If Nigeria’s security crisis has an address, it is not the North

Lasisi Olagunju’s article, “Northern Nigeria Will Soon Kill Nigeria”, is a beautifully written piece of journalism. It is eloquent, provocative, emotionally compelling, and rich in metaphors. Unfortunately, it is also a classic example of how literary brilliance can sometimes obscure historical complexity. The article seeks to persuade Nigerians that Northern Nigeria is the principal source of the country’s insecurity and, by implication, the greatest threat to its future. It argues that Nigeria’s security crisis has an address and that address is the North. This is a tempting argument. It is also a dangerously simplistic one.

A serious student of Nigerian history should know that insecurity did not begin with banditry in Zamfara, insurgency in Borno, or kidnappings in Katsina. Nor is violence an exclusively northern invention. What we are witnessing today is a national crisis with regional manifestations, not a regional crisis with national consequences. As the famous 1980s advertising slogan used by 7Up, reminded us, “The Difference is Clear”. This difference is important.

Mr. Olagunju’s historical analysis overlooks several important dimensions of Nigeria’s past. He seems to believe that instability is a recent northern export to an otherwise peaceful Nigeria. History disagrees. Long before colonialism, the territories that became Nigeria witnessed cycles of warfare, slave raiding, territorial conquest, communal conflicts, and political violence. In 1830, British explorers Richard Lander and John Lander became the first Europeans to trace the course of the River Niger to its outlet. They were kidnapped by some Igbo youth at Aboh and ransom had to be paid for their release. Every region had its share of violence at one time or the other. If instability is proof of cultural deficiency, then every major Nigerian civilization would stand convicted.

The article reads almost as if the South—and particularly the Southwest—occupies a moral high ground from which it can diagnose the failings of the North. Really?  In school, we learnt that the nineteenth-century Yoruba civil wars devastated much of present-day Southwest Nigeria for decades. Was it orchestrated by the northern conspiracy? More recently, was the Southwest not the theatre of the violent “Operation Wetie” crisis of the First Republic? Did political thuggery not become institutionalised there before it spread elsewhere? Were there no armed ethnic militias? Did the activities of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) emerge from Norway? Have cult-related killings and gang violence not plagued Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, and Osun at different times? I remember that when I arrived in Lagos as a youth corps member about 35 years ago, I was greeted by the sight of a dead body by the roadside in Oshodi. I was shocked because I never experienced anything like that in Kano or neighbouring areas. At the time, the Borno State’s official motto was “Home of Peace.”

Perhaps we should also remind ourselves that Nigeria once lost nearly 40 per cent of its crude oil production because of militancy in the Niger Delta. For years; oil installations were bombed. Foreign workers were kidnapped. Communities became militarised. And armed groups controlled large territories. Was that the North? No. It was a crisis rooted in local grievances, elite manipulation, governance failures, and economic exclusion. Exactly the same ingredients that fuel insecurity in northern Nigeria and elsewhere. Mr. Olagunju should look at the present reality in the Southeast. Today, parts of the Southeast struggle with: sit-at-home enforcement, attacks on security formations, destruction of public infrastructure, political assassinations and violent separatist agitation. Based on this instability, businesses close, schools shut down, citizens live in fear. Again, is this the North? No. The lesson is obvious: insecurity mutates according to local conditions. Nigeria’s problem is not Northern Nigeria. Nigeria’s problem is Nigeria.

The article repeatedly speaks about Northern “choices.” Interesting. For decades, Northern Nigeria was governed by: civilian or military governments, democratic administrations, state governors, and federal agencies. Many of those leaders indeed failed. But let us be honest enough to ask another question: Who controlled the federal treasury for decades? Who designed educational policies? Who supervised security institutions? Who managed national development plans? The answer is not “the North.” The answer is successive Nigerian governments composed of Nigerians from every region. The tragedy of the North is not that it uniquely failed. The tragedy is that it became the most visible victim of collective Nigerian failure.

A more balanced analysis requires moving beyond assigning blame to any single region. Northern insecurity emerged from the convergence of many factors. These include the collapse of rural governance, desertification and climate stress, weak educational systems, and corruption. These are structural failures, not ethnic characteristics.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the article is the suggestion that Nigeria is somehow afraid of the North. That is an interesting theory. The North today hosts: (i) the highest number of internally displaced persons. (ii) the highest concentration of poverty. (iii) thousands of communities under threat. And (iv) countless victims of terrorism and banditry. If Nigeria is afraid of the North, the terrorists certainly are not. Indeed, the primary victims of northern insecurity are northerners themselves. Bandits kill more northern farmers. Insurgents bomb more northern mosques. Kidnappers abduct more northern villagers, than any other region. To suggest that northerners are collectively protecting insecurity is like accusing flood victims of conspiring with the river.

The solution is not to stigmatise a region. As I wrote elsewhere, the solution is to reform a nation. Northern leaders must indeed accept responsibility. So must southern leaders. So must federal authorities. So must political elites everywhere. The way forward is very clear. We should ensure that every child, whether in Sokoto, Enugu, Yenagoa, or Ibadan, has access to quality education. We should write to suggest how agriculture, livestock value chains, mining, and manufacturing may create jobs. Governors must be judged by outcomes, not rhetoric. And Nigeria will be saved when Nigerians stop looking for a region to blame and start demanding solutions from those elected to govern.

Mr. Olagunju compares Northern Nigeria to the Kalahari Desert. The comparison is flawed. The North is not a desert. It is home to some of Africa’s greatest civilizations. When British explorer Hugh Clapperton arrived in what is now northern Nigeria in 1826, he was impressed by the civilised and organised traditional leadership he witnessed in Kano, Katsina, Borno, Sokoto, and many others. The civilisation of Northern Nigeria produced scholars, merchants, jurists, soldiers, diplomats, and statesmen long before many modern states emerged. Unfortunately, as shown in the article, when emotion becomes evidence, history becomes the first casualty.

The north’s current troubles are real and must be confronted. But reducing a region of more than 100 million people to a metaphor for failure may produce applause in newspaper columns; it does not produce solutions. As a student of History, I can tell Mr. Olagunju that no region has ever risen by mocking another region’s weakness. And no nation has ever survived by turning one part of itself into a permanent suspect. In adults’ conversation, we must focus on the fact that the challenge before Nigeria is not how to defeat the North. It is how to rescue every part of Nigeria from the consequences of decades of poor governance, elite irresponsibility, and institutional decay. That conversation may be less exciting than blaming a region. But unlike metaphors, it might actually solve the problem.

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