By Eccentric Rowland
Sadly,80% of Southerners who see this article will not read it!
Note:This article was not developed to ascribe to the entire Northern Nigeria the selfish antics and machination of a few individuals who belong to the region. It would be unfair to do that. Also, this article was developed not with the intention of causing incitement.
1. Anaverage Northerner acquires a cheap transistor radio-set in order to gainpolitical awareness
from broadcasting structures such as BBC (Hausa Service),Radio Nigeria, etc. This practice has made the region the mostpolitically-aware region in Nigeria. On the hand, an average Southerner,typically, acquires expensive Smartphones equipped with FM radio receiving capability.Instead, they would rather listen to inane songs like “Your Waist”, “Skelewu”,“Ginger Your Swagger”, “NoGede”, etc.
2. Unlikethe South, the North understands the importance of numbers in politics. This iswhy, by all strategic means necessary, the North ensures that they have alarger representation at the National Assembly.
3. Northernersdon’t shout, scream, vent and speak “big grammar” to prove that they arepolitically intelligent on political programmes on TV and radio. Instead, theyshout, scream, vent, kick, punch, taekwondo, etc on the floor of the NationalAssembly to promote a cause that is in their favour. The reverse is the casefor the Southerners.
4. Southern graduates/job seekers consider thepublic sector (government institutions) an unfashionable place for employment.Meanwhile, the Northerners massively recruit and entrench themselves into thepublic sector and manipulate themselves up the ranks. While all these are goingon, their southern brothers and sisters spend years languishing in the labourmarket for the elusive jobs in blue chip organizations. Yet, Southernerscomplain of marginalization in the public sector.
5. Forsome weird reasons, the South is always frightened when the North makepolitical pronouncements. Even weirder – for some inexplicable reasons, Senatorsand House of Representative members from the South appear to be too timidto oppose their northern counterparts during legislative sessions.
6. According to the gospel of the North – theNortherners were born to rule. That is, leadership (of Nigeria) is theirexclusive preserve. By extension, the Southerners were born to be led! Interestingly, certain actions of someSoutherners support this belief.
7. The North has more (unrated) billionaires(in Dollars) than any region in Nigeria. For instance, a certain Alhaji Mai Deribe (an oil well licensee)would certainly laugh each time Forbes releases its ratings and his name is notlisted.
8. The North doesn’t produce crude oil, but theNorthern Senators had the temerity to oppose the 10% host community funds. TheSouthern legislators find nothing wrong in that, so long as it doesn’t affecttheir “constituency allowances”.
9. {Singing}Come and see Nigeria wonder! (2x)
Statistical absurdity of the grandest orderis stating that Kano is more populous than Lagos! Dear friends, even science have proved from simple demographic distribution patterns across the globe that population increases as we move from the hinterland (desert/Savannah region) to the coast– but in the case of Nigeria, the North which lies in the arid zone, is more populous than the South – by a deviously doctored census report. Okay o! Wedey look.
10. The North have ruled the country legally(democratically) and illegally (military) for 37 out of the 53 years. The Southis very comfortable with this inequality.
11. The North is the chief proponent of the“quota system” and “federal character” principle – a system that was crafted tosacrifice merit on the altar of “national oneness”. In simple terms, even themost unqualified gets a slot in sensitive national projects.
12. Northern law-makers at the National Assembly- typically – rally amongst themselves to promote legislations that favours their region (e.g. pedophilic laws). Southernlaw-makers typically rally amongst themselves to promote legislations that willincrease their salaries and constituency allowances.
13. To the Northerners – the census exercise isnot just a statistical evaluation exercise. Instead, it is considered a keypolitical exercise. Meanwhile, the Southern folks see census exercise as atemporal job opportunity for its largely unemployed undergraduates. In thewords of Chief Festus Odimegwu (recently resigned Chairman of NationalPopulation Commission) “There has been nocredible census in the country since 1816 because of manipulations”, Punch Newspaper, 18 October 2013.
14. When it comes to regional unity – religion,politics and language are the common uniting factor for the North. Southerners(especially the South-Easterners) are never united for any course. (Oh, well, Soccer sometimes offers somemeasure of unity among the Southerners!).
15. The North is the region with the leasteducation, least resources, least development and pervasive poverty – yet, theyhave ruled Nigeria for 37 years out of the nation’s 53 years of independence.
16. Only the North understands the logic behindestablishing a national refinery (the Kaduna refinery) thousands of kilometersaway from the point of extraction of crude oil.
17. When it concerns the north, a new standardis always invented. FGorelse, how does one explain how Sani Abacha – a near-midget –escaping the “standard height” rule of the military. Even, rising to bepresident.
18. The North conceived and sold the “BokoHaram” concept as a pointer to the fact that the South is incapable of rulingthe country. The South has wholesomely bought the idea.“Yes, automatically Boko Haram will disappear if the north gets the presidency by 2015. I amsure”. Excerpt from the interviewgranted by Lawal Keita (2nd Republic Governor of Kaduna State) to theNews magazine (October 2013)
19. An “instant enemy” of the northern region isany appointed public officer (especially a female one) from the south who hasthe temerity to oppose their common cause. Or, one that is standing as a clogin their continued dominance in the Oil & Gas/public sector. Somesoutherners gleefully and ignorantly join in the attack on some of these publicofficials.
20. Poverty, ignorance, lack of education,religious bigotry and fanaticism, etc are some very powerful tools needed toeffectively manipulate/control people. The Northern oligarchy is very aware ofthis. Hence, their manipulation of the masses in the north (using these tools) fortheir selfish interest.
21. Of all the regions, the North is the leastsupportive of resource control, Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), and theentrenchment of true federalism. The South finds nothing suspicious in that.
22. It is unbelievable to believe that some WISEMEN (in a certain political party) fromthe South were party to a bizarre arrangement for “power shift” or “power rotation” between theNorth and the South – when, clearly, the south is home to 2 major ethnic groupsand – by far – more ethnic groups than the north.
23. The North offers the most opposition to theprivatization of public (government) institutions. Opposition to privatizationis principally to prevent the likely disengagement of their largely unqualifiedmembers. (BTW, till date, some people still earn salaries of close to N1m monthlyfrom the comatose NITEL. Now guess what region most of these people are from? Note:This fact is verifiable.)
24. The South produces the crude oil (Nigeria’seconomic mainstay). However, amongst the regions, the North owns majority ofthe oil blocks, oil prospecting (OPL) and oil mining (OML) licenses.
25. Northern leaders (political and religious)have never come out, unanimously, to publicly condemn the menace of Boko Haram.Southern leaders (political and religious) that publicly condemn the methods ofBoko Haram attract criticisms and are described as self-seeking or seekingattention/relevance.
26. Political power means just one thing to theNorth – control of the nation’s economic mainstay (Petroleum resources). Little wonder they are vehemently opposed tothe implementation of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).
27. While the north was too busy attacking some FederalMinisters from the South for “ineptitude”, they failed to notice the atrocitiesof Northern Ministers who were on a mission to inflict callous disparity withinthe sectors they were meant to oversee.
Please, kindly check out thebizarre disparity in cut off points (quota admission) into the 104 FederalGovernment Colleges (FGCs) aka “Unity Schools”. It was published in January,2013, by the Federal Ministry of Education under the careful supervision ofProf. Ruqayyah Ahmed Rufa’i – a “once upon a time” Minister of Education fromthe North. Note the disparity between cut off point for southern and northernstudents.
· Abia Male(130) Female (130)
· AkwaIbom Male(123), Female (123)
· Anambra Male(139) Female (139)
· Benue Male (111), Female (111)
· Bayelsa Male (72), Female (72)
· CrossRivers Male (97), Female (97)
· Delta Male (131), Female (131)
· Ebonyi Male (112), Female (112)
· Edo Male (127), Female (127)
· Ekiti Male (119), Female (119)
· Enugu Male (134), Female (1340
· Imo Male 9138), Female (138)
· Kogi Male (119), Female (119)
· Kwara Male (123), Female (123)
· Lagos Male (133), Female (133)
· Ogun Male (131), Female (131)
· Ondo Male (126), Female (126)
· Rivers Male (118), Female (118)
· Osun Male (127), Female (127)
· Oyo Male (127), Female (127)
· Plateau Male (97), Female (97)
· Yobe Male (20), Female (27)
· FCTAbuja Male (90), Female (90)
· Kaduna Male (91), Female (91)
· Nasarawa Male (58), Female 58)
· Niger Male (93), Female (93)
· Kano Male (67), Female (67)
· Katsina Male (60), Female (60)
· Adamawa Male (62) Female (62)
· Borno Male (45), Female (45)
· Gombe Male (58), Female (58)
· Jigawa Male(44), Female (44)
· Bauchi Male (35), Female (35)
· Kebbi Male (9), Female (20)
· Sokoto Male (9), Female (13)
· Taraba Male (3), Female (11)
· Zamfara Male (4), Female (2)
28. Contrary to the general belief – the biggestunifying factor in Nigeria is not football , but “Crude Oil”. Now note this: Thevery moment crude oil (in significant commercial quantity) is discovered in theNorth, that day will mark the beginning of the North’s agitation for abreakaway from the entity called Nigeria.
29. The Nigerian constitution was deliberatelyflawed and crafted to benefit the North.
30. Strangely, for a nation with vastly moreethic nationalities situated in the South, it is rather suspicious that Nigeriais divided along just regional lines – The North and the South. Now, of course,we all know which region this strange dichotomy favours.
31. The North is the region with the leasteducation, least resources, least development and pervasive poverty – yet, theyclaim rulership of the nation by right (the “Born to rule” philosophy). Inotherwords, the north must maintain allthe undeserved advantages handed them by the British colonial masters andfortified by the North-controlled military political class between 1960 and 1999.
32. In the thinking of a typical Northerner, ArewaNorthern Nigeria (not Nigeria) won the Nigerian civil war.
33. In defending a northern interest, if political logic fails, then religiousantics and sentiments are stirred up bythe Northerner leaders.
BONUS
The relocation of the nation’s capital fromLagos to Abuja was a deliberate plan of the Northern oligarchy (using themilitary) to situate the nation’s seat of power at the door-step of theNortherners. They, cleverly, gave Nigerians and the world the impression thateverything was irreparably wrong with Lagos as the capital, and that to correctthe impression, the capital would need to be situated in the heart of thenorthern region of Nigeria. To fulfill this arrangement – and give therelocation project an unbiased outlook – reputable Southerners (e.g. LateJustice Akinola Aguda and Tai Solarin) were recruited into the panel set up bythe northern oligarchy.
WORD ON MARBLE:
“This new Nation called Nigeria should be anestate of our great grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio. We must RUTHLESSLY prevent achange of power. We use the minorities in the north as willing tools, and theSouth, as conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us, and neverallow them to have control over the future.” Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna ofSokoto & Premier of Northern Region: The Parrot newspaper, October 12, 1960.
Now, who is the real fool here?
.Eccentric Rowland wrote from Lagos
admin
