₦airaland Forum

IN this centennial season of blame game over everything that has gone wrong with Nigeria since 1914, it is not surprising that President Goodluck Jonathan has become the whipping boy. Yes, the buck stops at the President’s desk – and he knows that.
That is why he takes all manner of criticisms from all manner of people in his strides knowing that he asked for a difficult job in 2011 when he offered to serve the people as their President. In one of his recent chats with the media, President Jonathan did accept that Nigerians, including this writer, are justified to be angry and frustrated at the slow pace we have made as a people in the journey of development since independence in 1960.

While it is justifiable to criticise the President fairly for what he does or does not do, yet that does not confer on any person or group of persons the right to distort facts, misinform the people and accuse him (Jonathan) for offences, which even a day-old baby can exonerate him from. It is in this category that the accusations of Alhaji Ibrahim Coomasie and his Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) fall. According to the ACF, President Jonathan has not only failed the North but also hates our people from the North. Coomasie had said this at the recent emergency meeting of ACF and NGOs in the North.

Needless to point out that the ACF, under Coomasie, has become an irredeemable irredentist group of ethnic jingoists devoid of any nationalistic sentiments and aspirations. The once respected northern association has succumbed to the parochialism and the personalist littleness of its present promoters like the former inspector general of police. Lest we forget, the same Coomasie now attacking Jonathan and blaming him for the insecurity and the failings of the North headed the Nigerian police at its lowest and most notorious period. This was the era when Coomasie donated the Force to the arbitrary pleasures of the former dictator-head of state to persecute and eliminate Nigerian citizens from all parts of the country.

It is only in our country that people who brought opprobrium and ignominy to their fatherland are given yet another platform to further insult the sensibilities of citizens. Just as Nigerians thought they have heard the last of Coomasie, he suddenly re-emerged from obscurity at the recently concluded National Confab with even more vindictive and divisive spirit, which nearly ruined the honest efforts of many other patriotic Nigerians tired of ethnic politics and atavistic regionalism.

And to face the issues raised by Coomasies’s ACF, it is not true that President Jonathan has failed in protecting the North. If anything, it is some northern leaders like Coomasie who have failed the region. The insurgency ravaging the Northeast of Nigeria began even before Jonathan became president and that is, perhaps, the only fact that Coomasie could not twist. Although many scholars and strategists have given many reasons for the emergence of the deadly insurgence in the North, an eclectic position is that bad leadership that manifestly impoverished the people of the area for a long period of time is one certain factor.

For many years, northern elite wielded power and did absolutely nothing to improve the access and quality of education in the region. And neither did they build a culture of enterprise and industry there. Instead, what they promoted was personal wealth at the expense of the people, rural and mass poverty that Boko Haram is feeding off for its recruitment.

The schools that Jonathan is building and funding in the North today to take children of school age off the streets and make them less vulnerable to radicalisation and other abuses ought to have been done decades ago. And who was in charge then? Coomasie and some of his cohorts at the ACF are directly complicit of the crime against the children and people of the North. What did Coomasie do when he was in office to help the North? Perhaps the most important service he rendered to the North was to receive from General Sani Abacha the corpse of the late leader and nationalist, General Musa Yar’ Adua and brought him home to the Katsina people!
If Coomasie is weeping that the North has become divided politically today, how is that the problem of President Jonathan? The concept of the monolithic North has always been problematic.

The high-handedness of people like Coomasie who hid under the rally cry of “one North” to promote a certain ethnic group while subjugating the others in a well-orchestrated internal colonialism policy has found them out. The logic of democracy and the freedom that it inheres are responsible for the boldness that the hitherto subjugated peoples and groups in the North are displaying against an oligarchy that is slow in coming to terms with the reality of the modern Nigeria.

Those who are nostalgic about the “unity” of the North are perhaps jittery to explain in whose interest this unity had been in the past. If the monolithic North is disintegrating, it has nothing to do with the President.
If anything, those now pointing fingers at different directions need to re-examine the power relations in the North and how much power had been put in the service of the ordinary people all these years. If it takes an Ijaw man from Otuoke to improve the life chances of the ordinary citizens in the North who have borne the brunt of prebendal use of power by their own elite for many decades, who cares about the selfish moaning of Coomasie and his ACF?

It is unfair and wicked to suggest that Jonathan hates the North and that he is doing nothing to secure the northern parts of our country. Sometimes it amazes to grasp the position of some of the so-called northern leaders on the matter of Boko Haram insurgency. The same people barracking the President and accusing him of not doing enough to protect the North are the same people who insisted on the withdrawal of soldiers from the flashpoints in the Northeast.
The good news is that Coomasie is not speaking for the entire north and Tanko Yakasai and his Northern Elders Forum (NEF) have given us their word on that!

Hamisu Abukakar a public affairs analyst, wrote from Kaduna, Kaduna State.

- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/09/northern-leaders-failed-north/#sthash.akYr7OP6.dpuf

Sometimes I wonder what is in the brain of these northern elites rogue leaders. Do they have chalk for grey matter?

nice 1

your so on point sir.more grease to dat elbow of yurz.

The same way the South South Leaders have failed their people

This piece is drug. Straight laced truth. Your elites have failed you.
They are full of hypocrisy and bigotry. Preaching Islamic value while their kids(with tattoo-riddled bodies) school in US and UK overfed on stolen wealth. Driving state of the art vehicle without ever working or earn a dime.
Paraded and celebrated as wealthy men when they are just fraudulent civil servants. Acquiring arabs, shuwa arabs, "yellow" women while they are surrounded by abject poverty.

In an instance supporting their Nemesis, only to turn around later and double-deal with the other side (Remember, Nyako, Sule-Lamido and lately Ribadu). Claiming they represent Islamic justice when they condone the killing of the innocent during their numerous pogrom (Nobody have been prosecuted for the killing of christians, igbo etc,. during the riot years)
On one hand chorus One-north during sowing; only to switch to medley of Core-North during Reaping.

One word. SHAME

Posting on my Facebook tinz

We de de watch

There is no doubt that Past Northern leaders failed the North and Nigeria in general. And this is the same way Niger Delta people will cry after GEJ leaves office whether in 2015 or 2019 after yrs in power.

This is the hardcore truth, that ought to be played on BBC Hausa radio for a whole month.

Northern leaders didn't just fail the north. They failed Nigeria. We could all have been richer prosperous country if they should a little less greed and a little love for the entire country.

Nnewi1stSon:
Bros, i no come understand ooo , are you now a fan of GEJ? I thought you guys held him responsible for every woe that has befalling Nigeria?

I am not a fan of his and it does not mean he is cause of every woe betiding Nigeria.

It is his lack of provision of effective leadership to tackle the woes that is his shortcoming.

that said, it does not mean accessing fingers should not be pointed to the appropriate quarters.

If you have noticed, I do not delve into APC PDP shenanigans. We have all forgotten that politicians are colleagues and they know how they take care of each others interest. Can you believe Koro was in Saudi for lesser hajj before the Osun State election, he saw the wife of Aregbe and he categorically said they had a chat and some people will be killing themselves over the 2 parties.

superstar1:
This is the hardcore truth, that ought to be played on BBC Hausa radio for a whole month.

Well said, we don't need any northern president for the next 100years. They are presently backward and blood thirsty!

thought?

The North despite being called parasite to their face by supporters of the current president; they still shamelessly troop out en-mass to attend TAN rally in the North East in a show of solidarity and support for the El retardeen Jonathan. The same GEJ they claim was responsible for all their woes. In the everyday rhetoric of an average core-northerner, only GEJ is guilty, never their own kinsmen accomplices to the alleged atrocities like Namadi Sambo, Ahmed Gulak, Adamu Muazu etc.

By the way the predominant reasons they are anti-GEJ is not because of his lacklustre performance, cluelessness and gross competence. No! They are only after power returning to the core-North. Bunch of hypocritical lots with born-to-rule mentality, leading a goon of uneducated almajiri masses who does not have a clue of the type of mess they are currently in.

The same elite leaders who are goading them to TAN rally (now that things are rosy and they are embezzling their commonwealth); will one day rise up when things go sour and instigate them to ethno-religious riot and the killing of Igbos, Christians and everything inbetween.
Now they are hobnobbing with incompetent GEJ govt. but as soon as sh.it hit the fan they will cry out to the Middle-belters (Banza Bokwai) and other Muslims (who they mocked as inferior) to declare Jihad against the "Arne" Nigerians.

Absolute reverence to the populations of humanistic and rational northerner who stick to doing the right thing and speaking out against al form of bigotry, prejudice, intolerance and hypocrisy. Kudos

They are full of hypocrisy and bigotry. Preaching Islamic value while their kids(with tattoo-riddled bodies) school in US and UK overfed on stolen wealth. Driving state of the art vehicle without ever working or earn a dime.
Paraded and celebrated as wealthy men when they are just fraudulent civil servants. Acquiring arabs, shuwa arabs, "yellow" women while they are surrounded by abject poverty.

In an instance supporting their Nemesis, only to turn around later and double-deal with the other side (Remember, Nyako, Sule-Lamido and lately Ribadu). Claiming they represent Islamic justice when they condone the killing of the innocent during their numerous pogrom (Nobody have been prosecuted for the killing of christians, igbo etc,. during the riot years)
On one hand chorus One-north during sowing; only to switch to medley of Core-North during Reaping.

One word. SHAME