In the core north your money does not determine where you reside.

It all boils down to your ethnicity and religion when picking accommodation in parts of the fundamental Islamic north.

Don't be offended by my description of the Islamic north as that was what the British colonialists used in describing the core northern regions.

The British had to create ghettos for non-Muslims and southerners residing and working in the colonial civil service of northern Nigeria. Islamic jurisprudence in the form of Sharia law did not extend to these isolated ghettos.

The British even had travel restrictions on southerners hoping to go to the north even long after amalgamation. This was easily enforced as the primary means of travel back then was rail and the colonial police officer will demand a permit from a southerner at the train station stating why he or she is traveling up north.

The apartheid system was proactively set up by the British along ethnic and religious lines in major core northern cities and towns in order to restrict sectarian clashes. The British knew very well of Mahdist revolutions in places like Sudan and Pakistan and so created these ghettos to isolate southerners in the north from their Muslim host.

Another possible reason for the British restriction on southerners migrating to the north was because slavery was still very active in the core Islamic north. Slavery was officially banned in northern Nigeria as early as 1933 - well over 100 years that slavery was globally abolished. Those famous groundnut pyramids were in fact only possible because slaves were the main laborers used in achieving that feat. So now you know why the north can't repeat the groundnut pyramids. The British also operated many slave plantations which they dubbed as Prison farms which were cited mostly in the middle-belt areas. So the British may have deliberately limited migration of the much better educated southerners to the north in order to hide the slave industry and practice that was widely common there.

There is this particular old picture of a market scene in Kano around the 1930's which shows a topless woman hawking her wares. If any of you has it please share it or post the link for me here. That picture is proof that slavery was very active in Northern Nigeria in the 30's as it is normal in Islam for slave girls and women to go bare chested.

As at present if you find yourself in the Islamic core north and you need accommodation there are certain parts of town that are toatlly off limits to non-Muslims of non-Hausa/Fulani background. The only consolation is that these areas are usually sh!t holes and so you won't even want to stay there if the accommodation was presented to you free of charge.

this is what happen when u are blinded by religion and let it dictates your everyday affair..nothing good has ever come out from d north, all we hear is killings and all....u can't save a foolish man dat thinks he's wise,u let him drown in his foolishness