04/08/2025
*A Response to Kadaria Ahmed: The North Must Confront Itself — Fully and Without Illusions.*
Kadaria Ahmed’s recent piece on the North is uncomfortable but necessary.
This is a jarring reminder of just how far Arewa (North) has drifted from its ideals, and how far we have to go if we are to return to the path of collective progress.
However Kadaria’s lament is not new. What is new and more tragic is how normalised our dysfunction has become.
We have now mastered the art of complaining, of blaming “others,” while refusing to look in the mirror. It is long past time we did.
Because the truth is: Arewa is not under attack from outsiders. Arewa is collapsing from within.
The North Eats Its Own
Today in the North, identity has replaced merit. Ethnic loyalty overrides integrity. Religious posturing masks moral failure.
Your name, your local government, your tribe even your pronunciation of Arabic or your interpretation of scripture can close doors before you even knock.
In politics, some are more “Arewa” than others. In religion, some are more “Muslim” or “Christian” than others. In fact, some no longer even acknowledge the legitimacy of other faiths or traditions.
It is not just exclusion, it is cannibalism. We are eating our own future.
Kadaria is right: even within the same North, the accident of your identity can become a permanent obstacle. And that is before we speak of how state institutions now quietly promote one religion over others, while using public funds to sponsor pilgrimages, all this in regions where children learn in classrooms with no roofs, or not at all.
Arewa, we claim piety while presiding over rot. What exactly are we proud of?
Power Without Purpose
The North has, for decades, held the levers of federal power. Presidency. Defense. National Assembly. Key agencies. Yet, even in power, we remain poor. Even in office, we remain unprepared.
We have wielded power without strategy and so we achieved influence without development.
We have held positions but built no institutions. We have built mosques and churches while our hospitals collapse. We recite scripture while drug addiction consumes our youth.
We have the illusion of power without any of its outcomes.
So the question becomes:
When the North was in charged, what did the North did with it? What legacy have the North left behind for the millions of Arewa’s children who now roam aimlessly, unskilled, uneducated, and unemployable?
Worse still: when we had the opportunity to renegotiate the structure of this country, as Kadaria noted during the constitutional conferences, we squandered it. We mocked reform. We laughed at serious negotiations. We were too busy protecting status quo patronage while others were planning for 50 years ahead.
Now the tide is turning. And all we can do is complain.
We Cannot Kill Our Way to Prosperity
The blood flowing through Arewa today is not a curse. It is a consequence.
We created a society where grievance is weaponised, where justice is selective, where violence is incentivised and now, we wonder why peace eludes us.
We built a security industrial complex out of banditry. We turned insurgency into a budget line. But here is the truth we refuse to face:
You cannot build prosperity on blood.
We must stop killing ourselves and calling it politics. We must stop enabling extremists and calling it faith.
No good can come from bloodletting. It does not matter who the victims are Christian, Muslim, Hausa, Tiv, Fulani, Jukun, Birom, Bajju, Tyab, the soil of the North is soaked with the blood of it is own children. That is nothing to be proud of. That is something to weep over.
So, What Now?
The time for selective lamentation has passed. The time for WhatsApp fury and nostalgia about groundnut pyramids is over. It is time for actual work. Hard, strategic, long-term work.
Let us be clear: there will be no rescue plan from Abuja. If regionalisation becomes reality as it is likely, we will be on our own.
Here’s what the North must do, urgently:
1. Stop the Bloodshed — Secure Ourselves
We must initiate and support local peace processes. Communities must drive conflict resolution. Traditional rulers must take responsibility. Religious leaders must preach restraint.
2. Rebuild Justice and Trust
No region can prosper without justice. We must reform the police, equip local courts, and insist on the rule of law — not just for our “own people” but for all people. Without justice, we have nothing. Without trust in the law, we will have permanent violence.
3. Fix Education and Skills — Or Perish
Education must move from slogan to priority. Every primary school must function. Teachers must be paid and trained. Vocational centres must open in every local government, one can see some actions in this area from Kaduna state with the building of one vocational centre per each senatorial zone. As to the millions already left behind, the North must offer second chances through skills and entrepreneurship.
4. Plan Like a Region, Speak Like a Bloc
Other regions in Nigeria plan together. The North do not. Other regions present a united front on federal negotiations. The North do not. In other words. The North is divided, simple.
Arewa must form a joint regional council
with a clear economic blueprint. Lawmakers from the North must begin to vote as a bloc on issues that affect us. And civil society must rise beyond electoral commentary and begin to hold everyone, everyone, accountable.
5. End the Culture of Excuses
The North must stop blaming others for the failures we authored. No more “they are planning this” or “they are doing that.” What are we doing? Who is “they” when we have ruled for decades?
The time has come to reject self-pity as a political ideology. The North must re-embrace discipline, integrity, and vision or it will disintegrate into chaos.
Final Thoughts: This Shame Is Ours
Kadaria asked, “Wai shin ko kunya ba mu ji?”
The answer is simple: clearly, no, we do not feel shame.
Because if we did, we would not be here.
But we must begin to. Shame is the beginning of repentance. And repentance is the seed of reform. Only when we admit our failure can we build a new North — one built not on slogans and sentiment, but on justice, education, economic dignity, and peace.
Arewa is not dead — but it is dangerously sick. The cure will not come from the South, or the West, or the East. The cure must come from within, that is from the North.
We rise by lifting others!
