Without
the North, Nigeria and Nigerians would be reduced to nonentities.
In
2005, Goldman Sachs Investment Bank forecast that Nigeria will be the 20th largest
economy in the world by 2025 and the 12th largest by 2050; ahead of Italy,
Canada and South Korea. Having identified Brazil, Russia, India and China as
four emergent powerhouses of the world economy referred to as the BRICS; it
included Nigeria among “the Next Eleven” countries of Bangladesh, Egypt,
Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey,
and Vietnam.
At
the U.S.-Nigeria Trade and Investment Forum organised by the Nigerians in
Diaspora Organisation of the Americas (NIDOA) in Washington D.C. in 2012,
President Barack Obama of the United States acknowledged Nigeria not only as a
strategic centre of gravity in Africa; he went further to proclaim the country
“the world’s next economic giant.” Early this year, with the rebasing of the
country’s GDP, Nigeria emerged as the biggest economy in Africa, surpassing
South Africa.
Manifest
destiny
It
is no secret that Nigeria is a country of great potentials, even if that
potential is yet to be appreciably realised. One of the strengths of the
country is its large population. Currently estimated at 170 million, Nigeria is
the seventh largest country in the world. By 2050, Nigeria’s population is
projected by the United Nations to reach 389 million, rivaling that of the
United States at 403 million. By the end of the century, the U.N. projects that
Nigeria’s population would be between 900 million and 1 billion, nearing that
of China which would then be the second most populous country in the world
after India.
Nigeria’s
economic size is a blessing in disguise. It means the country will have a ready
domestic market for its eventual industrial growth. It means it can envisage
economies of scale not possible in smaller countries. Even now, Nigeria offers
alluring returns for investors. Says Charles Robertson, Global Chief Economist
at Renaissance Capital: “We know it’s not risk free, but look around the world
and find another economy with 160 million people growing at 7 percent with such
potential. It’s a struggle to find them.”
Countries
go to war to acquire the kind of real estate that is Nigeria. This makes it all
the more ludicrous that there are noises coming out of Southern Nigeria
demanding that the country should be divided. The most ethnically jingoistic of
these is the insistence that Nigeria would be better off without the North. It
would appear that some Southern Nigerians have been intoxicated by oil. Since
there is no oil in the North, they conclude that the North is no more than an
albatross on the neck of the South and castigate it as a region defined by
dependency.
This
view is nothing short of idiotic. No serious-minded country relinquishes a
region as rich and as resourceful as Northern Nigeria. Without the North,
Nigeria’s much-vaunted potentials would vanish. Without the North, Nigeria
would be nothing more than yet another balkanized and insignificant African
country, or group of countries. Take the North out of the Nigerian equation and
there can no longer be any black country in the world that can possibly attain the
status of a major power in the world. Without the North, Nigeria and Nigerians
would be reduced to nonentities.
Northern
imperative
Nigerians
have been blinded by oil. Because of oil, we have become unproductively
mono-cultural in our economy. However, oil is hardly the only major resource we
have. Although oil revenues have brought us a great deal of financial
prosperity, at the same time it stunted the inexorable emergence of agro-based
industries in Nigeria. The backbone of such promissory local industries is in
Northern Nigeria.
The
North is the breadbasket of Nigeria. A significant proportion of the food we
eat down South comes from the North. The North occupies 70% of Nigeria’s land
mass, giving it comparative advantage vis-Ã -vis the South in terms of
agriculture, raw materials and livestock. A large chunk of the North is arable
and supportive of year-round food production. Thanks largely to the North,
there is no tropical agricultural crop known to man that cannot be grown in
Nigeria. With a transition from subsistence to mechanized agriculture, Northern
Nigeria alone can produce enough food to feed the whole of Africa.
Northern
Nigeria is bigger than most African countries. Currently, Nigeria wastes a
staggering 1.3 trillion naira on food imports; virtually one-third of the
annual budget. But the North can produce all the food we need, thereby
liberating valuable resources. Already, it is the North that feeds the South in
Nigeria. Virtually all Southern food crops and livestock come from the North. Much
of Nigeria’s water resources are also in the North. With the right policy
mixes, the North will earn for Nigeria billions of dollars annually from
agriculture.
Our
Niger-Delta brothers should not get too carried away by their oil. If their oil
is a national resource today, so will Northern agriculture and agro-allied
industries be national resources tomorrow. Oil is a wasting asset. Short of new
discoveries, Nigeria’s oil will expire within the next 50 years. However,
Northern agriculture will never expire.
Northern
resources
There
is something else besides. There can be no doubt that there is oil in the
North. It is only a matter of time before it is discovered. The geography and
topography of the North and the discovery of oil in surrounding areas is a
testament to this eventuality. Since there is oil in Cameroon, Chad and Niger
Republic, the chances are pretty good that Northern states like Bauchi, Borno,
Sokoto and Niger will one day become oil-producing states.
Moreover,
the North is rich in mineral resources; far richer than the South. There is
gold in Zamfara; uranium in Taraba; tin-ore in Plateau; columbite in Nassarawa;
iron ore in Kogi; gysium in Gombe and limestone in Sokoto among others.
Hydroelectricity for the country is provided from Kainji Dam and Shiroro Gorge.
There are game reserves in the North including Argungu, which make it a
potential money-spinner for tourism, a possible Kenya in the making if we can
get rid of the scourge of Boko Haram.
Southern
Nigerians should stop underestimating Northern industry. Northerners created
the ground-nut pyramids, cotton farms and tanneries of old. With visionary
national and regional leadership, these will surely make a comeback. So also
will the textile factories of Gusau, Kaduna and Kano. All the Southern bigotry
about the North being predominantly Moslem is just nonsense. When you see what
economic wonders Moslems are doing in places like Dubai, Oman, Qatar, Abu
Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, you will realise that Nigeria has a lot to
learn from Moslems.
It
should not be forgotten that by far the most enterprising Nigerian today is a
Northerner from Kano. According to the most recent Forbes Billionaires list of
March 2014, Aliko Dangote is now the 23rd richest man in the world with a net
worth of $25 billion dollars. This is an amazing feat for an African and a
Nigerian. Dangote is now richer than Alisher Usmanov; the richest man in
Russia. He is also richer than Mukesh Ambani; India’s richest man. Dangote is
all the more remarkable because he achieved this feat primarily through a route
far less travelled by Nigerians: the hard, difficult grind of manufacturing.
The
Northern problem is the Nigerian problem. It is the problem of bad leadership.
Northern politicians and military leaders have been the bane of the North and
of Nigeria. They have grown fat at the expense of the poor. They have
deliberately kept the poor uneducated, preferring to feed them from the crumbs
falling from their table. But as Boko Haram bites deeper, this too shall pass.
A new generation of Northern leadership is emerging. An example of this is
Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano who is, by all accounts, redeeming his first-term as
Governor with the second-term.
Uneducated
hogwash
All
things considered, the boast of a Nigeria divorced from the North is
balderdash. Nigeria cannot do without the North. We cannot divide Nigeria into
350 ethnic nation-states. Let Southerners stop fooling ourselves. Any attempt
to abridge Nigeria because some Southern areas want to go it alone will be
disastrous. Ethnic homogeneity is no panacea against internal conflict. Somalia
is ethnically homogeneous. Nevertheless, it is a failed state. Southern Sudan
only recently obtained independence from Sudan. Nevertheless, it is already
embroiled in inter-ethnic conflict.
There
can be no romantic Oduduwa Republic, unless we foolishly ignore the long
history of Yoruba wars. Try to turn back the clock, and the Egba, the Ekiti,
the Ijebu, the Ijesha and the Ilorin will start locking horns yet again. Even
now, there are daggers drawn between the Ife and Modakeke in Osun. There can be
no return to Biafra, unless we pretend that the differences between the Aguleri
and the Umuleri in Anambra or that between the Ezza and the Ezillo in Ebonyi
are fiction. The Igbo have never been united. Historically, they were organized
into separate and autonomous republics. Biafra itself had problems with its
ethnic minorities.
There
can be no Republics of the Niger Delta. Are we then to divide the Efik from the
Ibibio, the Ijaw from the Itsekiri; the Kalabari from the Ogoja; and the Ogoni
from the Urhobos? What then would happen after the oil runs dry?
There
can only be the Federal Republic of Nigeria. No matter what anyone says,
Nigeria is a country and a country it should remain. You don’t live together
for 50 to 100 years and not become a country. It does not matter if some of us
are Muslims and some are Christians: we are all Nigerians. It does not matter
if some of us speak Hausa and some speak Yoruba: we are all Nigerians. Our
diversity is our strength. That is the beauty of Nigeria. It cannot be
re-engineered.
Nigeria
is a blessed country, carefully-crafted by divine ordinance. This is not time
to start hankering after some midget states when the herculean Europeans are
busy crafting a super-state. This is no time to think small. It is time for
Nigerians to start thinking big and bigger.
Nigeria
cannot do without the North, By Femi Aribisala
Without
the North, Nigeria and Nigerians would be reduced to nonentities.
In 2005,
Goldman Sachs Investment Bank forecast that Nigeria will be the 20th largest
economy in the world by 2025 and the 12th largest by 2050; ahead of Italy,
Canada and South Korea. Having identified Brazil, Russia, India and China as
four emergent powerhouses of the world economy referred to as the BRICS; it
included Nigeria among “the Next Eleven” countries of Bangladesh, Egypt,
Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey,
and Vietnam.
At
the U.S.-Nigeria Trade and Investment Forum organised by the Nigerians in
Diaspora Organisation of the Americas (NIDOA) in Washington D.C. in 2012,
President Barack Obama of the United States acknowledged Nigeria not only as a
strategic centre of gravity in Africa; he went further to proclaim the country
“the world’s next economic giant.” Early this year, with the rebasing of the
country’s GDP, Nigeria emerged as the biggest economy in Africa, surpassing
South Africa.
Manifest
destiny
It
is no secret that Nigeria is a country of great potentials, even if that
potential is yet to be appreciably realised. One of the strengths of the
country is its large population. Currently estimated at 170 million, Nigeria is
the seventh largest country in the world. By 2050, Nigeria’s population is
projected by the United Nations to reach 389 million, rivaling that of the
United States at 403 million. By the end of the century, the U.N. projects that
Nigeria’s population would be between 900 million and 1 billion, nearing that
of China which would then be the second most populous country in the world
after India.
Nigeria’s
economic size is a blessing in disguise. It means the country will have a ready
domestic market for its eventual industrial growth. It means it can envisage
economies of scale not possible in smaller countries. Even now, Nigeria offers
alluring returns for investors. Says Charles Robertson, Global Chief Economist
at Renaissance Capital: “We know it’s not risk free, but look around the world
and find another economy with 160 million people growing at 7 percent with such
potential. It’s a struggle to find them.”
Countries
go to war to acquire the kind of real estate that is Nigeria. This makes it all
the more ludicrous that there are noises coming out of Southern Nigeria
demanding that the country should be divided. The most ethnically jingoistic of
these is the insistence that Nigeria would be better off without the North. It
would appear that some Southern Nigerians have been intoxicated by oil. Since
there is no oil in the North, they conclude that the North is no more than an
albatross on the neck of the South and castigate it as a region defined by
dependency.
This
view is nothing short of idiotic. No serious-minded country relinquishes a
region as rich and as resourceful as Northern Nigeria. Without the North,
Nigeria’s much-vaunted potentials would vanish. Without the North, Nigeria
would be nothing more than yet another balkanized and insignificant African
country, or group of countries. Take the North out of the Nigerian equation and
there can no longer be any black country in the world that can possibly attain
the status of a major power in the world. Without the North, Nigeria and
Nigerians would be reduced to nonentities.
Northern
imperative
Nigerians
have been blinded by oil. Because of oil, we have become unproductively
mono-cultural in our economy. However, oil is hardly the only major resource we
have. Although oil revenues have brought us a great deal of financial
prosperity, at the same time it stunted the inexorable emergence of agro-based
industries in Nigeria. The backbone of such promissory local industries is in
Northern Nigeria.
The
North is the breadbasket of Nigeria. A significant proportion of the food we
eat down South comes from the North. The North occupies 70% of Nigeria’s land
mass, giving it comparative advantage vis-Ã -vis the South in terms of
agriculture, raw materials and livestock. A large chunk of the North is arable
and supportive of year-round food production. Thanks largely to the North,
there is no tropical agricultural crop known to man that cannot be grown in
Nigeria. With a transition from subsistence to mechanized agriculture, Northern
Nigeria alone can produce enough food to feed the whole of Africa.
Northern
Nigeria is bigger than most African countries. Currently, Nigeria wastes a
staggering 1.3 trillion naira on food imports; virtually one-third of the
annual budget. But the North can produce all the food we need, thereby
liberating valuable resources. Already, it is the North that feeds the South in
Nigeria. Virtually all Southern food crops and livestock come from the North.
Much of Nigeria’s water resources are also in the North. With the right policy
mixes, the North will earn for Nigeria billions of dollars annually from
agriculture.
Our
Niger-Delta brothers should not get too carried away by their oil. If their oil
is a national resource today, so will Northern agriculture and agro-allied
industries be national resources tomorrow. Oil is a wasting asset. Short of new
discoveries, Nigeria’s oil will expire within the next 50 years. However,
Northern agriculture will never expire.
Northern
resources
There
is something else besides. There can be no doubt that there is oil in the
North. It is only a matter of time before it is discovered. The geography and
topography of the North and the discovery of oil in surrounding areas is a
testament to this eventuality. Since there is oil in Cameroon, Chad and Niger
Republic, the chances are pretty good that Northern states like Bauchi, Borno,
Sokoto and Niger will one day become oil-producing states.
Moreover,
the North is rich in mineral resources; far richer than the South. There is
gold in Zamfara; uranium in Taraba; tin-ore in Plateau; columbite in Nassarawa;
iron ore in Kogi; gysium in Gombe and limestone in Sokoto among others.
Hydroelectricity for the country is provided from Kainji Dam and Shiroro Gorge.
There are game reserves in the North including Argungu, which make it a
potential money-spinner for tourism, a possible Kenya in the making if we can
get rid of the scourge of Boko Haram.
Southern
Nigerians should stop underestimating Northern industry. Northerners created
the ground-nut pyramids, cotton farms and tanneries of old. With visionary
national and regional leadership, these will surely make a comeback. So also
will the textile factories of Gusau, Kaduna and Kano. All the Southern bigotry
about the North being predominantly Moslem is just nonsense. When you see what
economic wonders Moslems are doing in places like Dubai, Oman, Qatar, Abu
Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, you will realise that Nigeria has a lot to
learn from Moslems.
It
should not be forgotten that by far the most enterprising Nigerian today is a
Northerner from Kano. According to the most recent Forbes Billionaires list of
March 2014, Aliko Dangote is now the 23rd richest man in the world with a net
worth of $25 billion dollars. This is an amazing feat for an African and a
Nigerian. Dangote is now richer than Alisher Usmanov; the richest man in
Russia. He is also richer than Mukesh Ambani; India’s richest man. Dangote is
all the more remarkable because he achieved this feat primarily through a route
far less travelled by Nigerians: the hard, difficult grind of manufacturing.
The
Northern problem is the Nigerian problem. It is the problem of bad leadership.
Northern politicians and military leaders have been the bane of the North and
of Nigeria. They have grown fat at the expense of the poor. They have
deliberately kept the poor uneducated, preferring to feed them from the crumbs
falling from their table. But as Boko Haram bites deeper, this too shall pass.
A new generation of Northern leadership is emerging. An example of this is
Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano who is, by all accounts, redeeming his first-term as
Governor with the second-term.
Uneducated
hogwash
All
things considered, the boast of a Nigeria divorced from the North is
balderdash. Nigeria cannot do without the North. We cannot divide Nigeria into
350 ethnic nation-states. Let Southerners stop fooling ourselves. Any attempt
to abridge Nigeria because some Southern areas want to go it alone will be
disastrous. Ethnic homogeneity is no panacea against internal conflict. Somalia
is ethnically homogeneous. Nevertheless, it is a failed state. Southern Sudan
only recently obtained independence from Sudan. Nevertheless, it is already
embroiled in inter-ethnic conflict.
There
can be no romantic Oduduwa Republic, unless we foolishly ignore the long
history of Yoruba wars. Try to turn back the clock, and the Egba, the Ekiti,
the Ijebu, the Ijesha and the Ilorin will start locking horns yet again. Even
now, there are daggers drawn between the Ife and Modakeke in Osun. There can be
no return to Biafra, unless we pretend that the differences between the Aguleri
and the Umuleri in Anambra or that between the Ezza and the Ezillo in Ebonyi
are fiction. The Igbo have never been united. Historically, they were organized
into separate and autonomous republics. Biafra itself had problems with its
ethnic minorities.
There
can be no Republics of the Niger Delta. Are we then to divide the Efik from the
Ibibio, the Ijaw from the Itsekiri; the Kalabari from the Ogoja; and the Ogoni
from the Urhobos? What then would happen after the oil runs dry?
There
can only be the Federal Republic of Nigeria. No matter what anyone says,
Nigeria is a country and a country it should remain. You don’t live together
for 50 to 100 years and not become a country. It does not matter if some of us
are Muslims and some are Christians: we are all Nigerians. It does not matter
if some of us speak Hausa and some speak Yoruba: we are all Nigerians. Our
diversity is our strength. That is the beauty of Nigeria. It cannot be
re-engineered.
Nigeria
is a blessed country, carefully-crafted by divine ordinance. This is not time
to start hankering after some midget States when the herculean Europeans are
busy crafting a super-State. This is no time to think small. It is time for
Nigerians to start thinking big and bigger.
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