By Hakeem Baba Ahmed
THREE important comments have recently been made on the linkages between poverty, politics and insecurity, and the current state of the North. First, the Governor of Borno State said that poverty and poor governance in the last few years are responsible for fuelling the Boko Haram insurgency in his region.

In making a case for massive state spending to fight poverty, he alluded to the secret behind the successful control by the murdered leader of the Boko Haram insurgency, Yusuf Muhammad over his followers, which was his painstaking attention and investment in their stomachs, employment and personal dignity.

Then the Governor of Niger State, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu revealed that Northern Governors will soon demand a review of the revenue allocation formula to address the absence of fairness in the manner national revenues from petroleum and gas are distributed.

He said current allocations are not informed by equity or the law. He complained that the North is gravely poor, and its levels of illiteracy, poverty, ignorance and general backwardness are rising. The U.S Ambassador to Nigeria, said his country will encourage the Nigerian government to reach out to people in the poor north in its fight against the Boko Haram insurgency, in addition to better use of technology and intelligence.

He said the insurgency would not be solved by treating it exclusively as a security issue, and advised the adoption of a holistic approach to dealing with the problem.

Northern poverty and escalating insurgency

Now, all three of these comments and insights provide a glimpse into how the North is defined today, by poverty and an escalating insurgency. These defining characteristics are challenged by some basic facts about the North. Its taxes and agricultural economy for decades, had supported the development of the early colonian Nigerian state, including much of the most developed sections of Nigeria today.

It was a vital part of a federation where populations meant much, and where resources were derived directly from productive activities of the people, long before virtually all of Nigeria came to adopt a parasitic existence around revenue from petroleum and gas.

It was and is the region with the potential to provide enough food for much of Africa; to support a vibrant agro-allied industrial base, and which has more solid minerals under it than almost any part of the world. The North is the region that frittered away its achievements, and failed to tap into, and develop its potential.

It was sucked into the dangerous dependence on revenues from products located in far-away places, where politics is played in a manner that makes it appear that they belong to the people who live on top of them. It failed to develop its two largest assets: its considerable population and vast, rich agricultural potential.

The North has far more voters than the rest of Nigeria, so with free and fair election, it can lead this country till kingdom come. Yet, the north also has the largest number of poorest people in Nigeria among its population. It has the largest number of children beggars, and young people who do not go to school, or go to schools without learning anything of value; and pass out of schools without qualifications, skills or any hope of leading productive, responsible adult lives.

The North has an aging political leadership which has lost control of the political process in the region. Its political machinery is firmly under control of Governors, who show no evidence that they have the capacity, or vision or commitment to address its fundamental problems.

It is being politically weakened by the increasing incursion of faith-based politics, ethno-religious conflicts and the declining influence of traditional values. Its pluralism is dragging it down in terms of competing as a region.

Huge chasms have developed between its Muslim population, which has a long list of grievances against its Christian, population and a Christian population which is developing a split personality: now telling it that it is free of decades or centuries of Hausa-Fulani domination and next being warned about engaging the South entirely as Northern minorities.

Loss of political engineering by Northern governors

The North is being presented now as a victim of endemic poverty, and that its current security and political problems will be addressed once there is massive public spending in its human capital and basic infrastructure. In a nation where fortunes of entire populations increasingly depend on the ethno-religious origins of leaders who determine the allocation of scarce resources, the loss of political power engineered by northern Governors appears to be hurting the north much more than all its old problems.

The Boko Haram insurgency is being labelled as a northern rebellion against the loss of political power by the north to President Jonathan. Little attention is paid to the fact that Boko Haram is pre-eminently an insurgency against the northern Muslim establishment, in both its doctrinal and political forms; and that it is the insurgency that now appears to be setting the agenda for northern Muslims, whether they agree with it or not.

The poverty of the north, manifested in its poor leadership, its declining economy and the absence of a visible and purposeful challenge of the damaging dominance of Governors and their party in its politics will be compounded by the image of the beggar region that will be made more visible when Governor Babangida and his colleagues go abegging cup-in-hand, for a few more crumbs from the South South. They will get nothing because they have nothing to leverage in their demands.

Northern governors as loyal party men

Northern Governors will behave like loyal party men. They cannot push through genuine reviews of the manner resources are allocated. They cannot organise an informed response to the rest of Nigeria which believes that it is better-off without the North, a region and people full of poverty and violence.

They cannot articulate a range of options for the north, including the possibility that parts of the nation may go their separate ways; and that this could actually be a good thing for the North.

The danger of linking the current threats of the Boko Haram insurgency with poverty is that it gives a wrong picture. Poverty has always been a feature of the northern political economy, and it will require trillions in real investment over many years to address the dangerous levels of poverty in the region.

Nigeria has no choice over whether it should undertake this massive expenditure. It should. A desperately poor North is a danger to itself, and a danger to the rest of Nigeria. Restructuring the country or threatening poverty and insecurity with radical reviews over the nature of the union will achieve little. This nation may have to fight another war to settle the question of its future, its structure and its values.

It does not need to; but if or when it becomes necessary, the North will fight as it had done in the past. Not necessarily to preserve a union when many others do not want it; but to preserve a national or regional arrangement which allows all sections to live in peace and develop on the basis of the resources which God gave each or all of us.