Posted by From KENNY ASHAKA, Kaduna on
Governors of the 19 Northern states on Monday rose in stout condemnation of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) leader, Alhaji Mujahideen Asari Dokubo, saying the North was not a parasite on any of the regions in Nigeria.
Governors of the 19 Northern states on Monday rose in stout condemnation of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) leader, Alhaji Mujahideen Asari Dokubo, saying the North was not a parasite on any of the regions in Nigeria.
The governors also said that the collapse of industries in the North was part of international conspiracy against the region.
Chairman of the Northern Governors' Forum (NGF) and governor of Niger State, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu, made this known at the first Northern Agricultural Summit, which held at the Arewa House Conference Hall in Kaduna.
Apparently a reacting to the North's claim that the leaders of the Niger Delta were responsible for the sufferings of the people of the region, Dokubo had launched a verbal attack on the North labeling the people as parasites who depended on other regions for survival.
Aliyu said the accusation of the North being a parasite was baseless and that the North was capable of solving its problems through agriculture and education.
The NGF chairman spoke just as the Governor of Adamawa State, Admiral Murtala Nyako, called on the people of the region to 'wake up and correct the erroneous impression that we are economic parasites," pointing out that it was shameful for the North not to be able to feed the nation despite its vast arable land.
According to Aliyu, the North can survive on its own with or without proceeds from oil, adding that all that was needed was for them to develop agriculture.
'The future of the North lies in our hands, and we should today begin to shape her destiny. As a Nigerian of northern extraction, I feel very unhappy when someone describes me as a parasite because of oil, when I know I have the capacity to solve my problems, and probably do even better through agriculture and education," he said.
Speaking on the collapsed industries in the region, Aliyu said, 'most of the plants have been probably sold to Asians who in turn shut them down as a part of international conspiracy to turn the North into dumping grounds for their goods and products while our farmers fold their arms in hapless confusion.
'We need to examine the issues that led to de-industrialization of the North, whereby many of the Northern industries have been closed down with attendant consequences for the social security of our people. For instance, we need to be very clear on why the two tractor assembly plants located at Kano (tractors) and Bauchi (Styre tractors) are today shut down, or why most of our textile factories are out of business. Our fertilizer plants are producing below installed capacity or have been shut down, thus making the commodity expensive and inaccessible. We must continue to find answers to the question: what went wrong?" he said.
In his speech, Nyako said that no nation has ever enjoyed lasting peace and stability, or could ever survive when only a few of its citizens live in wealth and affluence as par with the rich of other nations while the rest of its citizens are entrapped in poverty," and noted that, 'the simple truth is that the above reality obtains more in the North than other parts of the country."
Nyako also said that 'available infrastructure is decaying by the day. The scope and quality of education in the North, including acquisition of basic skills, is declining with amazing rapidity. Resulting from the above, the levels of poverty in the Northern states are reaching legendary dimensions. The plain reality is that poverty in Nigeria today is almost exclusively a Northern preserve..."