WAKE UP: My Southern Nigeria region, where hath thy claim of best-in-all?

This is because, states of Northern Nigeria that we, Southerners, hitherto claimed to be underdeveloped and backward in terms of everything including economy, education and development, are now leading even Lagos in developmental projects.

One of the claims of ours was that because the oil on which seated Nigeria’s national budget for many years was only from the South, there could be nothing great coming from the North, according to those claimers among us, except that they would remain “parasites” to the rest of the regions in terms of development.

Although they were told in most cases that Saudi Arabia as the hottest country of the world is the richest and most depended upon by other generally acclaimed world powers, those seeing Northern Nigerians as reason for the backwardness of Nigeria for quite sometimes did not change ground until realities now begin to dawn on them as the North moves, not only in overtaking us but now has become leaders in all ramifications.

It will be recalled that while the only thing that Lagos is now good for is in its ability to host the much complicated container trucks traffics that have made Apapa-Mile 2 area of the state impassable and turn to no-go-area, the Northern state of Kaduna now makes its economic landscape feasible for businesses to grow.  No wonder early this year 2019, Governor Nasir el-Rufai of the state that was formerly capital of Northern Region was honoured, recognised and applauded as BEST STATE IN EASE OF DOING BUSINESS IN 2018.  If a society makes doing business easy for people, what else follows if not easy life? That is North that we, Southerners, never saw anything good about but as parasite to our effort to move forward and reason for which we thought the best way out is needless restructuring of a country that was long ago well structured.

Not too long after Kaduna, Katsina that is the state of the country home of sitting President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, moved in the brain and spirit of its Governor, Rt. Hon. Aminu Bello Masari, and designed an economic architecture for itself. What Katsina did was like to say “okay, we are a desert though farming giant part of the country but, despite that we do not have oil deposit, we can make ourselves oil giant if we choose to be”. That was how they designed a refinery project for themselves and are currently developing it with intent that it will be fed with crude from the abundance of Niger Republic which is neighbouring country to ours. This is how brain, sometimes, is more progressively productive than the mouth and pen.  In the end, it will be discovered that all the noise and bragging of the mouth and pen depend solely on the propelling control of the well articulated brain.

Again, for over four years now, effort to make Nigeria grow what it eats and produce what it needs have been more effectively successful with Northern Nigeria.  One is yet to see where in Southern Nigeria the much talked about economic independence has been seen to be matter of concern to the heart on the table of those talkers.  LAKE Rice is simply an acronym for “Lagos-Kebbi” Rice.  This means that more Lagos State people beyond Yuletide period now find succour in nutritious rice that is produced and Made-in-Nigeria at the mercy of the same Northern Nigeria that the same Lagos and other Southerners claimed were causing no more than backwardness to the rest of the country.

In the end, the North finally discovered oil deposits in its Chad Basin and the rest of the regions boastfully ascribing all that is negative and backward to the North has kept quiet.  Not only that, more brilliant and beautiful ideas are now further coming up with which Northern states are now leaders in developmental projects.  This is where we go again.  The North East was left to itself to rotten and decay by insecurity that all Nigerian regions including those in the South could not clean themselves of partaking in how it came about.  Today, the nine-state geopolitical zone has not only bounced back but, more noticeably, its displaced people – mainly farmers and traders – have been returning home and to farm, thus making Nigeria to regain its food security level.  Thanks to the resilience, strengthened by Allah, of current administration of Muhammadu Buhari, who refused to be wavered by any of the side attractions and distractions of the wailing public not wanting better Nigeria for good people of Nigeria. Thanks also to some governors and political leaders like Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Rauf Aregbesola in his days, Rochas Okorocha and even Seriake Dickson, who refused to choose politics of the blood that could have taken us as a nation back to the stone age.

That is aside the fact that political and religious leaders who have shown interest in better, greater and more prosperous Nigeria through security, peace and development are, undebatably, Northerners.  It is not far back in history that while the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, mni, CFR, LLD, was flying and jumping all over the country issuing statements towards making Nigerians see themselves as an indivisible family regardless of their religious and ethnic differences, those other religious and traditional leaders who countered him, albeit to no success, were only from the South. What is it that Nigeria did wrongly to the South that was not done to the North?!