Today’s North -By Usama Abdullahi

I don’t have to explain fully the ugly experiences which the North is going through today because it’s obvious. For the North we knew of yesterday, isn’t the one we claimed now. Though life in the North was said to be also “miserable” then. Still it’s unlike how it is today. The version of it is somewhat unfavourable for one to even live in peace.

Indifferent is the now title held by the North. It has ventured a critical way of living regardless of the dangers. Here in the North a father marries a woman, and later dump her in time of difficulties. It’s always the case where man gets into matrimony for sexual delectation, simply. He, indeed, forget the essential role he ought to play in the home.

When a question is thrown at him — that why he brought home more than one wife, and cares not very much in feeding them, pay less attention to them, help not in lessening their pains, which they often encounter as result of poor diets they consume every blessed day — he will frown away and utter no answer.The “bravest” one among them, who ever dares to attempt an answer to the above queries, is the type that quote the sayings of the sacred scripture.That is, “marry as many as you could afford.

The problem isn’t in the polygamy; the case here is how zealous and competent he is, relating to matrimonial task. We know that to cater for the home is involuntarily.But it happens in such a different way today in the North. When we develop interest in polygamy, all the focuses should be on how financially stable we are to run the matrimonial life. However — if we are attracted to polygamy, and then want to practice it — all that we should therefore think of is the weight of its responsibilities.

God never coerced us into what we can’t even attempt to run over. Let’s do what our hands would cup with. And not things beyond our strengths. Our inabilities to maintain our family needs is quite a reason to the insecurities in our homes, probably the nation as a whole. Lack of parental care has led multiple children into godforsaken living. When the parents are sick of food provision, which is due to extreme poverty, they send the children off for almajiranci. Mind you, it’s not by their will to do that and never did they ever thought of such ideas.

At the Islamic schools (almajiranci) it’s never comfortable for the children. They get maltreated every break of a day, from dawn to dusk. They fight over remains which, supposed, the birds consume.They walk from house to house wailing and pleading for leftovers that the privileged children finished playing with, likewise the flies perched on.They get infected with different sort of, perhaps, incurable diseases because of such leftovers.They became malnourished, which hourly result to their death or perpetual sufferings. All these occur due to lack of parental care.

On the other hand, other children get involved into banditry and other related crimes.These they do in order to fill their hungered bellies. The parents too, when the family pressure is overdue, cross the boundaries to a distant region in search of what to pocket and carter for their homes. Some don’t even care to come back home; they stay there until, unfortunately, they embrace antithetical culture.They will later come home as drunkards and whatnot.

Meanwhile, it is very painful to look at the picture of the North now. Today, the North is looked with dismay. It is no longer the mirror which other regions come to have a beautiful gaze at, longtime ago. It’s now similar to a battle ground : where heads are cut off and none is there to question the killings, where blood spilled like rain drops in august, where farmers fear to sow. And if they, luckily, have the seeds sown, they fear to go and get it harvested. Fear is redoubled.

People are everyday kidnapped. Not even the men in blue are saved.People are killed even if the ransom is given to the abductors. For some decades now Borno Starter is yet to find absolute quiet midst it, despite their hardworking saint’s endeavors in tackling the challenges of the state.

In the North, we are stuck with hardened and soft-headed leaders who took us for granted. The poverty rates is scary to look at. It’s transcended our imaginations.There are numberless children, most especially the female genders, going around the streets ( hawking) in circles with no education. The rate of illiteracy is discreditable.

Some places and thoroughwares are like lion’s den.People are in extreme fear to pass by. It left me bothered that, isn’t it the very North, Sardauna, sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa in league with other Northern leaders , built and hoped for it to outdistance the neighbouring regions in so many different aspect?

When we were young, we use to go hunting for lizards.Then, there use to be hundred of lizards lying on every wall. But unlike today where they are scarce as a result of too much bomb blast by the terrorists.

North is yet wretched. North doesn’t need mere sympathies, condolences or crocodile tears; North is thus in great need of rescue. I pray and hope for a better North.

#SecureNorth