Whoever becomes Nigeria's next president is going to have to introduce a Northern Nigerian Emergency Development Programme to bridge the gap between the north and south

Ayo Akinfe

[1] You just need to look at the number of Sokoto youths who in their ignorance and ready to murder will nilly to understand the problem we have on our hands. Across northern Nigeria, numerous leading academics have repeatedly said that the region is heading for an impending catastrophe unless things change soon

[2] Accounting for 72% of Nigeria's landmass and about 52% of her population, Nigeria's 19 northern states are a massive untapped resource and unless serious attention is focused there, we will never see socio-economic development. Northern Nigeria is massively under-banked, under-industrialised, under-urbanised, under-educated, under-hospitalised, etc in comparison to the south of the country. This gulf is widening by the day, so the rot must end today

[3] Just to give you an illustration of the problem we are facing, Nigeria has a total gross domestic product (GDP) of about $400bn but alas, the 19 states that make up the north of the country only account for $73bn of this. When 52% of your population account for only 18.25% of GDP, you have a serious problems on your hands. For starters, it will inevitably create ethnic tension

[4] Nowhere is this problem more pronounced than in the area of education. Just looking at the Jamb figures from 2015, Delta State with a population of 4.1m, had 1,814 medical students. while Zamfara had 54, Kebbi had 94, Sokoto had 105 and Jigawa had 111. These four northern states had a combined population of 14.4m people yet the combined total of their medical student intakes was just 364. This was less than a quarter of the intake from Delta State. Let me spell it out again - Delta with a population of 4.1m had 1,814 medical students, while the four states with a combined population of 14.4m had just 364 medical students

[5] What depresses me about this whole matter is that whenever one tries to address the issue, Nigerians shamelessly descend into primordial mode and the debate becomes one about ethnicity and religion. Over half of the country is being left behind by the rest of humanity as we accelerate into the 21st century, yet rather than face the issue, we start throwing ethnic bricks at one another. This simply has to stop. Figures do nor lie, so we need to face the issues

[6] When I look at the kind of leadership we are seeing across northern Nigeria at the moment, I just shudder. In Sokoto State, the governor once announced that he intends taking out a loan of $180m to fund hajj pilgrims, while in Jigawa State, the governor said his main infrastructural challenge of 2020 will be the construction of 53 mosques. Likewise in Kaduna State, the governor opened a hajj pilgrim camp at a time when primary school kids in his state sit on the bare floor to take lessons

[7] Now, both Sokoto and Jigawa states like the other 17 across northern Nigeria have serious infrastructural and educational challenges and require a massive investment in schools, hospitals, roads, power plants, water treatment works, clinics, libraries, etc. However, nobody appears interesting in addressing these issues. I say it is time we all rally round the likes of Lamido Sanusi and Shehu Sani and say this nonsense ends today. We need to create a How We Want to Live movement and embark on a tour of the 19 states,telling the talakawas that they have to stop being misled under the guise of Islam

[8] One man I bitterly miss today is Dr Bala Usman. Back in the 1980s, he and Hadjia Gambo Sawaba never allowed this nonsense to happen as they dominated the political debate across northern Nigeria, using ABU Zaria as their platform. They brought through academics like Alkasum Abba who were a thorn in the side of the northern elite. They made sure the construction of schools, general hospitals, libraries, ante-natal clinics, etc took priority over building mosques and hajj pilgrim camps

[9] Being a cosmopolitan, de-tribalised Kaduna boy myself, I am very passionate about this matter and say it is time to create a movement as Bala Usman and Gambo Sawaba would have done. We need to set ourselves goals, with maybe targeting that by 2040, we want the north-south educational and industrial gap totally closed. At the moment, the liberal urbane, cosmopolitan, young and forward-thinking intellectuals across northern Nigeria are having their voices drowned out by the feudal elite that are in love with the status quo and those who want to create an Arab theocracy, returning back to the glory days of the Arabian caliphs in 700AD

[10] For me, the point is actually easy to make and the argument can simply be won. All we need to tell the masses is that Muslim countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and even Saudi Arabia, are now investing heavily in education and infrastructure like universities, skyscrappers, hotels, shopping malls, tourist attractions, etc. These countries have relegated the construction of mosques and the observance of hajj pilgrimages into the background and we need to do likewise. Nigeria is a modern, secular, cosmopolitan African 21st century democracy and not a first century Arab theocracy. Let that debate start now!