Northern Nigeria: A Region In Jeopardy

Daily Trust

Northern Nigeria: A Region In Jeopardy

NAZIFI DAWUD KHALID

Opinion

At the heart of every genuine democracy, lies the promotion of human rights, equality and the rule of law.

However, after perusing the Daily Trust’s thoroughly incisive appraisal of Nigeria’s Northern region published in its Friday, July, 29, 2011 edition, I saw myself coming to an inevitably disastrous conclusion: our own version of democracy is literally an aberration of the same values which universal democracies are striving hard to meet.

Though Nigeria as a whole has been persistently blinded by multifarious and intricate challenges of leadership throughout its fifty years of nationhood, the truckload of troubles in its northern part has become a great source of concern in recent times.

One could almost come to tears going through the tragic account of how Sardauna’s legacies have been completely eviscerated and bastardised by decades of abject dereliction, profligacy and brazen political rascality.

A mere mention of the pitiful Northern region evokes images of damning penury, nepotism, intolerance,inequality, illiteracy, ineptitude and general backwardness and underdevelopment.

From agriculture to industrialisation, all the vital organs of the vast region have drastically emaciated.