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The apex northern socio-cultural group, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), has expressed its desire to support northern candidates and others seeking political offices in 2027 to save the region and the country.
It described some of the policies of the present administration as being injurious to the region.
ACF national chairman Mamman Mike Osuman disclosed this during the organisations National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held at the ACF secretariat in Kaduna on Wednesday.
The ACF chieftain said the meeting was aimedat examining the region’s deplorable situation and urged Northerners to take responsibility for saving the region from bad governance come the 2027 elections.
“There is now a clarion call for individual sacrifices and individual inputs for the survival of our region and the emancipation of our downtrodden people.
“A sizable number of regional brothers and sisters have demonstrated proclivity towards politics and political offices come 2027. They are already focusing on the 2027 elections. While politics is sine qua non in our clime, this moment calls for recognising our region’s plights and strategic efforts to ameliorate hardships that have besieged people.
“I do understand their feelings. It is not in doubt that the North is currently under siege. Our dear region is not only being viciously attacked by bandits, terrorists and kidnappers but also by sinister devices like disproportionate considerations and inequitable treatment.
“I admit that some policies of the current administration are repugnant and adverse to our regional interests.
“ACF believes that specific policies and behaviours of our regional leaders need some critical evaluation.”
He questioned elected leaders over their prudence and concern for the region’s domestic and environmental problems.
He went on: “To what extent are our governors and legislators synergising with our traditional leaders in combating ills within our region? – to the extent that some of our sons, daughters, sisters and brothers are sometimes criminal participants in the disquiet, ills and crimes that torment us in our region.
“What are we (leaders of thought and stakeholders) doing towards arresting their evil trend and propensities?”
He also pointed fingers at parents, religious teachers, and the elite for not having initiated “an orientation and public awareness to educate our people on the need for self-defence and self-preservation?”
“Illegal mining by foreigners aided by our people exists in some states. What local strategies are on the ground towards arresting this vice?” he asked.
ACF chairman Mike Osuman noted that the ACF had recently received an invitation from a new body called the League of Northern Democrats (LND) and said the ACF supported its objectives which had been constituted in response to the worsening condition in Northern
Nigeria, a region that has been plagued by endemic poverty, illiteracy, religious and ethnic conflicts, unemployment, insecurity, and the collapse of key institutions.
He went on: “The waning political relevance of our region within the larger Nigerian nation-state is also a matter of grave concern that the League seeks to address.”
The ACF chairman stressed the need for public awareness to educate the people on the importance of self-defence in the North due to the prevailing insecurity.
Osuman emphasised the urgent need for collective action to address the deteriorating situation.
Past Northern leaders failed woefully – Gov Sani
Kaduna State governor Uba Sani has pointed out that northerners have held key positions in successive administrations but failed to enunciate and implement programmes to tackle poverty, address the infrastructure gap, and unify northerners.
The governor warned that if Northerners fail to retrace their steps and tackle the security and developmental challenges facing the region with all the energy and resources they can muster, they may not be able to sleep in their houses in the next five years.
The governor advocated that past and present northern leaders develop a Marshal Plan for youth development in the north.
On Wednesday, as a panellist at the Stakeholders’ Roundtable On Northern Nigeria Youth Development, organised by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation, Governor Sani argued “that the people’s patience is running out because they are beginning to question our actions. They are saying no to our self-centred politics. They are demanding answers. And answers we must give them.’’
Sani stated that “to progress as a nation, we must stop living in denial. We must look at ourselves in the mirror and accept that we have failed our people. Blaming others for our predicament will not take us anywhere. If we fail to retrace our steps and tackle our security and developmental challenges with all the energy and resources we can muster, we may not be able to sleep in our houses in the next five years,” he said.
According to him, the marshal plan must involve all stakeholders, and all Northerners who held political positions from 1999 to date (from the federal to state levels) must be involved in this North Rescue Mission.
“Apart from the political class, the business class, traditional and religious institutions, and the civil society must be involved.
“Our people want to know why the North is backward despite the humongous amount sunk into its development. They want to know why the Northern elite, who have controlled the levers of power for years, failed to develop the North. They want to know why there are thriving Southern-owned industries and banks, while very few are owned by people from the North,’’ he said.
The Kaduna State governor recalled that before 2016, the north was largely peaceful, with only occasional ethno-religious conflicts.
“People could travel freely around the North without fear of being attacked by criminal elements.
The governor lamented that “while other regions are busy addressing developmental challenges and making life better for their people, terrorism, kidnapping, banditry, insurgency, and communal conflicts have left Northern communities desolate.
“The activities of non-state actors have impacted our youths. Then came terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and insurgency. We folded our arms and failed to address the underlying causes of these threats to our collective existence,’’ he added.
