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Northern Governors’ Idiotic Stance Against #EndSARS Protests By Erasmus Ikhide

THE deliberately blinded current Northern Nigerian generation of Governors who have been wallowing in self-deciet like the actual colony of the blind, pretending not to know that the market had come to a close would be consumed at the ruinous gate of revolution.

It’s particularly mind numbing and spine chilling that a Middle Beltern Governor Simon Lalong – who’s bedeviled with identity crisis – even when his part of the country is baying for restructuring is the one leading a pack and swathes of a region designated as an axis of terror.

Poor Lalong! It was his lot to pass on the rejection of the Nigeria Police Federal Special Anti-robbery Squad FSARS disbandment unit by President Muhammadu Buhari as the purveyor of the toxic northernisation agenda led by the Northern Governors’ Forum.

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“Defunct police unit had been useful in the fight against insecurity in the region”. He continued, “SARS was not made up of bad elements alone as it also included personnel doing their work diligently”.

Now, the conundrums: how well has the SARS been providing security in the Northern region in the midst of virtual bloodbath that’s almost consuming the entire Northern region daily? Where are/were these Governors and the ones before them in the last 26-year of our current democratic Fourth Republic? What durable solutions have the Northern Governors’ Forum advanced now that the Northern kids begging on the streets in their millions suddenly dropped their long accustomed begging bowls and elected for the guns as Boko Haram, Bandits and Fulaniherdsmen?

Governor Lalong is miserably pathetic and a listless feeble fellow to behold. Bandits and Fulani herdsmen have routed and razed Plateau State cities and villages over a dozen times under his governorship; killing Christians in their thousands without merest of resistance from the SARS and the military! Or was it not necessary that SARS was reformed to face the security challenges plaguing Governor Lalong’s state while hundreds of Plateau citizens are being butchered on a daily basis?

Why is the Northern region still entrapped at the ocean of bloodbath if the lose-lose strategy of the security apparatus has yielded positive results? What strides have the current Northern Governors made toward eradicating
poverty, reducing childhood mortality, increasing life expectancy, infant marriages, or expanding literacy at all levels in the North?

By the way, how do we expect a Governor Simon Lalong with such an outdated world view and the other Northern Governor to know that the only acceptable response to #EndSARS logjam protests is to pursue a “Great Reset” of the
nation’s economy, politics, all inclusive education and job creation? Governor Lalong is far removed from the reality on ground to know that this is a moment to re-evaluate the sacred cow of northernisation of Nigeria and a time to refrain from certain long-held and unhelpful dogmatism.

The two negligible regions opposing restructuring are known: the North East and North West, out of the six regions among which are Middle Belt; South East, South West and South South. The reason for their penchant preechment
against restructuring are known: oil from the South and other beastly anormally are at the heart of it.

While most of the roads in the entire Southern Nigeria remains a death trap, Buhari has forced the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to release $1.96 billion for construction of rail line from Kano to Maradi, Niger Republic. Who knows if that was the promise Buhari made to the country’s President for coming to campaign for his reelection bid with other unknown supports, including importing voters from the country into Nigeria 2019?

For Nigeria to move forward outside the retarded North East/West hegemony, there is the need for the Middle Belts, South West, South South and South East to seriously approach the legislators from the Local Government Councillors to the State Houses of Assembly to National Assembly. Once these zones are involved, the rest two recalcitrant regions would fall into line.

It’s obvious with the on-going protests tagged #EndSARS that we have placed too much premium of our democratic functionality on the Presidency which is a One-Man-Show, neglecting the power of the people ‘freely’ given to the legislators to decimate pocket tyrants like President Buhari. Now, Nigerian youths are forcefully determined to take that power back from legislators through protests for their rights, since it’s useless to the legislators.

Now, this is the moment of truth. Our legislators must be made accountable to people, whether they were duly elected or they rigged themselves into offices. We’re obliged to educate the legislators that they’re more empowered by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria than the President to restructure, if the nation’s democracy must yield fruit.

The weakness of the legislative governance is the reason the proponents of restructuring have been dancing on the same spot for years without any significant achievement. The nation’s legislative majority on the basis of geopolitics as explained above are not working on the same page with the aspiration of the people they are representing. Rather, they have been operating on the basis of parochial party affiliations.

How can the South West, South East, South South and Middle Belts been clamouring for restructuring over the years and still allowed only two backward-looking geopolitical zones to hold them down to chasm?

People like Governor Simon Lalong can’t learn to be right handed at old age. That was evident in his timid press briefing at the presidential villa on Thursday evening, on behalf of his vanquished northern governors colleagues. It’s clear they can’t learn new things. You can’t do away with the basic engine of growth and expect results.

The answer to the collapse of the present national government, both at the states and local governments levels is either auto restructuring or referendum. It’s only a mentally retarded generation of leadership that does the same thing over and over again and expects different results.

The ‘Great Reset’ is here and it is being driven by the unexpected voices – The Youths – those who have been abandoned and left to waste away. They have found escape route and have been misusing technology for criminal purposes. They’re set to “co-shape” the future of their own country, after clashing with criminal minded police authorities.

The reset is about pragmatic step toward a more resilient, cohesive, and sustainable Nigeria where the government of the day would be responsive to its social contract with the citizens. In the process, some of the pillars of the state architecture have to be replaced, and others repaired or strengthened. To achieve these, modern statecraft is required. Nothing more – or less.

Email: ikhideerasmus@gmail.com

Follow me on Twitter @ikhide_erasmus1

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