GROUP  mobilisation using ethnic, religious or class sentiments is a strategy which political elites in Nigeria often use to gain the support of the dominated citizens to give them political legitimacy. They often do this to gain the support of their constructed identity group or sub-groups, irrespective of the consequences to others.

Hence, many politicians in Nigeria prefer to project themselves along ethnic, religious, or regional lines which have been reinforced by Nigeria’s colonial and post-colonial history and the failure of the national socio-political developmental strategies to make Nigerians full citizens of any part of the country in which they are resident. The reason why Mallam Sanusi Lamido, the Central Bank Governor, should regress to this strategy in his interview with the Financial Times of London requires further examination.

As the chief official at the apex of the banking industry, the only plausible reason why Mallam Sanusi Lamido may have ventured into this recursive strategy in Nigerian politics may be that, like many other politico-bureaucrats, he is posturing for the 2015 elections.

He has the right to aspire for any higher office, if he so chooses, but what is unacceptable and most undignified, is his desire to denigrate the cry of the Niger-Delta people for true federalism, by ascribing the underdevelopment of the Northern part of Nigeria to the 13 percent oil allocation, distributed from oil and gas revenue to some Niger-Delta states.

In the first place, the injustice of his claim starts with the assumption that the aforesaid allocations was an agreement entered into between the exploited oil producing states and other federating units. His counterfactual premise is a double edge sword into the heart of the cause of oil producing states, because at one point it assumes that the exploited states are awash with funds from federal revenue and thus satisfied with this arrangement, and attempts to stymie any further discussion on the basis of the allocation in the first instance, by implying that for the oil producing states their benefits are superfluous. To further worsen the mortal wound on the oil producing states, he blames this arrangement for the developmental regression of Northern states.

But, the fact is, no-oil producing state or other states of the federation  consulted before an allocation of 13  per cent in section 162 of the constitution for ‘’any natural resorces’’ applicable to all states  was reached. This allocation was the creation of a military dictatorship which also created a constitution and asserted that Nigerians did so. Therefore, the claim of Mallam Lamido that these states are awash with federal revenue is to turn the argument on its head.

In fact, the Nigerian Federal Government treasury is awash with funds from oil producing states, confiscated from them by military fiat and legitimized by an imposed constitution, created without consultation or referendum by Nigerians. But that argument is for another day and should not make it necessary to digress from the main issue; the hot potato of falsehood, dropped by Mallam Lamido to the effect that the 13 per cent allocation causes under-development in the North, a claim that requires historical and factual refutation to obviate its propagation.

So why are most parts of the North underdeveloped in comparison with many Southern states? It is important to make the distinction that not all parts of the North are impoverished for the same reasons that all parts of the South are not developed to the same extent. This distinction brings to the fore the underlying reasons for greater development in some parts of the South of Nigeria. The foundational problem for regression in the development of the North has long been identified by its own elites and lies in its “suspicions of Western education”; these phrase is paraphrased because those were the exact words of Professor Jubril Aminu, although like many other northern elites, Professor Aminu only mentioned this underlying cause in passing, while blaming sectionalism in university admission for the potential regression of the North. What Professor Aminu, however, failed to point out, because of his jaundiced views, was that states in the North like North Central states that are not hostile to Western education, were also far ahead of those which were hostile in terms of human capital development.

What Professor Aminu feared in the ’80s as a dangerous portent for Northern development, was first identified in 1952, as quoted by the learned Professor himself when he cited the alarm of a delegation of the British Inter-university Council for Higher Education in the Colonies, which noted in its visit to the University College Ibadan at that time, that the North had very few students enrolled in the university.

But while Professor Aminu blamed ethnic preferences and favouritism for the higher number of students from the “advanced” states, as he puts it, for the disparities, just as Mallam Lamido blames the 13 per cent allocation in his recent interview, few Northern elites will point to the visionary social policies of Obafemi Awolowo, who introduced universal free education to the Western region, including the current Edo and Delta states, the areas which all currently account for the highest university enrollments and relatively higher human capital development in Nigeria.Fewer still Northern elites will acknowledge the fact that Awolowo built the first regional agricultural settlement in Nigeria, the first groups of industrial estates and the first television media even ahead of Spain, because he was developing the human capital to effectively utilize these projects. Western Nigeria Television taken over by the Federal Goverment of Nigeria, now called NTA, was  established by Chief  Awolowo.



VIRTUALLY all private owned media houses, both print and electronic, with national coverage are owned by Southerners.The Guardian,Vanguard,ThisDay,Independent Daily, Ait, Channels, Silverbird television stations, to mention but a few, are owned by people from Niger Delta, particularly Delta and Edo states that were hitherto part of South West Nigeria under  Awolowo’s exemplary leadership.

These visionary policies did not convert the large population of Muslims in the then Western Nigeria to Christians, yet they benefited from the value addition which these policies introduced to the region.

In contrast, the Northern region did everything it could to keep Western education at bay, an educational system which Professor Aminu acknowledged was introduced by missionaries with their “concomitant proselytising activities” which “rendered them unacceptable in the Muslim North”.

The results are stark and sometimes grim. A recent survey in Lagos found that, eight out of every 10 “Okada” riders in Lagos are from the North; these were the same children or youths who were indoctrinated years ago to believe that Western education is “Haram”. Today they are fighting for their survival in the market-place of Western education, where the outcome for those with limited Western education is Hobbesian.

The Chinese officially are mostly  not keen on religion; the Russians for many years proscribed religion from official matters, yet they were far sighted enough to separate the wheat from the chaff- meaning that taking what is useful out of Western education need not change your religious orientation.

This social dilemma and the cultural disempowerment of women from the working place, amongst other factors, have contributed to the underdevelopment of many parts of the North. Yet, will Mallam Lamido and his ilk accept this? No!

They will rather blame the 13% allocated to states from where 100% of the oil and gas revenue was generated.For the same reason, some Northern elites like Lamido do not see the danger that a religious sect poses to the entire developmental agenda of the North when it embarks on a policy of fighting the same uphill battle against Western education, which is vastly responsible for under development of the human capital of many states in the North.

This needless cultural battle, is self-defeating. For instance, the first teacher-training institute in the North, the nursery of teachers who will teach others was established in 1922, but by 1953,  three decades and one year later, it had only enrolled 1000 students.

Further still, after 38 years at the centre of power in Nigeria, it only took, the government of Goodluck Jonathan to bring Federal universities to some Northern states, and the government of Obasanjo, another Southerner to liberalize  the establishment of private universities.

But even with these expansions, did the Northern elites like Mallam Lamido put their money where their mouth is by investing in education for the benefit of Northern youths and children to expand their future opportunities like Abubakar Atiku and a few others have done? No! They will rather blame the 13% allocation to oil producing states and find other nebulous reasons.

And what will be the outcome? Ogun State, the home of Awolowo who used education to put the spirit of industry and possibility in every Yoruba child without 13% oil allocation, where its people know the value of such foundations, and where most of its prominent citizens have Muslims for several generations in their families, has more universities than the total number of universities in the North West and North East of Nigeria combined.

Fifteen years from now, when the products of these universities will be on the board of global business empires, the Boko Haram graduates may still be making vernacular videos about abating the use of Western education in the North, while the oil producing states will be blamed by Mallam Lamido and his co-travelers for the North’s underdevelopment.

Dr. ANTHONY MUDIAGA, a medical practitionner, wrote from Abuja.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/02/is-13-to-niger-delta-cause-of-northern-underdevelopment/

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