MY fellow Northerner, Kawu Moddibo, I chose to address you in this manner because I am a Northerner, from Okene, Kogi State.

I read your first article which was published in the Vanguard, Thursday May 12, 2011. I attempted to respond to show my anger, just like you said other people did in your second article but I changed my mind because I chose a path of wisdow.

Indeed I judged you to be an ignoramus. However, after reading your article in Vanguard of  Thursday May 19 where you “dared to deconstruct the prevalent perspective about the Northern Nigerian”, I reassessed you and concluded that you have a “form of knowledge”, and so we can engage each other on opinions. I will agree with you about the analyses of the Northern youths and the level of backwardness in the Northern region.

However, I choose to differ on the inferences or conclusions you made as to why the youths became violent after the election. There are many reasonable questions that should be asked based on the manner they carried out the violent acts which we all condemned and relating the acts to your reasons. Nothing else interested me more than your main reason: “Injustices in the North”.

Some of the questions are: Were the non-Hausa/Fulani and the Christian residents in the North the people  who perpetrated the  injustices? Were the churches the places where such injustices were carried out against the Northern interests? Why were they the primary target?

Your so much talked about injustices in the North were not caused by the Southerners, Christians and non-Hausa/Fulanis. The injustices were caused by our fellow Northerners- the political-military leaders who ruled for 38 years but left the North undeveloped. These leaders are predominantly Hausa/Fulani Muslims. So why are Christians being attacked in the case of anger against injustices?

Mr. Kawu, you talked about history. So think about the past and relate it to the present. Christians/churches in the Hausa/Fulani areas of Northern Nigeria have been victims of violent attacks that result into loss of lives and properties since 1987.

Recently, in 2010, Sallah festivals were well celebrated without any problem but Christians were attacked during Christmas and New Year celebrations with bomb-blast in the North. Also Christians and churches were the primary targets in the post-election violence in April.

The Christians suffered more than the Northern political elite whom you claimed the youths were out to revolt against. The CAN president, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, has the right to say “NO” to different ways by which Christians are being killed in Northern Nigeria and he has the right to call on the government to bring judgment on whoever is responsible for or connected with these acts.

Buhari: The change agents
Paraphrasing your article, it was in the heart of a desire for change among the Northern youths that Buhari became the rallying point. But may I ask you: What kind of change do they think they can get with Buhari, the man who truncated a democratic government by staging a coup against the government and by that took the country backward several years directly and indirectly?

If you and “your co-Northern youths” advocated for a change with Ibrahim Shekarau, maybe other people could have seen reason with you. I was amused to read in your column that the election was rigged. Buhari lacks national appeal and widespread acceptance. Nigerians have not forgiven him and have not forgotten how he took us backward by his policies and programmes which were anti-development and anti-progress.

Some programmes that could have brought development to people and country were closed down even in some Northern states during the military regime of Buhari and his team of military governors. In Okene, part of the North, a vocational training centre was closed down.

The 1979 elected civilian governor of Kwara State, Alhaji Adamu Attah who  knew our problems and that about 90 percent of Ebira women were uneducated and not empowered, proffered solutions and among other things established a vocational training centre to train the women.

Buhari came from the barracks  and took over the government and imposed his fellow barrack man who did not know what our problems were on us. It took him only  few days in the office to close down the vocational training centre and other projects that were meant to bring development to the grassroots. Again the women and their families became vulnerable.

Some Northerners might have forgotten. Some people like you without understanding did not know how such anti-people’s policies took the country backward but the truly progressive-minded Nigerians who were not deceived by names of political parties  knew this, so they decided who become their president regardless of party affiliations.

The wind of change with Buhari and his followers was localised to a region.  May any other past military heads of state from the North that has a political ambition to become the Nigerian president experience such localisation. Amen.

The questions I have asked myself daily is: What am I doing in Lagos? When am I going back to my home state? I am supposed to work in the National Iron Ore Mining Company Itakpe or Ajaokuta Steel Company in Okene, Kogi State, but neither of these companies is functioning because our Northern political-military leadership of Buhari, Babangida, Abacha, Abdulsalam and Yar’Adua failed to develop them.

The high level of backwardness in the entire Northern region is the handiwork of these people and their associates.

Mr. DAVID OCHU,  a commentator on national issues, wrote from Lagos.