Of the US, North’s underdevelopment and Boko Haram

 By Paul Arhewe

A rural Nothern Nigerian houses



Can the United States of America afford to be indifferent to developments in Nigeria? The answer is a categorical no! Reason is that there is a strong trade relation between both coun-tries, mostly on oil. It is worth over $42 billion a year and growing. In 2010, the two countries entered into a Bi-national Commission Agreement, which is de-signed to deepen bilateral relations be-tween the two countries. The strategic interest of Nigeria to the US and indeed the West lies in the fact that she is Africa’s most populous nation, its largest contributor of peacekeepers, its largest producer of oil, and the largest recipient of direct investment by the American private sector in sub-Saharan Africa. It is therefore, natural that the American government cannot ignore the problems facing our dear Nigeria. I reason within the context of the recent statement credited to the US Assistant Secretary of State, Johnnie Carson linking the pervasive poverty in the North with the deadly attacks of the Islamist militant sect, Boko Haram.

 “Nigerians are hungry for progress and improvement in their lives, but northern Nigerians feel this need most acutely. Life in Nigeria may be tough for many, but life in the North is grim for almost all”, was how he put it.

Expectedly, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) took great exception to the statement, advising Americans to do a thorough investigation before making sweeping generalization.

I ask what is wrong with Johnnie Carson’s statement. Generally, all he said about the ravaging poverty in the country is correct. It is true that majority of Nigerians in all the six geopolitical zones are plagued with abject poverty and about 70 percent living below one dollar a day. However, the situation in some parts of the North is grimmer when compared with what obtains in the southern part of the country.

However, what I found objectionable is using poverty as the premise for Boko Haram recourse to the use of terror.

I was privileged to get a first hand view of the level of poverty in North when I did my compulsory National Youth Service (NYSC) in Taraba State some years back. In my one year stay there, I visited Nas-sarawa, Kaduna, Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, Benue and Adamawa states. In all these places I found that same level of wretched-ness and high level of joblessness among the uneducated youths.
The level of poverty in the North is really embarrassing, especially against the backdrop of the fact that the region has produced more heads of state (military and civilian) than the South. Indeed, these past national leaders of northern extraction who have ruled Nigeria have failed woefully to ameliorate the suffering of their people beyond the cos-metics of infrastructural facelifts for state capitals and awarding the region more local government areas than it deserves.

Many of the towns and villages in the North are vastly desert-like ruined lands, where huts mostly constitute haven for humans, with no electricity, water or good roads.
The escape from ghastly poverty is why the streets of major cities in the South like Lagos, are flooded with mendicants. Has anyone bothered to ask where do those rusty, worn-out and retired properties transported from the South go to?Nevertheless, to say that Boko Haram insurgency is the result of the bleak situation in the North is rather fallacious.
Just like the argument put up by CAN, the sophistication of the weaponry at the disposal of these militants no doubts requires huge funds to finance.
Further-more, the sect has on many occasions explicitly shown that the crux of their onslaughts is for the propagation of a Shariah state in the region. The attacks on Christians and their worship centres are signals that the crisis in the North has a religious undertone, even as there is truth also that it is politically motivated.
If indeed these people are fighting for the cause of a better life they would not turn the battle on their compatriots and destroy their lives and the pitiable infra-structure available. Those supposedly faceless financiers of this group, no doubt would have watched while this region wrench from the pains of wanton wretch-edness, but choose to destroy the little de-velopment on ground.
The many national leaders from this re-gion are the wrongdoers that ought to be the targets of the attackers.
The insurgency of Boko Haram is helping to destroy the little development there and heightening the level of poverty in this region. I don’t see any right thinking foreigner or local investor making this region a place of choice for establishing their businesses. It should be the major task of all Nigerians to ensure peace returns to the North.