Sunday, March 11, 2012

Why North may remain poor


Vanguard
8 March 2012

By Ochereome Nnanna

AND  now, let us face the argument that there is rising violence in Northern Nigeria because of “low derivation” from oil resources.

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The perennial poverty and violence in the North are self-inflicted. It is rooted in the system referred to in the South as “the Northern oligarchy”. Boko Haram is rebelling against the Northern oligarchy which does not promote social mobility.

It creates two classes (a) permanently super-rich and privileged small circle of aristocrats and (b) the impoverished, destitute and hopelessly downtrodden masses, the so-called talakawa. It was for the masses that the great Malam Aminu Kano evolved his ideology of social humanism to fight the oligarchy. He was eventually overpowered and the masses lost.

Boko Haram is a misguided rise of the underclass against the overlords in the North. Meanwhile, the overlord intelligentsia such as Prince Lamido Sanusi (a possible future emir) and the governors are trying to divert the attention of the anti-oligarchy rebels by calling for dialogue, amnesty, the increment of federal allocation and “derivation”. Sanusi knows his class is a direct target and he engages in a vainglorious adventure of shifting the blame to the nation and the South for the sins perpetrated by the Northern ruling oligarchy of which he is a member.

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