You must be commended for your longstanding patriotism. Unlike others, you have never said you were tired of the union. 

The days of religious crises appear over. You have taught the nation the virtue of not drinking alcohol. You must be commended for feeding the nation.

The South sometimes thinks you are a drag. But God knows you are the country’s north star. Insha Allah, you are about to shine.

It’s God that gives power. If you start to regard Tinubu as an emir, your current disenchantment will subside. Nobody loves leaders like you.  Some emirs ride Rolls Royce cars in domains ravaged by chronic poverty. So, let’s look beyond the new jet Tinubu bought for himself. Instead, let’s focus on the new Cattle and  Chickens ministry he created for your sake. It is true that he has given the Lagos-Calabar road project to his man without due process. Be patient. One day, he will remember to recharge Lake Chad.  Please do not do anything that will suggest you now want a Sovereign National Conference; it has not gotten to that yet.

The former Kaduna governor said God probably gave the country a Muslim-Muslim ticket to show us what an all-Muslim ticket can do. And as you can see, they are reforming and performing. But if you are already tired of standing on the mandate, you persevere. You cannot abandon Tinubu because he thinks using consumption-based derivation rather than population and equality to distribute VAT is fairer. Please, no more zanga zanga. And if you must, don’t forget that the Russian flag is now haram. You are supposed to be conservative. To take whatever comes with equanimity, isn’t that what our politicians mean by conservatism?

Tinubu and Shettima need your steadfast support. If you can, pretend for four years that Shettima is top of that ticket. Biko.  So you can recover that suffering-and-smiling stamina you had under Buhari. If you didn’t feel it under Buhari, you may be overreacting a bit. Trust Tinubu and trust Nuhu Ribadu. Ribadu said you can now travel anywhere, anytime, because Tinubu has defeated the insurgents and bandits.  Nuhu Ribadu can’t lie. Return to your farms to feed the nation. We can’t go back to importing rice. And if you can’t return to your farms because of banditry, then rather than threaten the president with 2027, pray for him. He built Lagos.

I didn’t want to let you hear what some Lagosians are murmuring about. They think you are bellyaching because the feeding bottle has been snatched from your leaders. And you all are now throwing tantrums to unsettle or arm-twist the government as you did with President Jonathan. Otherwise, they want you to explain how the nation’s food basket appears more hungry than the others. These folks can’t understand that the North, like the South, has classes. They have no empathy for the poor in the North. They don’t know that many of you have no food, no light, no water, no schools, no clinics. They see you doing rankadede to your leaders and filling stadiums to the brim at every election campaign even on weekdays and believe you are part beneficiaries of a notorious hegemony. Some fanatical progressives in Lagos are even saying that that was how you made so much disruptive noise about Boko haram and Chibok girls during the Jonathan era, only to live out Buhari and Banditry with equanimity. Imagine. I know you will like to remind them that they were Jonathan’s loudest and harshest critics, but let’s leave sleeping dogs to lie so they don’t wake up to start barking at  Buhari, Emefiele and Shettima. The last two are Jim Ovia’s boys.  Mai Gaskiya is not anybody’s father’s mate, wallahi.

More than anyone else, I feel your pain. You put Tinubu in power. Besides hunger, which has become more pervasive and dehumanising, the other problem is Tinubu’s ingratitude. I guess that is where T-pain came from. It’s enough that folks are now eating rice husks, but what about the man’s audacity? Gaskiya,  Tinubu has taken many of those positions your leaders love the most and given them to the Yoruba as if he had harboured a grudge and had a score to settle. He took the  Police, Army, EfCC, Customs, and DSS. How can he say he doesn’t know your leaders love these very positions? He took all of them and gave them to his Yoruba brothers. These things are not easy to bear. Not after all you did for him. But you need to be silent so they don’t think you are actually the “Born to rule”. Be prayerful. God gives. At the appropriate time, God will take. Not so?

You have always said our unity was non-negotiable. It’s sad your elite now feel marginalised and dispossessed. It now looks like Burna Boy saw it coming and sang ‘Las Las’. But be hopeful because ‘e never cast’. It’s just unfortunate the tables have turned, and you have to start talking about 2027 in 2024 with a vengeance in your eyes. But you should never forget that it’s turn-by-turn. Now is the turn of the south, sorry Yoruba. So you need to drink some water or kunu.  Also, never forget that when it was your turn, it only benefitted your leaders and their cronies because poverty grew all over the country but grew more in your region.

Nevertheless, I feel you. You were not this parochial in your sectionalism all those years. The entire thing has now metamorphosed into a winner-takes-all. But you can feel proud that a  few of your sons are still in the top echelon and are enjoying on your behalf. Don’t mind people like that Kano man with a red cap who, after going to France to lobby to be a minister and was rejected, is now howling at Lagos people. Keep your plans to yourself. The walls have ears. People say you are cheap and can be bought in 2026. Beware. However, whenever power returns to you, don’t ever listen to that national anthem. Tribes and tongues can differ all they like, the only brotherhood will be one north. Dole. Though it might not bring education and healthcare to you, I guess it’s less humiliating if the suffering and bad governance are the handiwork of a fellow northerner.  If a former NADECO apostle who was screaming sovereign national conference is now cornering all the power levers for his tribe, then nobody should talk about Hausa-Fulani hegemony again. On your next turn, take all those juicy and powerful positions back, and if you can’t occupy all of them, you can give some to the people in Niger Republic. They can use the railway that Buhari and Amaechi built for them to come to work whenever they like. 

Dear Arewa, I thought I should write to you to lift your spirits. Our people say when a man wakes up is his morning. But I don’t think your leaders are awake yet. When they wake up, there will be  Silos and small Agro processing factories all over the North. When they wake up, the haphazard exploitation of solid minerals that breeds banditry will subside. When they wake up, they will champion fiscal federalism because your land is blessed. They are only sleepwalking. But they are lucky. The poor are too nice and humble and, though hungry, happy to remain perpetual pawns of political contractors.  It’s a national disease, though. These leaders who win elections to live in Abuja and come in to share FAAC don’t have to read that tax bill. Once they see that equality and population have been minimised, their hats will fall off. But they have nothing to fear. An uprising by the talakwas is not in the offing. The federal government now treats protesters like coup plotters. The NLC has been castrated. 

Since I have arrived at the tax bills,  let me add this. Those who think you are kicking against the bills because you won’t share in alcohol are drunkenly mistaken. Don’t mind them. After all, how many people still drink a lot of beer in this T-Pain economy? States that promised happy hours have reneged. The breweries are dying. Praise be to Allah. Let them take away their unholy VAT. If not that your political leaders have turned themselves into lazy rent seekers, how can a region that has swathes of arable land, tons of solid minerals and an overload in youthful population be mocked and treated as parasitic? The North feeds the nation. When the North was the backbone of the economy with cotton and groundnuts, did the North regard any region as parasitic?

But North, you know I will tell you the truth. Population will become politically less fashionable soon. They have started this VAT thing. A large and unskilled and  unemployed population will be more than an Achilles heel; it will be a pulsating elephantiasis of the scrotum. So North, Population Control. I have heard people say God provides for every child He brings into the world. But since we have politicians who are adept at taking what belongs to unborn children, we must slow down on reproduction. Wallahi, all over the Muslim world, people are breeding cautiously.  Wanton breeding is outdated. The only way to call the bluff of people who exploit your votes and dump you after elections is to send all your children to school and demand a good education for them. Once they acquire a good education, the tide will shift in your favour. Politicians from North and South have all failed you. You have a youthful population. They have energy and ambition. You have arable land and good weather. You have good soil for cash and food crops. You have all the solid minerals in the world. And you have the volatile temperament to startle your leaders if you open your eyes. The world is at your feet.