Northern Nigeria has been the nation’s Achilles Heel. Yes, they produce the bulk of the food consumed in Nigeria. That, in itself, is an anomaly which is tied to the South’s greater urban orientation and consequential retreat from farming. The nation largely depends on Northern Nigeria for much of farmed food. Beside this, however, the North has been the major burden troubling this nation. This is evident in factors such as multifaceted jihadist terrorism, mass school abductions, social inequity, millions of out-of-school children and abysmal human development index.
I did my Youth Service in the North and started my journalism career there. I bear witness that the North is blessed with rich human, natural and cultural resources that should have added to the glories of Nigeria if the system had permitted. The greatest factor militating against the actualisation of Northern Nigeria’s greatness (and by extension that of the nation at large) is the Sokoto Caliphate system. That is the main disease disturbing not just the North but Nigeria in general. When Fulani patriarch, Usman Dan Fodio, completed his jihad in the North West and parts of the North Central in 1804, he used Islam to blind and bamboozle the overwhelming Hausa majority and installed his Fulani ethnic group as their overlords.
