Where Northern Nigeria Fails

By Yakubu Musa

Those of us who read Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s ‘Why Nations Fail’,have seen, in the best-selling book, some convincing arguments on how countries of the world can seize the momentums of critical junctures of their histories to achieve economic greatness. Likewise, we have seen, in the same book, how elite’s phobia of Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” can either stunt growth or completely truncate it.

 Yet, while Why Nations Fail is a book rooted in political economy – from capitalistic perspective – its numerous analogies clearly abound everywhere, in terms of the realities of our dear country, Nigeria.

Although, the parallels one seeks to draw in this piece are much nuanced from what the book presents, it suffices to say that nowhere are its numerous examples more vividly expressed than in the northern part of the country. Since the moment the Union Jack gave way to the green-white-green flag to herald the nation’s independence in 1960, the two major geographical divides in the country have tried to rival each other. Paradoxically, however, it is the north that appears to have been muddling along in this competition– in spite of its comparative numerical strength.

In pre-independence times, there had been a glaring struggle to convince the large portion of the society to embrace western education. The North was, and still is, left to do a catching-up job as a result. The disparity between the two regions in terms of the population of private universities simply speaks volumes. Ditto commercial banks.

Ese Oruru Affair: Power Without Responsibility

By Louis Odion, FNGE
Though isolated, the recent budget-padding comedy in Abuja and lately the Ese scandal in Kano invariably underscore one acute elite affliction in contemporary Nigeria: an obsession to exercise power and the unwillingness to bear its responsibility. 

The pathology is what manifests today whenever President Buhari goes about issuing threat to deal ruthlessly with the "budget mafia" believed to have sexed up figures in the 2016 appropriation bill in view of the dust raised at the National Assembly. But a more honest response should have been an acceptance of responsibility ab initio by Mr. president on whose desk the buck stops. 

*Ese Oruru

Apparently following their principal's odd footsteps, ministers have, in turn, made a huge theatre of publicly disowning the numbers ascribed to their respective ministries, departments and agencies as if vetting the figures was not part of their briefs as CEOs of the MDAs to begin with. Health minister, for instance, swore "budget rats" ate up the documents he originally submitted. No one is ready to defend the allocation of N3.87b for capital projects at the Abuja State House Clinic while all the nation's teaching hospitals individually got peanuts. Or why a whopping N576m was earmarked for the construction of the residences of the Vice President's ADC and CSO among other outlandish entries. 

Taken together, the impression thus created is that whereas the government is exhorting the citizens with evangelical fervor to tighten their belts for an exceedingly lean year ahead, its own hierarchs are ironically busy loosening theirs to take more fat in their mid-sections. Not surprising, various conspiracy theories have since been mushrooming around the budget fiasco. Perhaps the most outlandish is the suggestion that the whistle was blown at the Senate by forces sympathetic to the embattled Bukola Saraki as a fight-back over his unfinished business at the Code of Conduct Tribunal. 

If true, that only begs the issue. In case the Buhari handlers don't know, they should be enlightened that the signature the president appended to the document before its presentation to the National Assembly on December 22, 2015 is tantamount to a proof of ownership and, therefore, a provisional claim of responsibility. Much more compelling is the obligation to admit that the seed of the present scandal was inadvertently sown with the inexplicable delay in constituting the federal cabinet last year. 

Hence, the initiative was inadvertently ceded to bureaucrats who, from experience, are hardly any different from buccaneers. In fact, Buhari unwittingly handed them the rope to hang him the very moment he announced in faraway France that civil servants were "the ones doing the real work" while ministers were mere "noise-makers", in response to then growing public apprehension over the delay in raising the federal cabinet. 

Ese's Abduction: Emir Sanusi Has A Case To Answer

By Femi Fani-Kayode

All those that are attempting to distort the narrative about the tragic plight of Miss Ese Oruru are evil and we commit them to God’s judgement. The facts are as follows. She is 14 years old and not 18, and she was abducted from her home. She did not leave her home freely or of her own volition. She was cruelly and wickedly carried away and stolen from her parents, family and loved ones and forcefully taken by complete strangers to a distant land that she had never been before on the other side of the country.

*Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa'adu Abubakar III and Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi

This is not a love story about two inseparable young people: it is a story about pedophilia, child abduction, kidnapping, human trafficking, slavery, rape, impunity, wickedness and ritual sex, and Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has a case to answer. That little girl has been raped over and over again and she may well have AIDS, VVF or some other strange sexual disease by now.

Instead of sympathising with her and considering the fact that she may never be the same again in view of the physical and mental torture and trauma that she has suffered over the last few months, some misguided souls and shameless commentators have the temerity to come to social media and say that she was old enough to “get it”, whilst others say that she “loved it” and “wanted it”. I am utterly disgusted and appalled by these sentiments. Where is the humanity of those that speak and think like this? Where is their compassion and where is their soul?

May God judge them and may their own infant daughters be abducted, forcefully Islamised, raped, enslaved and kept against their will as a sex slaves in an Emir’s palace in the same way that Ese was.