THERE are more reasons to continue with this discussion point this week on strategic and development plans for revival of development agenda and other critical success factors in northern Nigeria. I rounded off the second edition of this serial the other day with what the iconic Obafemi Awolowo predicted long ago if the northern elites failed to have consensus on how to leverage on mass education to develop their region in this complex federation. I hope the message of hope sank in.
There have been more suggestions and warnings to the northern elites and leaders about failure to freeze national politics with a view to concentrating on governance in the context of regional development planning. The elites, as I was saying, have been rushing for federal appointments at the Centre. They have been leaving the state governments’ bureaucracies at the mercy of mediocrities. Let’s not talk about the local government administration. If the foundation of state governments’ bureaucracies is weak what can the local governments do?
So as #Project 2027 politics is emerging with coats of many colours that may lead to 2027 general elections like no other, it is germane to urge northern leaders to read some writings on the walls of Nigeria’s ‘strong man’ who continues to show us that he means serious business. As I was saying earlier, he has quite strategically begun implementation of the dreaded federalism principles and practice. After the 2027 election he hopes to win, there will be more to chew on ‘renewed-hope federalism and its political uses’.
I have a dream that the renewed-hope federalism pursuit will be anchored on a conviction that a complex and socially diverse country like Nigeria can only be successfully governed by a truly federal arrangement, and not the present unitary contraption that has only delivered poverty, social unrest and the powerful centrifugal forces that are now threatening the very existence of the country itself as Ike Okonta, PhD has posited in his (2021) work on challenge of federalism in Nigeria.
I have looked again into the seeds of times and I have seen clearly from the crystal ball that federalism politics and policies may dominate the 2027-2031 tenure. And so our northern leaders and elites should begin to prepare to build some consensus on how to face the challenge of federalism, as an opportunity to rebuild the paradise lost since the 1966 coup that actually destroyed the essence of federalism we are contextualising as a bogeyman.
As I was saying, this isn’t new. Before the ‘soldiers of fortune’ arrived on the political scene in 1966 barely six years after independence, federalism was the democratic weapon of regional development.
So, any discerning person can see that federalism will be to the President, an idea whose time has come. It shouldn’t be received, therefore, as a bugbear. It is an opportunity to take back power to develop our regions from the centre, yes the centre that destroyed the regions in 1966. As I was saying, that should be discerned by our leaders in the North as another game changer coming from Abuja, “lest we should be the last” as I once quoted Kwesi Brew, the poet here.
There have been so many wake-up calls on the northern elites in recent time. Even as insecurity appears to have overwhelmed northern Nigeria, there have been calls for the region to rise up to the challenge now beyond looking up to the hills in Abuja where help seems to be a mirage, after all.
It seems that northern leaders are ‘waiting for Godot’ in Abuja where politics seems to have taken the steam out of reason and responsibility of duty bearers.
In December 2025, members of the Northern Governors’ Forum rose from a serious meeting in Kaduna after they decided to establish the Northern States Security Trust Fund, with each of the 19 northern states expected to contribute N1 billion per month. The specific objective is to tackle insecurity through coordinated regional action and support for federal military efforts. The idea of the end-of-year mission in Kaduna is conceptually simple: pooling resources to address the debilitating wave of insecurity driven by banditry, kidnapping for ransom, cattle rustling, and other violent crimes that have become part of daily life across the northern region.
But curiously, almost five months after the governors’ meeting and considering the worsening spate of insecurity, particularly in states such as Plateau, Kaduna, Benue, Katsina, Kebbi, and Niger, where many were killed or abducted during the Easter celebrations, there should be no justification for procrastination in implementing the Trust Fund idea. How many members of the elite have been putting pressure on the Governors Forum in the North about the Trust Fund?
Here is the thing, another lamentation from Abuja was published and broadcast yesterday when mismanagement of security strategy claimed the lives of more than twenty citizens including a Brigadier General as confirmed by the President. It is becoming increasingly “curiouser and curiosuer”, as in ‘Alice Adventures in Wonderland’ that the federal government’s assurances on addressing insecurity has become incredible. 2027 politicking may have happened to security management. There is now a sense in which we can claim that for the helpless people in the North, the situation is gruesome,as we see an inexplicable man’s inhumanity to man.
This bogey is dominant in a region with the largest population and landmass in the country, yet it remains the most multi-dimensionally poor by most measures. The north has for long, donned the reproach of having the highest number of out-of-school children. It trails other regions in virtually all key development indices. What is worse, this same northern Nigeria is also the country’s epicentre of recurring killings and mass abductions.
The United States has just issued advisories with a declaration of more than 20 states as unsafe to visit. The United States closed its Embassy in the nation’s capital, Abuja. This public relations tragedy for a country is happening as all the 19 states but one have prioritised defection and retention of loyalty to the ruling party that can guarantee their next meal in the next dispensation of political leadership.
In the days leading up to and during the Easter celebrations, reports indicated large-scale killings across northern Nigeria. In Benue State, bandits attacked communities, unleashing violence. In Plateau State, gunmen struck during Palm Sunday in Unguwan Rukuba, Jos, leaving many dead. In Kebbi State, Lakurawa militants carried out what eyewitnesses described as coordinated attacks on several communities.
It was an Easter tragedy even as our leaders were feasting and threatening to shoot journalists of conscience who are capable of deconstructing poor management of political party system. In Katsina State, bandits stormed Sayaya community in Matazu Local Government Area, attacking a police station and a health centre, killing officers and civilians. In Niger State, some communities were razed, with residents killed or abducted in brutal assaults.
How do we explain some peculiarities in this same core north? In Zamfara state that has experienced some of the atrocities at issue, the change in political rhetoric is troubling and quite instructive. A governor who was once outspoken in condemning the troubling level of insecurity and accusing the federal government of criminal negligence, has crossed over to political Jordan: he is now breaking bread with the ruling party and he can no longer talk where he is now eating more sumptuous meals for 2027 celebration of democracy that has produced “security and welfare of the people as the primary purpose of government”.
Where are the northern leaders and elites at this time? As they are chorusing ‘on your mandate we stand’, are they watching the gruesome acts whose pattern is now familiar and predictable? Armed groups invade vulnerable communities, set houses ablaze, kill indiscriminately, and drive survivors into displacement. What is more, killings, mass displacement, and abductions are no longer newsworthy. They no longer shock anyone. The buzzword is where next! Entire communities are recklessly abandoned. Residents leave their ancestral homes in search of safety while the same northern elites are safe in Abuja that can’t help their people. What happened to the January 2026 promise of Northern States Security Fund?
The final call to the elites:
The North that I know has a lot of brilliant and consistently reputable leaders who are part of the elites at issue here. I have consistently worked with and covered some of their organised and brilliant leaders including Malam Bukar Zarma, Professor Mahmud Jega, Professor Suleman Bogoro, Malam Nasir el-Rufai (now in the eye of the storm). Whatever el-Rufai is going through is all politics he is familiar with. The stormy petrel is quite brilliant. He is an excellent development planner.
President Obasanjo managed his emotion very well and got the best out of him. President Buhari couldn’t use him because a cabal around him (Buhari) demonised the former FCT Minister for selfish reasons. Northern leaders know him. They can save him from the jaws of the law now and bring him out to be part of their ‘Marshall Plan’ for the North. He can plan even their discipline of execution with incredible precision.
Besides, I know Malam Kabiru Yusuf, Publisher of “Daily Trust” as a strategic thinker. They can also get the best out of Abdullahi Ganduje, Ph.D, I also know as a very brilliant political thinker. Politics may have demonised some of these leaders but that doesn’t prevent critical planning for the region under siege.
Meanwhile, do northern leaders know how to leverage on the global influence of Africa’s most significant investor and businessman, Aliko Dangote, their son who has constructed the largest single train of Refinery in the world? Have they engaged him enough on the regional development plan?
Have northern leaders and elites considered why Agriculture and Food security and now Livestock Ministry in the hands of their sons as Ministers haven’t changed their material condition and prospered them? Can they conduct some studies on why Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, etc all Muslim-dominated countries in the Middle East are quite close to 100% literacy in western education while Muslim –dominated northern Nigeria posts the highest numbers in out of school children in a region dominated by Boko-Haram (school-is-a-scam) insurgents?
Here is the conclusion of he whole matter: northern leaders and elites should freeze the regular Kaduna meetings that have not produced any tangible results. They need to renew their minds about their constructive engagement with the unhelpful centre called Abuja. They should redesign their development agenda without distracting noise in the media. They need their intellectuals and critical thinkers even in the diaspora to come over and help in developing regional development Abuja that they can implement to the glory of the embattled region.
If they continue to remain complacent, repeating the same old mistakes of looking up to big Abuja jobs without considering survival of the northern region, they will be stunned by the development politics and strategy of the current leadership in Nigeria. Here is the thing, the Hurricane ‘Emilokan’ will after 2027 elections leave the leaders and elites in the region wondering where the renewed-hope rain began to beat them hopelessly. That will be their lot if they continue to fly from Abuja over the multi-dimensional poverty of their people.
- Oloja is former editor of The Guardian newspaper and his column, Inside Stuff, runs on the back page of the newspaper on Sunday. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Monday.