By Zayyad I. Muhammad
Slowly and steadily, some parts of the North-east of Nigeria are slipping out of the control of the government. If one wants to see Africa’s new social disorder in a poverty-ridden society, please, visit some areas of this expansive territory of Nigeria.
The number of people living in abject poverty in the Northeast of Nigeria has increased due to the rising insecurity in the region. Apart from the insecurity, other factors such as poor leadership, unequal distribution of resources, lack of basic education, overpopulation, absence of employment opportunities, including environmental degradation have also helped in entrenching poverty in the Northeast.
Often, Individuals who found themselves in leadership positions in the Northeast of Nigeria (especially Adamawa, Taraba and Borno States) are never prepared for the job. Furthermore, the political system in that region is so corrupted that the easy way to secure an elective office is to have the right godfather (money bags); belong to the political party in power whether at the centre or in State and during electioneering campaign all that is needed of one is to climb to the podium, rain abuses on the opponents, shout the name of your political party and dance. Shikenan! How do we expect such system to produce good leadership?
In the North-east, holding political office has become an opportunity for self-enrichment and it is associated with pride, arrogance and larger than life attitude. Though, it is a Nigerian phenomenon. On the other hand, the people of the Northeast are to be blame, in some instances-, the society expect or encourage ‘their people in power’ to have or to do certain things even if they are wrong; just because one ‘Olodo’ did have or did it before. While in other parts of Nigeria, it was reported that some people sold their votes for a bag of rice. The leaders in Northeast have impoverished their citizen; a vote will go for just a 100 Naira in that region.
The People of the North-east are the first Nigerians to witness Africa’s new social disorder- courtesy of insurgency, poverty and extremely bad leadership.
Zayyad I. Muhammad via zaymohd@yahoo.com
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