During one of the several London conferences to discuss Nigeria’s independence in 1956, the Southern delegations had proposed 1957. But the Sardaunan Sokoto Ahmadu Bello, who led the delegation from the North, staunchly told the British colonialists his region wasn’t ready yet for self rule. Strange, wasn’t it? But he was right. The North hadn’t developed its own civil service and trained enough professionals of its own. It wasn’t going to replace one colonial administration with another, even if it was homegrown. He was resolute, no begging, no threat, no trade-off. The other delegations snoozed to wait a while. Such was the self confidence and strength the Northern leadership at the time exuded. No more now. Sun sureness has been replaced by self delusion.
Today, in the 21st Century, we have a North that is splintered, weak, like a frightened dog with its tail folded between its legs. It has become irresolute, importunate, beggarly. Like a baby seeking parental attention, the North cries and whines and froths ceaselessly. It is gripped by vice-like fear of the unknown. Something unheard of in the Sardauna era. Today, instead of one ringing voice, there is subdued cacophony of voices pretending to speak for the region and its peoples. There is ACF, there is NEF, there is a League of Northern Democrats and ever increasing youth organisations. They all expose the region’s badly lacerated underbelly. The other regions are looking, eyes popping and mouths open in surprise. Is this the same North that when it barked we used to shiver, the same North that stood over the nation “Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves”?, they ask.
No, not the same North but a North that isn’t as sun-sure of itself as before. It is one “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” [Eph. 4:14] Ahmadu Bello, as they say, must be turning in his grave, seeing what the North he led has become: a laughing stock. The North of his time wouldn’t be asking a Tinubu to pick Shettima again as his running mate in 2027 or that power be returned to the North. He would say power would come back to the North and that would be it. Why? Because the North was united and had the number. There was also an obvious ideological bent. There were two ideological currents, one the NPC representing the forces of conservatism and the other NEPU, an emerging force of liberalism popular with the “wretched of the earth.” Not any longer. Now a canvass of non differentiating political tendencies carpets the North. There are the APC, PDP, NNPP, Labour Party and many others, all identifiable by their single-minded push for “stomach infrastructure.” Politicians move between these parties, depending on which will offer to fill their stomachs. These are Esauan in character, prepared to trade their birthright for a mess of pottage.
It’s their desperation that has driven them to ‘beg’ for power to “come back home”, two clear years before another election is called. A Sardauna would never show his hand this early. He would use these two years to get into the groove. This early call or jumping the gun, as it were, indicates a weakened soul and spirit and as I said earlier those on the other side are “looking”. But if return of power were possible any time soon, so what? What would change? Look at it like this. Since independence, the North had produced one prime minister, five military heads of state and three elected presidents, yet the material state of the region hasn’t changed for better. Its economy hasn’t grown, infrastructure has decayed irreparably, school age kids loiter the streets begging for alm or waiting to be recruited by marauding armed gangs. So, without a much altered mindset, away from primitive wealth accumulation by our leaders, returning power to the North will be like washing a sow and putting it in bed with clean sheets. Of course, it will promptly abandon its new ‘home’ and return to the gutter where it belongs naturally.
For the North to really benefit from political power, if it does win it back, its political elite must be “transformed by the renewing of the mind.” It must be ready to swim against the national tide of fraudulently enriching self and move in the direction of selfless service in the interest of the governed. Let’s use the meagre resources we have to pull ourselves up. We can do it. Yes, we can.
