youth unemployment, drug abuse, and the weak status of women in society. While youth unemployment is a major problem across the country, it is especially acute in Northern Nigeria.
Drug abuse indicates a rising tide of hopelessness that can only be reversed by a combination of measures addressing not just the problem of drug abuse in isolation, but also the underlying causes, such as youth unemployment.
The status of women in Northern Nigeria remains relatively weak. I am not a Muslim, and so cannot claim to be an authority in Islamic law, but I am aware that several Islamic scholars have challenged the conventional wisdom of locating the low status of women in Northern Nigeria in religion.
There are also several countries whose populations are far more dominantly Islamic than Nigeria, but women play far more muscular roles in political and economic leadership. Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan are examples. There is clear evidence around the world that educating girls, children, and women, in general, help break the cycles of poverty.
Insecurity we know is also part of the problems, do you agree?
Northern Nigeria has been plagued by insecurity in recent years. Long standing terrorism by the Boko Haram group has now been complicated by armed banditry, kidnapping, and armed herdsmen rampaging across both Northern and Southern states in orgies of killings and violence.
In a supreme irony, the security situation in the region has worsened in tandem with the controversial concentration of the leadership of security agencies in the hands of officials of northern origin in recent years.
These realities have kept business investment, domestic and foreign, largely out of Northern Nigeria, further contributing to economic depression.
We must not forget that protecting the welfare and the security of lives and property of citizens is the cardinal duty of the government.
State failure looms in the absence of security such as we have in Northern Nigeria today. While many analysts have described the situation as the chickens coming home to roost from decades of weak governance and wrong priorities of the northern political elite, we cannot accept any excuses for the security situation in the region.
Can you proffer solutions, or is the North going to remain like this in your suggestion?
The solutions to Northern Nigeria’s social, economic, political, and social challenges are as multi-dimensional as the challenges. They include a fundamental re-setting of mindsets and strategic priorities in and for the region, constitutional reforms, security reforms, progressive social development, and an economic transformation agenda.
As a Northerner, you seem to be indifferent to the campaign against restructuring?
Many people in Northern Nigeria have been sold the false notion that those who advocate for restructuring which is nothing more than one of many words that could describe a return to true federalism want to “break up Nigeria” or support an agenda that is “anti-North”. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The fixation with keeping Nigeria in its current failing form, with a near–total dependence on crude oil revenues, the “resource curse” and a top-down fiscal allocation mechanism, is one of the most important drivers of poverty in Northern Nigeria as well as in the oil-producing states of the South-south.
The truth, then, is that those advocating a return to true federalism, which cannot be achieved by a piecemeal “devolution of powers” in an effectively unitary system, actually want our country to make real progress. But a large swathe of the Northern Nigerian political elite (and a few others outside Northern Nigeria) resist the idea of constitutional restructuring on the mistaken assumption that our current “feeding-bottle federalism” arrangement is tantamount to “national unity” and one, “indissoluble” Nigeria.
It is far better to make Nigeria a truly workable country rather than the progressively dysfunctional one it has become. This resistance also springs often from the self-interest of corrupt political elites that have cornered access to Nigeria’s crude oil national resources and don’t want to let go.
How should Nigeria be constitutionally restructured, and what advantages will accrue to Northern Nigeria from such an exercise?
We need a new constitution that restores federalism in spirit, truth, and letter. This means a structure that explicitly recognizes the exclusive jurisdictions of two tiers of government only – a central national government and sub-national ones. Such a constitution will reduce the bloated powers of the Federal Government of Nigeria represented in an Exclusive Legislative List of 68 items on which only the Federal Government may make laws, and devolve most of those powers to sub-national governments. The latter will own all natural resources under their soil and pay a tax of about 30 – 40 per cent to the national government. The central government will retain exclusive control over institutions such as the Armed Forces, the Central Bank, monetary and currency policy, foreign affairs, immigration, citizenship, and nationality.
In a proper federal constitution, only the central and sub-national governments will be identified as tiers of governance, not three tiers as is the case in the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria. This does not mean that local governments must be abolished, but rather that sub-national governments may create local governance entities as they wish.
