Professor of Medical Sciences, Usman Yusuf has been working hard to become the voice of the opposition. He had a controversial image during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, during which he was the head of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). He was fingered for several violations during his tenure and was reprimanded several times by the Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewoye, who served under him. Yusuf was later removed from office, after which he became a notable critic. He then reprimanded Buhari several times for his poor performance and the massive looting of state resources during his tenure. This was even when the former president pretended to be non-corrupt. Yusuf refused to be restrained by such narrow-mindedness considering that he is from Katsina, the same state as the former president. For him incompetence and incompetence do not recognize any religion or colour.
If he confronts his relative Buhari, it is obviously because of his expulsion from the NHIS, despite the socio-cultural similarities between the two men. Yusuf has been very unkind towards Buhari's successor, Bola Tinubu. He has repeatedly drawn the state's attention to his apparent failures to deliver on his election promises. Yusuf has spoken about the irrefutable fact of the rapidly increasing poverty of the citizens; the acute food shortage we all face, as well as the insecurity that prevails throughout the country. He believes that the people are constantly being deceived and cheated by their supposed leaders. Expanding on the poem, Yusuf notes that the “new hope” promised to Nigerians by Tinubu has actually turned into “new despair”. Yusuf's attacks can be so scathing.
Recently social media provided us with a video clip of a bombshell interview by Usman Yusuf. His theory on this occasion is that northern leaders and their followers are complicit in the security dilemma of their part of the country. Quite apart from Buhari’s mishap, Yusuf believes that the North has neither utilised nor coordinated its resources to have an impact on the security and economic situation in the North. Although the region has no sitting president, a situation in which Buhari failed to influence his region, Yusuf maintains that the North’s capacity in the current governance pyramid is not diminished. Professor Usman Yusuf makes reference to the fact that: the Vice President, Kashim Shettima, (Borno); the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, (Kaduna) and the National Security Adviser, (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, (Adamawa), are all from the North.
The two Defence Ministers, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, (Jigawa) and Bello Matawalle, (Zamfara), are both from neighbouring states in the North-West. Instructively, this is the first time in contemporary Nigerian political history that two incumbent Defence Ministers are from the same geopolitical zone. The two Ministers handling the Police Affairs Ministry, Ibrahim Gaidam, (Yobe) and Iman Suleiman-Ibrahim, (Nasarawa), are also from the North. The Chief of Defence Staff, (CDS), Christopher Gwabin Musa, (Kaduna); the Director-General, State Security Service, (SSS), Yusuf Magaji Bichi, (Kano) and his counterpart at the National Intelligence Agency, (NIA), Ahmed Rufai Abubakar, (Katsina), are likewise from the North. Let us hope that this massive concentration of the leadership of almost all the critical intelligence and security structures and services in the country will not create grumblings and complaints in some parts of the country. Reading this reality, many parts of the country will indeed feel under-represented in these crucial areas.
The previously announced 10-day nationwide protest against hunger and poor governance began on Thursday, August 1, 2024. However, the invitation to protest was not going to be fully complied with. Governors and leaders in several states spoke to their voters and forbade them from attending the event. Groups and associations in several states also opted out of the exercise and preferred to hold the government accountable for its promises. In several cities and towns, the processions turned into uncontrollable chaos, uncontrolled violence, destruction and looting. This was mainly seen in northern locations. Hooligans, vagabonds and “almajiris” broke into the rows of otherwise benevolent protesters, displaying anarchy and outright robbery of public and privately owned facilities and infrastructure worth billions of naira.
Shopping complexes, government establishments, warehouses were among the investments deliberately and brutally destroyed by the furious mob. The vile tendency to ruin everything was evident in Kano. Protesters mobilised tools such as digging hammers and chisels to cut up concrete pallets that were laid across drains for automobile use. The scenes recorded in real time by television stations are reminiscent of the same mindlessness with which metal chippings on railway tracks are stolen and sold. It is also the metal components of our bridges and roads and even our traffic lights and street lights that are cut up and sold by scrap metal traders. You want to cry for Nigeria.
The Nigerian Police and its sister agencies tried to quell the mayhem in places, even as the mob in many cases far outnumbered them. There have been casualties across the country, with the media reporting at least a dozen thugs killed from the frontline of the encounter. The casualties in Borno and Niger states were disproportionate, with many others suffering varying degrees of bruises and abrasions. Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kayode Agbetokun said one of his men was killed on the first day of the clashes. CDS Christopher Moses commended the professionalism of the police in handling the uprising, while assuring of the readiness of the military to intervene in case the police are overwhelmed.
Governors of some states, particularly Borno, Kano, Kaduna, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Jigawa, have had to declare curfews to avert mass disorder. Not a single state in the south of the country has declared a sit-at-home order for its voters, not because there were no protests, but because the exercise was done maturely and peacefully. Anambra State Governor Chukwuma Soludo was launching a “back to the land” agricultural programme to boost agricultural production, while elsewhere the protests were supposed to be in their third day. Yet, in many northern capitals and cities the next morning, the remains of buildings worth billions of naira deliberately burned by fools; ashes of bonfires made of rubber tyres; withered tree branches, littered the earth, not forgetting the corpses of comrades who had died in the earlier frenzy, now lying as gruesome mementos on deserted streets and squares.
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The clock on development has turned again as the reconstruction and rehabilitation of damaged resources has begun, especially in the North. Professor Usman Yusuf invites the northern leadership and political class to begin a process of genuine self-introspection if they are to get out of the multi-faceted quagmire in which they have practically drowned themselves. Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and similar local and international bodies have never failed to quote lower development indices for the North compared to the South of the country. In specific areas of education, healthcare, industrialisation, employment, the global North is far behind the South. Protesters in Kano looted every moveable object in the outpost of the National Library of Nigeria in the city. Yet they did not take a single book! More far-sighted states in the North that challenge southern entities for their statistics would be Kogi, Kwara and Benue.
Beyond all the much-celebrated convergences under various names and aliases, the Northern region will need more than a one-day meeting in Kaduna, the political headquarters of the North, to surgically elaborate and analyse the issues affecting the region. It requires a global workshop lasting a few days, with everyone working together. States from the various geopolitical zones must also meet to ensure the equitable implementation of the set objectives. There must be quarterly reviews of programmes and initiatives. Wayward governors, renowned for being on permanent excursions in Abuja, the federal capital, must sit down in their states and carry out the tasks they were elected to do instead of wandering around like schoolchildren. The North needs real upliftment and holistic change, which the recent massive protests have made imperative.
*Dr. Olusunle is a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors (FANA).
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