Opinion:

NIGERIA CANNOT DO WITHOUT THE NORTH

By Femi Aribisala

Without the North, Nigeria and Nigerians would be reduced to nonentities.

In 2005, Goldman Sachs Investment Bank forecast that Nigeria will be the 20th largest economy in the world by 2025 and the 12th largest by 2050; ahead of Italy, Canada and South Korea. Having identified Brazil, Russia, India and China as four emergent powerhouses of the world economy referred to as the BRICS; it included Nigeria among “the Next Eleven” countries of Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam.

At the U.S.-Nigeria Trade and Investment Forum organised by the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation of the Americas (NIDOA) in Washington D.C. in 2012, President Barack Obama of the United States acknowledged Nigeria not only as a strategic centre of gravity in Africa; he went further to proclaim the country “the world’s next economic giant.” Early this year, with the rebasing of the country’s GDP, Nigeria emerged as the biggest economy in Africa, surpassing South Africa.

Manifest destiny

It is no secret that Nigeria is a country of great potentials, even if that potential is yet to be appreciably realised. One of the strengths of the country is its large population. Currently estimated at 170 million, Nigeria is the seventh largest country in the world. By 2050, Nigeria’s population is projected by the United Nations to reach 389 million, rivaling that of the United States at 403 million. By the end of the century, the U.N. projects that Nigeria’s population would be between 900 million and 1 billion, nearing that of China which would then be the second most populous country in the world after India.

Nigeria’s economic size is a blessing in disguise. It means the country will have a ready domestic market for its eventual industrial growth. It means it can envisage economies of scale not possible in smaller countries. Even now, Nigeria offers alluring returns for investors. Says Charles Robertson, Global Chief Economist at Renaissance Capital: “We know it’s not risk free, but look around the world and find another economy with 160 million people growing at 7 percent with such potential. It’s a struggle to find them.”

Countries go to war to acquire the kind of real estate that is Nigeria. This makes it all the more ludicrous that there are noises coming out of Southern Nigeria demanding that the country should be divided. The most ethnically jingoistic of these is the insistence that Nigeria would be better off without the North. It would appear that some Southern Nigerians have been intoxicated by oil. Since there is no oil in the North, they conclude that the North is no more than an albatross on the neck of the South and castigate it as a region defined by dependency.

This view is nothing short of idiotic. No serious-minded country relinquishes a region as rich and as resourceful as Northern Nigeria. Without the North, Nigeria’s much-vaunted potentials would vanish. Without the North, Nigeria would be nothing more than yet another balkanized and insignificant African country, or group of countries. Take the North out of the Nigerian equation and there can no longer be any black country in the world that can possibly attain the status of a major power in the world. Without the North, Nigeria and Nigerians would be reduced to nonentities.

Northern imperative

Nigerians have been blinded by oil. Because of oil, we have become unproductively mono-cultural in our economy. However, oil is hardly the only major resource we have. Although oil revenues have brought us a great deal of financial prosperity, at the same time it stunted the inexorable emergence of agro-based industries in Nigeria. The backbone of such promissory local industries is in Northern Nigeria.

The North is the breadbasket of Nigeria. A significant proportion of the food we eat down South comes from the North. The North occupies 70% of Nigeria’s land mass, giving it comparative advantage vis-à-vis the South in terms of agriculture, raw materials and livestock. A large chunk of the North is arable and supportive of year-round food production. Thanks largely to the North, there is no tropical agricultural crop known to man that cannot be grown in Nigeria. With a transition from subsistence to mechanized agriculture, Northern Nigeria alone can produce enough food to feed the whole of Africa.

Northern Nigeria is bigger than most African countries. Currently, Nigeria wastes a staggering 1.3 trillion naira on food imports; virtually one-third of the annual budget. But the North can produce all the food we need, thereby liberating valuable resources. Already, it is the North that feeds the South in Nigeria. Virtually all Southern food crops and livestock come from the North. Much of Nigeria’s water resources are also in the North. With the right policy mixes, the North will earn for Nigeria billions of dollars annually from agriculture.

Our Niger-Delta brothers should not get too carried away by their oil. If their oil is a national resource today, so will Northern agriculture and agro-allied industries be national resources tomorrow. Oil is a wasting asset. Short of new discoveries, Nigeria’s oil will expire within the next 50 years. However, Northern agriculture will never expire.

Northern resources

There is something else besides. There can be no doubt that there is oil in the North. It is only a matter of time before it is discovered. The geography and topography of the North and the discovery of oil in surrounding areas is a testament to this eventuality. Since there is oil in Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic, the chances are pretty good that Northern states like Bauchi, Borno, Sokoto and Niger will one day become oil-producing states.

Moreover, the North is rich in mineral resources; far richer than the South. There is gold in Zamfara; uranium in Taraba; tin-ore in Plateau; columbite in Nassarawa; iron ore in Kogi; gysium in Gombe and limestone in Sokoto among others. Hydroelectricity for the country is provided from Kainji Dam and Shiroro Gorge. There are game reserves in the North including Argungu, which make it a potential money-spinner for tourism, a possible Kenya in the making if we can get rid of the scourge of Boko Haram.

Southern Nigerians should stop underestimating Northern industry. Northerners created the ground-nut pyramids, cotton farms and tanneries of old. With visionary national and regional leadership, these will surely make a comeback. So also will the textile factories of Gusau, Kaduna and Kano. All the Southern bigotry about the North being predominantly Moslem is just nonsense. When you see what economic wonders Moslems are doing in places like Dubai, Oman, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, you will realise that Nigeria has a lot to learn from Moslems.

It should not be forgotten that by far the most enterprising Nigerian today is a Northerner from Kano. According to the most recent Forbes Billionaires list of March 2014, Aliko Dangote is now the 23rd richest man in the world with a net worth of $25 billion dollars. This is an amazing feat for an African and a Nigerian. Dangote is now richer than Alisher Usmanov; the richest man in Russia. He is also richer than Mukesh Ambani; India’s richest man. Dangote is all the more remarkable because he achieved this feat primarily through a route far less travelled by Nigerians: the hard, difficult grind of manufacturing.

The Northern problem is the Nigerian problem. It is the problem of bad leadership. Northern politicians and military leaders have been the bane of the North and of Nigeria. They have grown fat at the expense of the poor. They have deliberately kept the poor uneducated, preferring to feed them from the crumbs falling from their table. But as Boko Haram bites deeper, this too shall pass. A new generation of Northern leadership is emerging. An example of this is Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano who is, by all accounts, redeeming his first-term as Governor with the second-term.

Uneducated hogwash

All things considered, the boast of a Nigeria divorced from the North is balderdash. Nigeria cannot do without the North. We cannot divide Nigeria into 350 ethnic nation-states. Let Southerners stop fooling ourselves. Any attempt to abridge Nigeria because some Southern areas want to go it alone will be disastrous. Ethnic homogeneity is no panacea against internal conflict. Somalia is ethnically homogeneous. Nevertheless, it is a failed state. Southern Sudan only recently obtained independence from Sudan. Nevertheless, it is already embroiled in inter-ethnic conflict.

There can be no romantic Oduduwa Republic, unless we foolishly ignore the long history of Yoruba wars. Try to turn back the clock, and the Egba, the Ekiti, the Ijebu, the Ijesha and the Ilorin will start locking horns yet again. Even now, there are daggers drawn between the Ife and Modakeke in Osun. There can be no return to Biafra, unless we pretend that the differences between the Aguleri and the Umuleri in Anambra or that between the Ezza and the Ezillo in Ebonyi are fiction. The Igbo have never been united. Historically, they were organized into separate and autonomous republics. Biafra itself had problems with its ethnic minorities.

There can be no Republics of the Niger Delta. Are we then to divide the Efik from the Ibibio, the Ijaw from the Itsekiri; the Kalabari from the Ogoja; and the Ogoni from the Urhobos? What then would happen after the oil runs dry?

There can only be the Federal Republic of Nigeria. No matter what anyone says, Nigeria is a country and a country it should remain. You don’t live together for 50 to 100 years and not become a country. It does not matter if some of us are Muslims and some are Christians: we are all Nigerians. It does not matter if some of us speak Hausa and some speak Yoruba: we are all Nigerians. Our diversity is our strength. That is the beauty of Nigeria. It cannot be re-engineered.

Nigeria is a blessed country, carefully-crafted by divine ordinance. This is not time to start hankering after some midget states when the herculean Europeans are busy crafting a super-state. This is no time to think small. It is time for Nigerians to start thinking big and bigger.

(First published in March 2014.)

Well, let's find out after October 1st.

AND NORTH CAN'T DO WITHOUT TERRORISM. IT'S IRONIC.

GloriaNinja:
AND NORTH CAN'T
DO WITHOUT TERRORISM. IT'S IRONIC.

Boko haram are not upto 1% of northern Nigeria,every region has its kind of terror,Armed Robbery,Cultists,Kidnapping are also common in the south,Our major problem in the country is bad leadership,the elite have no difference in religion or tribe when it comes to looting,so please wise up

He should go there and stop fooling himself

Every region is rich and heaven will not fall if southerners leave the place. We will all miss each other and move on

This is very apt.
Where else can you find a country that doles out billions of naira to the governors monthly who end up looting them massively and yet the citizens don't hold them accountable but prefer to be screaming referendum everywhere?
It's really shameful if you look at it with an objective lens.
You import all your major food items from a particular region and yet you've never sat down to do reason how you'll survive should the nation be divided...
I prescribe two things for those people screaming referendum: (1) go back to school and get proper education that will make you reason critically. (2) go back to your farms or start producing something that will impact your revenues positively.

THE ONLY REASON WHY NIGERIA IS IN SUCH A PATHETIC STATE IS BECAUSE WE HAVE DEPENDED ON THE NORTH.
IF YOU DOUBT ME, CHECK NIGERIA LEADERS FROM 1960 TILL DATE THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHAT AM SAYING.
THE SOLE PROBLEM OF NIGERIA IS THE UNEDUCATED, NOMADIC, AND VIOLENT NORTHERN PART OF THIS COUNTRY!!!

The Northern people always want the power at the top, but they don't understand how to govern, and that's a big problem for the whole country.

Inani:

Boko haram are not upto 1% of northern Nigeria,every region has its kind of terror,Armed Robbery,Cultists,Kidnapping are also common in the south,Our major problem in the country is bad leadership,the elite have no difference in religion or tribe when it comes to looting,so please wise up

The poverty in the North is the most potent terrorism unleashed on the other Nigerians which gave rise to BH, almajiri and religious fanatics

michelz:
This is very apt.
Where else can you find a country that doles out billions of naira to the governors monthly who end up looting them massively and yet the citizens don't hold them accountable but prefer to be screaming referendum everywhere?
It's really shameful if you look at it with an objective lens.
You import all your major food items from a particular region and yet you've never sat down to do reason how you'll survive should the nation be divided...
I prescribe two things for those people screaming referendum: (1) go back to school and get proper education that will make you reason critically. (2) go back to your farms or start producing something that will impact your revenues positively.

shouldn't you let that be their problems? You care too much for people you make it sound don't love themselves.

CarlosTheJackal:
The poverty in the North is the most potent terrorism unleashed on the other Nigerians which gave rise to BH, almajiri and religious fanatics

I disagree with you,I insist its bad leadership ,tho poverty is also a reason ,do u think boko haram are not sponsored,also unemployment is another key factor

andyboi4real:
THE ONLY REASON WHY NIGERIA IS IN SUCH A PATHETIC STATE IS BECAUSE WE HAVE DEPENDED ON THE NORTH.
IF YOU DOUBT ME, CHECK NIGERIA LEADERS FROM 1960 TILL DATE THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHAT AM SAYING.
THE SOLE PROBLEM OF NIGERIA IS THE UNEDUCATED, NOMADIC, AND VIOLENT NORTHERN PART OF THIS COUNTRY!!!

what do you mean"depend on the North since 1960?" you must be referring to the nothern majority in the military which has enhanced regular northern military coup d'etats in the last 40 some years.

Biafrans would like to be like Singapore or Israel, they would never be the largest economies in the world but they're definitely successful and happy.

Slave

Ask The Igbos They Know It, Majority Of Their Wealth Come From North, Thrugh Trade Or Govt Cmtracts Given 2 Them By Hausas, Very Ungrateful People North And Hausas Made Them Rich, Shelter Them Despite Thair Short Coming Such As Drugs, Criminality, Prostitution 2 Mention A Few And, But This Is What They Pay The North

Boleyndynasty2:





shouldn't you let that be their problems? You care too much for people you make it sound don't love themselves.

I seriously doubt if these people love themselves.
Almost all the indices point to that.
It's only in Igbo land that a particular sensitive national position will be keenly contested among several Igbos just out of share dislike and disunity,and they'll end up fragmenting their votes and lose.
When kidnapping first started,the militants were kidnapping foreigners,but Igbo man joined in and started kidnapping his fellow Igboman.
An Igbo man will cheat his brother or sister without thinking twice even while speaking Igbo language to deceive him/her more.
ho to many places in the SE and you'll see that most Igbos don't travel back to their home towns due to fear of juju or kidnapping or outright assassination.
I can go on and on.
They are on a part of self destruction if they're not cautioned.
They need to go back to the drawing board and restrategize.

Aribisala made a very subjective analysis. He incorporated possible growth for resources and development in the north but he deceptively didn't do that for the South.

Beyond oil, the South is also blessed with arable farmland, energy and access to seaways that will make it very competitive.

Nigeria is the largest producer of Cassava in the world, and they do this with great margin that they produce three times more than second place Brazil. 67% of Nigeria's production is from the South. http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5548e/y5548e07.htm


Most of the oil palm generated in this country that has put it in the bracket of top producers are in the South.

The South has arable land for rice cultivation, yam, cocoyam and other food crops. Though relatively smaller, it can be expanded. Necessity is the mother of invention.

And the chess move of them all: Gas. When most people talk of the economy of the South especially the Niger Delta, all they say is crude oil. But there is a product more valuable, more efficient, less environmental damaging, and that is Gas. Nigeria ranks top ten gas reserves in the world. Almost 100% of it is in the South. As any economist will tell you, secure energy and you have secured growth.

Then the proximity to seaways which makes commerce cheaper and more efficient.

Aribisala, be guided accordingly.

michelz:

I seriously doubt if these people love themselves.
Almost all the indices point to that.
It's only in Igbo land that a particular sensitive national position will be keenly contested among several Igbos just out of share dislike and disunity,and they'll end up fragmenting their votes and lose.
When kidnapping first started,the militants were kidnapping foreigners,but Igbo man joined in and started kidnapping his fellow Igboman.
An Igbo man will cheat his brother or sister without thinking twice even while speaking Igbo language to deceive him/her more.
ho to many places in the SE and you'll see that most Igbos don't travel back to their home towns due to fear of juju or kidnapping or outright assassination.
I can go on and on.
They are on a part of self destruction if they're not cautioned.
They need to go back to the drawing board and restrategize.

You're very funny, you really had time to write all this long epistle ontop igbo matter? :PMost of the things you wrote there isn't true, but if it makes you better no p. Everyone has reasons they don't travel home, so don't sit there and type about what you know nothing about. And sir, try to stop worrying about Igbos, they aren't with your destiny

When people make generalizations like Aribisala just did, I begin to wonder who they think they are, God?

Well, Mr. Aribisala, the idea that none of the ethnic groups in Nigeria can succeed in isolation is the more reason why their union will NEVER be a success.

No union can succeed inter-dependently when each of its constiuent parts has no capacity to succeed independently.

The essence of union is synergy, not life support.

I'm yet to understand how the north "feeds" the country...a large percent of my native food is grown on our family land

Nah man yorubas can't do without the North..Other regions did well without dem back in the days.

And u cant do with the make up and filters

GloriaNinja:
AND NORTH CAN'T
DO WITHOUT TERRORISM. IT'S IRONIC.

We've not been lucky with good leaders. If dividing this country will make it better, i so much support the whole ish. Tired of seeing poverty, peepz living in penury plus corporate beggars.

ZorGBUooeh:
Nah man..yorubas can't do without the North..Other regions did well without dem back in the days.

Hmmmm

Nigeria is in the table of among the poorest nation in the world because of the north. the marriage is not working, it has never worked and cannot work. south will see reasons to take farming serious after the breakup. we can divert from cow to goat meat

By their name you shall know them...

Without reading ya TRASHY article, we in ND and Biafra can very much do without the Whole North. Just as anyone can do without debt, liability or parasites.

North has no value at all.
The Core North is essentially Hell Fire.
The Original home of the Shaitan.
What Good has ever come out of House of Sultan to the Biafra and NDELTANS?? Nothing.

I'm embarrassed by your foolishness sir.

Abeg wetin do this man brain??
him brain dey pain am?

A very well constructed and objective article. Well done sir.

The illiterates ipod touts should please read this.

Seun, abeg, front-page.

Moreoffaith:
Abeg wetin do this man brain??

him brain dey pain am?

What makes you think that his brain is paining him?