BABANGIDA ALIYU AND HIS NORTHERN COMPATRIOTS SHOULD JUST GO AWAY!

For the umpteenth time the northerners in Nigeria have made a disclaimer that they are not leeches on the rest of Nigeria, claiming that they are not parasites and that they can stand on their own. Icheokudotcom now asks, were this assertion to be truly the case, what are they waiting for to just go away since nobody really want them in Nigeria? They should just secede from Nigeria and form an Islamic Republic of Arewa for themselves and live in a stone-age like manner as obtains in Afghanistan and some other medieval places including Western Wazaristan Pakistan. Nobody in Nigeria really wants these mallams because majority of them are primitive, back-ward, retrogressive, uneducated, religious zealots and fanatics, women-subjugators, social miscreants, lazy, non-industrious and for most part are the reason why Nigeria has not taken flight since independence in 1960.

The amalgamation of 1914 was a mistake and the Independence of 1960 a monstrous missed opportunity to just let these guys go away. These mallams have been in charge of Nigeria virtually since her independence in 1960 and today the comatose state of nearly everything in Nigeria is a testament to their inefficiency in running things. Without the rest of Nigerians contributing to the GDP who knows whether these guys would have still been alive. The south -south contributes their oil, the west contributes their bureaucracy as well as VAT to the federal purse, the east contribute their enterprising spirit as well as a sizable amount of VAT to the economy only for the North to act as the Master doling out other peoples money to their lazy folks up there in the Sahara desert.

When someone observes their dependency on Nigeria, some of their loud mouth-piece like this Niger State mallam rushes off to tout, a non-existence participatory of the North to the economic welfare of Nigeria. It is a generally agreed position that the forced marriage existing between the various nationalities in Nigeria is a ruse, which nobody wants. This newly found position of the North that they are capable of independent living, should be what the rest of Nigerians are waiting for! - a catalyst to quicken the dissolution of a non-functioning Nigeria. Under the family law, marriage could be dissolved on ground of irreconcilable differences and so should the Nigeria state. If the North, despite their flaunted declaration of their ability to exist without assistance from the rest of the country, in truth knows that they were merely faking it, then they should simply hush and continue their milking of Nigeria. Since nothing lasts forever, they can continue to ride the donkey until the emergence of a truly patriotic leader in Nigeria, who can ask some very tough questions regarding existing crass unfairness, tribalism and nepotism being perpetrated by the North ever since they usurped power in Nigeria in 1960. Gideon Orkar's attempt at addressing this most excruciating of Nigeria's problems was ill-managed otherwise the problem would have since been long solved; but until then, let the North know that it should not continue to be business as usual and that it is not yet uhuru!

On November 8th, 2008, one AbdulAzeez Sanni, reporting from Minna quoted Babangida Aliyu of Niger State as saying that northerners are not parasites, that the region has the comparative advantage, potentials and the resources to stand on its own. To this, Icheokudotcom asks, what then is the North waiting for, to simply take the hike and never come back? They should put their money where their mouth is - just prove it! The North should take that bold initiative of walking away from Nigeria - nobody really will mind their long-awaited departure from Nigeria. According to Babangida Aliyu, all they need to do is to identify and harness their comparative advantage in agriculture, arguing that the North has remained stagnant because the leaders have refused to challenge the people so as to bring out their potentials. Icheokudotcom responds that the North has no potential whatsoever to bring out and will remain in their abject want until their social and cultural perspective is changed for the better; wherein the ingrained cultural practises of almajiris, purdah, sharia law of stoning women to death for merely having sex and conscripted marriage of twelve year old girls to 70 year old grand-fathers is changed. In addition the North must learn how to separate their religion from the state and stop seeing in their rulers, gods who must be obeyed and worshipped. Until such epiphany takes place, there will never be any meaningful way forward in the quest to effect the fortunes of Northern Nigeria.

Until these fundamental medieval mindset of the Northern Nigeria society is radically shaken to its roots, nothing meaningful will ever come out of even the best intentions, such as was espoused by Babangida Aliyu. Aliyu said the Northern Nigeria region will only get out of its quagmire if it accorded education a priority attention, revealing that the 19 northern state governors have agreed to provide free and functional education in their respective states. To which Icheokudotcom says, it is not the lack of free education that is the impediment in the North, since the North does not pay school fees anyway. The albatross of Northern Nigeria is a classroom which is not usually filled by smart and bright students eager and ready to challenge their intellect. Also the North does not educate to really evaluate their folks, hence the low qualitative products from their schools which can hardly maintain their manpower need. The North is afraid of competition and they need to develop that knack to be a fierce competitor in a winner takes it all world. Mediocrity is the bane of the north! Icheokudotcom hopes that Babangida Aliyu now gets the true picture and will refocus his satellite on the real issues afflicting Northern Nigeria. This is the right thing to do, instead of his current feel-good speeches, patronising his people with an unfounded, unmerited make-believe self-sufficiency capabilities! Get it, Mallam Babangida Aliyu?