Who Says The Northerners Are Inferior To The Southerners?

By Dr. Wumi Akintide

There could be some of you who used to view the North as” poor illiterate Gambaris” like I used to do as a young boy growing up in Akure. All the images" of the northerners I had were based on my subjective views of some  blind beggars and their young children or wives  wandering the streets of Akure, pan in hand, begging for alms and chanting “Sadaka Sabo da Allah.”  Few of them who have lived long enough in Akure and could speak Akure dialect or Yoruba Language often resorted to speaking the little Yoruba they knew. “E sanu mi” “ Akoba adaba Oluwa ma ji a ri ”  or “Nagode  Allah Ikemu” when you drop a few pennies into their collection pans.

My early impressions of the northerners at the time are totally different from what they are today, thank God. A few northerners that impressed me after I heard them speak the English language on radio were individuals I never met before. I heard about them because of the positions they held in Government. Two of them included the Bauchi man also called the golden voice of Africa. I am talking of Tafawa Balewa, the so-called Grade II teacher who became  Nigeria’s first Prime Minister. The second was Maitama Sule, a Minister in Balewa’s Cabinet who later became the permanent representative of Nigeria to the United Nations.

The two of them, as I recall, spoke English language better than many southerners I knew. I once had a chance to listen to a video recording of the late Sir Ahmadu Bello explain to a British reporter his reasons for adopting his "northernization" policy as Premier of the Northern Region. I could not believe my ears as I listened to that Fulani Prince articulate in flawless English his reasons for crafting his "northernization" policy which many southerners always criticized at the time. By the time he became leader of Government Business in the North less than 20 northerners held any important position in the northern Nigerian Public Service. Ahmadu Bello instinctively knew the North  had a long way to go in terms of education and western civilization and he was determined  to change that perception. He knew the northerners were far more knowledgeable in Islamic education than Western education per se. He knew the North was not in short supply of native intelligence, common sense and wisdom but he also knew the northerners had a lot of catching up to do with the South. If you listen to many of the hausa proverbs or if you have ears for the kind of music played by Dan Maraya, you will understand what I am talking about.

Ahmadu Bello said if he did not pursue the northernization policy the Igbos and few Yorubas who were in the North at that time would have monopolized  or dominated all the Government jobs  at the expense of the less educated northerners. He was not going to let that happen. He went on to further  defend his rational for kicking against the decision of Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo to fast-track Nigerian independence to occur in 1956 so Nigeria could beat Ghana and her Pan African leader Osagyefo, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s who beat Nigeria to the punch by getting independence for Ghana by fire and by force in 1957 three years before Nigeria. Ahmadu Bello had figured it out that the North was not ready and he did not want a situation where the Igbos whom he described as very greedy, (his words not mine) would have made a mockery of Democracy in the North by taking all of the juicy positions in the Northern Nigerian Public Service and even in the Federal Public Service that came into existence following Nigeria’s attainment of independence.

On hindsight, it was the correct position to take and I took off my hat for Ahmadu Bello. As a matter of fact but for Ahmadu Bello the Nigerian Biafran war that erupted from 1967 to 1970 would have occurred sooner and would have been far more deadly and brutal, had the Sardauna not have the courage of his conviction to put his feet down and to tell the British colonial masters  that the northerners were not ready.

Who says the Northerners are inferior to the Southerners? That could be me at one point in my life. I was one of many southerners I knew who thought that way because we did not know any better as I hinted in the opening paragraph of this article. All those images and impressions of the northerners began to change after I left Oyemekun Grammar School in 1960 for Ibadan Grammar School and after I went to Lagos to teach at Igbobi College, Yaba following my graduation in 1966 from the great University of Ife which has been named  after Obafemi Awolowo. That was the time I started seeing the northerners as real human beings like the rest of us in the South. Before then I used to see some of the Hausa beggars  on the streets of Akure with most of them seated in front of Akure Post Office or the few Banks in Akure at the time where they expect frequent visitors to those public buildings and Banks to give them some tokenism as they went back and forth to those buildings.

I repeat all those impressions began to change and fade away as I went to Lagos to take up a more lucrative job as a lecturer at Igbobi College. I used to see a cluster of those Hausa beggars around Leventis Stores at Oyingbo area and close to the Railway Junction at Ebute meta. You would have thought  the whole area was the Nigerian “Rendezvous” for  beggars in those days. Governor Fashola one of my old students at Igbobi College may have cleared up the area now in his very successful effort to keep Lagos clean. I have not been to Ebute Meta for years ever since I voluntarily checked out of Nigeria in 1987 to give myself and my children a new lease of life as I thought I had reached the peak of my career in Nigeria having attained a grade level 16 in the Public Service of Nigeria as an administrator in the Public Service.

Those jaundiced impressions of the Northerners began to drastically change once I joined the Federal Public Service on January 3, 1968 as a Foreign Affairs officer because all I ever wanted to be was to become an Ambassador like my brother-in-law, the one and only Victor Adegoroye of Akure. The ambition quickly vanished as I was sent to serve in the home service in the Ministry of Defense in the Republic Building on Marina, Lagos which housed both Defense and the Foreign Service Ministries at the time. I was sent to the Home Service because Awolowo had persuaded Yakubu Gowon to drastically reduce some of the redundant missions Nigeria was keeping abroad because Awolowo made the case it made no sense for Nigeria to keep those missions at a time Nigeria needed all the money it could get to prosecute the war at home without borrowing a penny from the World Bank or the I.M.F.

It was my first time to come in contact with Hausa Civil Servants like Damcida and late Yusuf Gobir from Ilorin who became my Permanent Secretary for some time at Defense. It was the first time I came in contact with Hausa soldiers and commissioned officers of various ranks in the Nigerian Military like late General Joseph Garba, late Murtala Mohammed who became the Chairman of the Recruitment panel for Army officers while I served as the Secretary to the panel as Assistant Secretary (Army) with one S.A Ogunleye from Ijebu Ode as my direct boss and B.G. Popo from Warri as Deputy Permanent Secretary to Yusuf Gobir. The late Major General Agbazikah Innih and General Ike Nwachukwu who spoke English with a northern accent because I heard one of his parents  was a Fulani from Katsina or something like that. Some of the northern officers I met were among the finest.

I met so many officers of northern origin in the Federal Public Service. One of them was my P.E.O in the Federal Ministry of Education, Mallam Mohammadu Mayo from Sardauna Province and my mentor in the Public Service, the one and only Ahmed Joda from Girei in Adamawa State. The man was one of the four Musketeer Permanent Secretaries comprising of Allison Ayida from Warri, Phillip Asiodu from Asaba, E.M.E Ebong from Cross River or Calabar. The man thought me all I knew as a young civil servant. That was when the Federal Civil Service was something to write home about. I remember those days with some nostalgia till now.

I met many more distinguished Hausa and Fulani public servants who completely changed my early impressions of the northerners. One of them was Alhaji Gambo Gubio who was my Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Establishments for a few years with Francesca Yetunde Emanuel as the Permanent Secretary. In the Civil Service Commission was a gentleman named Sule Katagun who was Chairman of the Department for years with Dr. Manuwa as his Deputy as I recall. Later on when I served in the Federal Ministry of Finance as the Secretary to the special task force on Student Financing in Nigeria with Obafemi Awolowo as Chairman, I had the rare privilege of meeting and working with a few northern members of the Task Force which included, Shetima Alli Monguno and Alhaji Shehu Shagari who later became the first civilian President of Nigeria in 1979. Other northerners included late Abdul Azeez Attah, the son of Ohinoyi the Attah of Igbira land as Permanent Secretary to Awolowo in the Ministry of Finance and Alhaji Aminu Saleh as Deputy Permanent Secretary.

I also had the privilege of meeting and serving under Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji  (Triple A) as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Planning. I was at the time the Secretary to the Joint Economic Commission of Nigeria with the rest of the world. All of those individuals were fine gentlemen in their own right and they were as smart as any of their southern counterparts in my esteem. My path briefly crossed with the late former Governor of Kano, the one and only Alhaji Abubakar Rimi who was one of the greatest orators I have ever met. He was very handsome and as smart as hell. The last and not the least was Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, son of the late Sulu Gambari, the great Emir of Ilorin and now the number 2 man to Ki Moon at the United Nations.

Who says the northerners are inferior to the southerners?  You could say there was more widespread poverty in the North than the South. I would not dispute that. The poverty mainly accounted for the present insurrection of Boko Haram in the North if you ask me. The uneven distribution of wealth in the North and the South was a big part of Nigeria’s problem. Once upon a time, the Rivers State was getting no lees than 1053 Billion Naira in annual subvention  while the while Yobe State got 175 billion while Bornu State was getting 213 billion Naira. The northern leaders were not using all the money they stole from Government to create gainful opportunities for employment like many of their counterparts in the South used to doN Awolowo was the first leader in Nigeria to increase & double minimum wage for workers in the Western Region. The northern leaders had no reason to do that or create freedom for all and life more abundant for their own working class. The whole of free education which Awolowo has embraced for the West was a no go area for the northerners. I would be the first to admit that, but to then conclude that the northerners are still inferior to the southerners till now would be jumping the gun. Whoever says that just don’t know what they are talking about. The North has come a long way.

This takes me to the current feud between President Jonathan and the current Governor of Central Bank who followed the track record of Adamu Ciroma, from the great University of Ibadan who  once served with distinction at the same apex Bank even though the man was a historian by education and training but that did not stop him from becoming Federal Commissioner for Finance and Governor of Central Bank. If Ciroma could be Governor of Central Bank, so could Lamido Sanusi. I have never met Lamido Sanusi but I have listened to him speak at some international forums as the distinguished Governor of the Nigerian Central Bank. He is a great Governor by any stretch of the imagination and he is no pushover at all in my judgment. I just listened to his interview on You tube by the great CEO and MD of Sahara News Media Company based in New York. I am talking of the one and only Omoyele Sowore who interviewed him about his on-going suspension or removal by President Jonathan.

If you listen to that interview in full, you will  come to the same conclusion I have drawn that the northerners have come a long way. A good number of them can stand their ground and hold their own against any southerner any where in the world today. Professor Jega the current Chairman of I.N.E.C is one of them. Jerry Ghana is another, Professor Yadudu is another. The list is inexhaustible. But you have to give kudos to Lamido Sanusi who has proved he is not a push-over compared to the first Ph.D holder on merit from the South  to ever hold the post of President in Nigeria. I cannot wait to hear the outcome of his litigation against the President in the Court of Law. I cannot see the President winning that litigation because Lamido Sanusi is as smart as they come. The few Sanusis of Kano that I know are no pushovers at all.

They are very patriotic and brave. I once served with one Ambassador Sanusi the Nigerian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco as I once narrated in some of my articles on this web site. The ambassador is the senior brother to Lamido Sanusi. They are both sons of the deposed Emir of Kano who was banished and exiled from Kano for refusing to be micro-managed by the Ahmadu Bello. He was a stubborn monarch with a mind of his own. He could have been reinstated by another regime in Kano who allowed him to return to Kano where he finally died and was buried on the tomb reserved for his ancestors. The deposed Emir was a cousin to the current Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero who is now in his 80s.

Lamido Sanusi sounded to me very much like his own father when he told Omoyele Sowore that if he won his case for wrongful suspension or removal  from office, he was not doing that for the purpose of returning to the Central Bank. He said he did not apply to be Governor and being Governor was not a do or die proposition for him. He was taking the President to Court on principle to prove a point and to send a powerful message to the President. That sounded pretty much like what his father said when he told the regime in Kano he was not interested in taking back the throne. The Government should let his cousin, Ado Bayero continue on the throne because he had no bitterness in his heart for him or for the Government. He just wanted to peacefully die and be buried in the  tomb of his ancestors in Kano.

I recall Lamido’s brother Ambassador Sanusi siding with my motion against Morocco that the chairmanship of C.A.F.R.A.D (African  Research Center in Training and Administration for Development) based in Tangiers, Morocco must be rotated just like it is done at the African Union. The Moroccan Chairman of the C.A.F.R.A.D Board of Trustees had expected Ambassador Sanusi to be in cahoot with another Muslim country to disown my motion to rotate the chairmanship of C.A.F.R.A.D which Morocco had monopolized for more than 40 years because no country has raised a contrary view.

The amazing Ambassador openly sided with me as the distinguished delegate of Nigeria at C.A.F.R.A.D. He told King Hassan, he could not in good conscience support Morocco simply because he has to help another Muslim country.  His loyalty as ambassador  was first and foremost to Nigeria. He told His Royal Majesty  King Hassan, the young man referring to me had the right to table his motion and he, as the Ambassador of Nigeria supported me one hundred per cent. The guy praised my courage and he openly eulogized me for standing my ground. It was Nigeria’s finest hour, and one of my best days in the Nigerian Public Service. Nigeria went on to win the motion in a landslide. The only African country to vote for Morocco was the Mobutu-led Republic of Zaire. The other countries voted in a secret ballot for rotation and Nigeria became the first country outside Morocco to host the meeting of C.A.F.R.A.D and to appoint the first non-Moroccan Chairman of C.A.F.R.A,D in Chief Oluyemi Falae of Nigeria. I gave all the credit to Ambassador Sanusi who I believe is still alive and can confirm this or issue a rebuttal.

President Jonathan should expect a fight to finish with Prince Lamido Sanusi who would defend himself against the charges made against him by President Jonathan who could easily be faulted in the Court for double standard by seeking to indict or blackmail the prince charming for daring to call the President out on his low tolerance level for Corruption in Nigeria.

I am not defending Lamido Sanusi because I do not know the details of his indictment by the President but I would go to any length to say what I know about the Sanusis of this world. They are a breed-apart if you know them as well as I do. I am aware from my long association with some northerners that some of them can be very arrogant and few of them may occasionally overplay their hands by being arrogant but they are generally less corrupt and far less greedy than their southern counterparts. I saw a little bit of that in Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji, a Prince of the Sokoto Caliphate who was at one time the most powerful Permanent Secretary in the Federal Public Service of the  Shehu Shagari era in Nigeria. But Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji was a very able and competent Permanent Secretary without any doubt.

Lamido Sanusi may have been guilty of some arrogance as a Kano Prince but he sure knows what he is doing as Governor of Central Bank. I would be the last to agree he is a corrupt outlaw like the President was suggesting. I would count that as a low blow on the part of the President. Lamido Sanusi is a man of honor and a patriot like his father and brother.

If anyone is to be accused of any skeletons in their cupboard, I will call out Mr. President first before pointing accusing fingers at Sanusi. The statement is informed by the President’s high tolerance level for Corruption in Nigeria and the excesses of his first lady and some of his Ministers like Stella Odua and others.

Need I say more?

I rest my case.