Northern Nigeria: A region abandoned -By Ahmad Kaita

Every critical observer of happenings in Nigeria will agree Nigeria is heading towards destruction as it approaches the upcoming 2015 polls. The arithmetic is so simple that one does’nt need a political calculator to sum up the end result of the anarchic tendencies of President Jonathan backed by a chaotic ruling PDP bent on sustaining a dysfunctional leadership for the country. In just few years, Nigeria has been reduced from a promising third world country to a bloodied and deadly country ravaged by internecine ethno-religious conflicts fueled by the cluelessness of an insensitive regime.

It’s unfortunate that while Nigeria is being bombed into smithereens nobody among those vested with the constitutional responsibility to secure Nigeria seem to know why people are being killed senselessly or how it could be stopped. Even worse, this careless leadership class seem to be determined to infuse more chaos into the system to cash on the expected results. The gory picture of a post 2015 Nigeria is easily decipherable when juxtapose with careless attitude of the President towards the welfare of the North and the periodic outbursts of some PDP governors like the most recent “cockroach approach” suggested by Katsina State governor, Ibrahim Shema.

As it is today, the whole of the North East is under siege and has been reduced to some some of a giant human abattoir. Who could miss the meticulous plan to bring the North down on its knees politically and economically with obvious intent to neutralise the capacity of the region in the process of leadership selection.

It’s curious how attacks were always carried out on seemingly choice targets that represent the North’s socio-economic and religious identity and, almost always these attacks seem to be unleashed when there are contentious raging national issues that mostly question the capacity and competency of the PDP as Nigeria’s Noah’s arc. On friday, 28/11/14 Kano, the economic nerve center of Northern Nigeria came under a deadly attack that left hundreds dead and millions traumatised. A bomb was detonated in one of the largest mosques in the ancient city.

It’s not the first time Kano came under such attacks. On a certain day not so long ago, Kano was turned into some sort of “Tora Bora”. On that day the streets of Kano were littered with corpses and stench of blood. Curiously such a deadly onslaught passed almost unnoticed to the President for all the concern he exhibited. As always, he remained comfortably “on top of the situation” in Abuja, far away from the epicenter of the raging situation. The only time the President considered Kano worthy of his attention was when he went to receive a supposed “big fish” caught by his PDP in the person of Ibrahim Shekarau. It was a show of shame when the President and his new catch danced away the pain of a country mourning a day old deadly attack on the nation’s capital city of Abuja.