Whenever they are in power they took all. As far as they are concerned ,they are Nigeria and Nigeria belongs to them.
That probably explains why late Dr Umaru Dikko, Shehu Shagari’s powerful minister of Transport during the second republic look straight into late Moshood Kashimawo Abiola’s eye in 1982 during the run-up to the nominations for Presidential election of the then ruling National Party of Nigeria,NPN, that the Presidency of Nigeria is not for sale.
As things turned out weeks later, when the party printed form for nomination for Presidential primaries, only one form was printed and it was then incumbent Shagari who bought the form.
When Abiola got to the NPN Secretariat, then in Lagos, he met the doors opened but the Secretariat staff were nowhere to be found.
That was days before the nomination closed.
The rest is history.
Abiola, the single biggest financier of the NPN discovered in his own words that…”he has been putting his money in a leaking basket.”..meaning in Yoruba,”Mo ti ng na owo si ajadi agbon,mi o le Maa da owo MI si ajadi agbon” was all what he could say after he stormed out of the NPN later.
Penultimate week, the Northern Elders Forum,NEF, at a press conference addressed by Abubakar Jiddese accused the Federal government of violating federal character principle by sitting a proposed Gold refinery in Lagos.
In their usual manner, they cried out aloud for all those who cared to listen that sitting of a Gold refinery in Lagos not by Federal government but a private concern is a marginalization and an open fight against the North by the Tinubu- led administration.
According to them,sitting a Gold refinery in Lagos amounts to robbing the North of its huge solid minerals resources..(which they have never of course used to benefit their people).
Of over 2000 mines in Nigeria 70% or so are in the North .
NEF claimed further that the North has 44 solid minerals sitting across 500 identified locations in the region and demand action.
In a swift reaction, Solid Minerals Ministry headed by Dr Dele Alake, responded by saying that the proposed Gold refinery initiative in Lagos belongs to a private investor Kian Smith and that his motive is aimed at developing the local Gold industry.
“FG does not compel private companies to locate their operation in any particular part of the country adding each firm has its own operations and marketing strategy.
The government also acknowledged the doggedness of the Managing Director, Ms Niere Emiko for delivering a flagship project after years of perseverance, enterprise and leadership.
To provide further evidence against the NEF, the government cited the on going $600million Lithium plant in Nassarawa and another $400milion dollars earth plant in same Nassarawa state and $200 million Lithium plant in Abuja adding that the Lagos refinery is evidence of the effectiveness of the reform in the sector.
He advised the body to turn new leaf and join President Tinubu to build a stronger,self reliant economy.
But then, what has the Ministry to show for its claim of improved Solid minerals sector.
According to figures,the total annual revenue from Solid minerals before 2023 was N16billion (appropriately $34.7m.)
But since the implementation of new reforms among which is creation of Solid Minerals police to protect mines, revenue has risen to N38 billion in 2024 and projected to exceed N70billion in 2025.
The figure is a marked improvement from the paltry sum of money from mines in the North .
The large chunk realised from the illegal mines ended up in the pocket of the rich who used proceeds not to develop the people but indulge in extravagant living while poverty ravaged the region.
It should be expected that the closure of about 2000 mines in the North in 2024 by the new regime to manage the activities of the mines was evidently against the interest of the elite who control the illegal mines and divert the money to their pockets. It is not unexpected expected.
Isn’t it ridiculous that the Northern elite who control most of the Gold mines from Zamfara to Plateau,Katsina and other mines boastfully lay claim to the oil money flowing from the neglected Niger Delta region.
It is an open secret that money from sale of crude oil from Niger Delta region account for 95%of our external earnings.
Besides, most of the oil processing license ended up in the pocket of the notable rich from the region.
Who then is marginalising who?
For them,injustice and fairness could only be for others.
Over the years when the Nothren elite are not in power through civilian rule, they use their elite in the military that has over the years become the stanfibg alternate party in Nigeria to corner the nations resources that belongs to all parts of Nigeria.
Any step to right the wrong in our history of over 65 years of injustice is marginalization of the region by the ruling elite.
It is an open secret that they have ironically made the region poorer than all nationalities in the country put together.
In 1975,when the late Murtala/Obasanjo regime conceived the idea of running pipelines from Port Harcourt and other refineries in the Niger Delta to Kaduna Refinery Complex, thousands of miles away from source of production was meant to reduce cost of moving fuel from the south to upper North and make it available same price.
It is ironical that nobody from the oil rich region shed any tears nor cry marginalization over the policy.
No tears were shed by the hypocritical Northern leaders.
Ironically,when retired Major General Olufemi Olutoye challenged Olusegun Obasanjo then head of state as to why military ammunition and establishment were being relocated to the North, he heard the news of his sack few hours later after Obasanjo and his deputy late Major General Shehu Yaradua has debated on his affront to query the injustice.
Today, the Kaduna refinery commissioned in 1980 with the installed capacity to produce 110,000 bpd has been inactive for years.
Work to restart production at annual 60% bpd capacity by late 2024 is still on going as the refinery is undergoing rehabilitation.
The Federal government through the Nigerian National Corporation, NNPC, has spent $25billion on maintenance of the facility over the years with little or nothing positive to show for it.
Between 1998 and 2020 $240 million was spent on maintainance with additional $200milion spent in 2009.
As at 2021,the Kaduna refinery had around 516 employees earlier pruned from 600 but now left with only 100 active staff with salaries and emoluments running into N20b annually.
It is clear that this is an avoidable drain on the nation’s resources and yet nobody is crying foul over the waste.
The question is with the reality on ground is it still economically wise to keep he refineries at government expense?
Yet, any decision to reposition the oil industry will be met with stiff resistance.
Isn’t it hypocritical that the Gold being refined by the proposed refinery is obtained from Ilesha and other sites in the South where there is minimal absence of hoodlums who have developed into bandits ravaging the nineteen Northern states while their sponsors smile to the banks. It is an open secret that battle for control of the mines by the rich has contributed to violence, death and misery through banditry and kidnapping ravaging the region.
What immediate or far reaching steps has the Northern elite taken to address the insecurity caused by local and foreign bandits hired to illegally provide protection to the mines in the North which proceeds never got to the Federation account ?.
Who picks the bills for the dousing of the violence,bandutry and kidnapping inflicted on the North over the years by illegal miners who have become more powerful than state actors until of recent ?
The Federal government of course!
Cry of marginalization of the North by President Bola Tinubus government on the Lagos Gold refinery is just one of the series of ‘Injustice’ on which the Northern power elite have cried hoarse since he came to power.
The liberalization of sitting of Gold refinery establishment among others happens to be the climax of the removal of subsidy on petroleum products and erasure of the multiple forex market of which the elite which have been the feeding bottle of mostly the Northern elite and some Southern collaborators two years ago.
Late Richard Osuolale Akinjide- a former Attorney General of the Federations declaration shortly before his death that money and only cornering of the nation’s resources has been the preoccupation of the Northern political elite since 1960 has become more valid than when he made the statement.
This situation is likely to continue to be so until even when power rotate back to the region held hostage by its greedy ruling class which had in used it to pauperised rather than develop the region .
The leadership of the northern elite over the past five decades has indeed rubbished the modest achievements of late Premier and Sardauna, Ahmadu Bello who remained the best to have happened to the North.
But then, before we complain on the recent outburst of the NEF against present government, let’s pause and rewind back to 1999 what fate befell Obasanjo after he assumed office as a civilian president.
This they did by introducing Sharia in 1999 shortly after he resumed office as first elected Yoruba President.
This was done obviously to curtail him.
They have done same to Goodluck Jonathan and eventually got rid of him in 2015 for looking their so- called North in the face.
The cry of marginalization often the sing- song of Northern elite when the North is not in power is an attitude that should be taken for what it is…selfishness and sense of entitlement, which with the passage of time has become a broken record not to be taken serious by any government desirous of effecting change in governance for the good of all Nigerians and not a few self- centred power block.
