The Bauchi State governor, Mallam Isa Yuguda is the latest political leader from the northern part of the country to reaffirm the transmogrification of a discomfiting reality that the northern zone of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, warned about several years ago. According to the governor, the protracted insurrection in the north eastern flank of the country has not only ruined the economy of the north but also carries the risk of adversely affecting the country’s economy in the long run.
Declaring open a training forum for volunteer facilitators organized by the Arewa Youth Forum Project Management Team for Conflict Resolution and Management at Destination Hotel, Bauchi, the governor, who is a former banker, lamented that it is a universal truism that no economy could grow or make progress where there is no peace as has been the case in the region for some time now.
‘We have no more economy in the north following the insecurity in the region because no economy can grow without peace and security. Without peace, there can not be enough capital and you can not grow economy without capital’, he said. ‘
The money we have in our nation is not enough to boost our economy, so the bunch of the money to grow our economy must come from outside and with insecurity, no investor will come and invest in our country,’ the Bauchi State governor said, adding that “it is in view of this that I urge other Nigerians to do everything possible to ensure peace by tolerating one another, irrespective of religious and cultural differences for the development of the country.”
We can say emphatically that there is nothing new that Governor Yuguda has said that other well-meaning people have not said regarding the self-destructive propensity of the ill-advised insurgency option as a form of political agitation.
Early in 2013, the northern zone of MAN issued a distress call, warning that the economy of the region was on the brink of collapse as a direct consequence of the protracted activities of the fundamentalist Boko Haram sect which have pushed up the notoriety of religious extremism, in addition to countless lives wasted and property destroyed since the mindless insurgency began.
There is no controversy in the position that the economy of the north became the first casualty of the prolonged but ill-advised insurgency by Boko Haram, especially in the north eastern part of the country. Apart from thousands of citizens displaced all over the country who have been rendered refugees in their own country by the insurgents, an inestimable value of property –public and private- have also been destroyed, while investor confidence in the economy of the region has been shattered.
Without prejudice to the fact that there is nothing new in the admission that insurgency has ruined the economy of the north, pushing what was originally uncompetitive even further backwards, the novelty in Yuguda’s jeremiad is his allegation that the future of the youth in the region is threatened by abductions and kidnappings by the insurgents who invariably radicalize abducted or kidnapped minors, subsequently converting them to the barbarism of fundamentalism. ‘The future of our youth in the North is threatened so I urge you to work for peace and unity in order to dismantle all negative effects on your future’, Yuguda further said.
The appeal by Gov Yuguda is timely because the youth of the region have a crucial role to play in the Federal Government’s determination to extinguish the uncontrollable fire of insurgency. Because they provide the reservoir from which recruiters forcibly draw agents, the youth have a vital role to play, even if initially by sensitizing the society on the collateral deficits and dangers of insurgency, including economic destitution from which the region might not be able to wean itself for the next 50 years.
Because it is a serious issue, it is imperative for political leaders from the region to hearken to voices of reason as that of Governor Yuguda because even before the self-inflicted madness of insurgency, the economy of the region battled futily to compete with the rest of the country. The implication of this precarious situation is that what is required is for youth in the region to rise in uncommon determination to close up the original gap that existed between the economy of the southern part of the country and that of the north whose destitution has become aggravated by mindless blood-letting.
