The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi, has warned that the northern Nigeria will destroy itself, if it doesn’t change its attitude to life.

Speaking at a programme to mark the 60th birthday celebration of Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, the Kano monarch affirmed that always repeating the same thing and expecting a different result indicates that something is wrong.

While pointing out that Nigeria is moving on, the monarch stated that real change can only come in the north, if there is a change of approach.

He also declared that a day would come when there would be a constitutional amendment that would address issues of quota system and federal character. He reasoned that the rest of the country cannot continue educating their children who will remain unemployed because they come from the wrong state.

He said:

It is almost correct now to say that, if you are seen as normal, if you are a governor in the north or a leader in the north, and you are seen as normal in the sense that you continue to do what your predecessors have been doing, doing the same thing, which has been normalised, then, there is something wrong with you. You are part of the problem.

The real change in the north will come from those who are considered mad people, because you look around and say if this is the way we have been doing things, and this is where we have ended up, maybe we need to do things differently.

If the north does not change, the north will destroy itself. The country is moving on… If we don’t listen, there would be a day when there would be a constitutional amendment that addresses these issues of quota system and federal character.

The rest of the country cannot be investing, educating its children, producing graduates and then they watch us, they can’t get jobs because they come from the wrong state, when we have not invested in the future of our own children.

He also said that leaders from the north cannot afford to be happy when about 87 percent of poverty in the couuntry is in the north.

Emir Sanusi added:

Nobody who is a leader in northern Nigeria today can afford to be happy.

You cannot be happy about 87 percent of poverty in Nigeria being in the north. You can’t be happy with millions of northern out-of-school children. You can’t be happy with nine states in the north contributing almost 50 percent of the entire malnutrition burden in the country.

You can’t be happy with the Boko Haram problem. You can’t be happy with all the issues.

So, we wish Nasir a happy birthday, but we do not want him to be happy as a leader. Because you are happy when you think you have reached a state of delivering and taking your people to where you want them to be.

Moreover, the emir commended El-Rufai for tackling the major problem in Kaduna, which is education.

He said:

If you look at what Nasir is doing in Kaduna, with 40 percent of his budget in education, that is the only thing that is going to safe the north. I know that, when we say these things, they don’t go down well.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.