Gov Aliyu: Northern Emirs to blame for poverty

[Muhsin]

Gov Aliyu: Northern Emirs to blame for poverty       
Written by AbdulRaheem Aodu, Kaduna     
Sunday, 14 December 2008 

Governor Mu'azu Babangida Aliyu of Niger State yesterday heaped the blame for corruption and north's economic backwardness on Northern traditional rulers, accusing them of entrenching abject poverty in the region.

Addressing a one-day symposium on Poverty Eradication in Northern States, organised by the Niger State Community of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, Gov Aliyu, who put the average poverty rate in the region at 71 percent, noted that traditional rulers in the country, particularly in Northern region, are corrupt, support corruption and have lost the respect and moral authority to correct their subjects.
The governor insisted that the respect and reverence "hitherto enjoyed by the traditional institution in the region have been lost as the elders who are supposed to be custodians of wisdom and moral values have jettisoned their responsibilities respecting only materialism. s respecting only materialism."Indeed, we can extrapolate this to include the traditional institutions that many of us have grown to respect and which have unfortunately turned into acquisition of wealth, respecting and honouring thieves and armed robbers, conferring titles on those who should be discredited, thus casting a shadow on the integrity and moral authority of the traditional institutions," he said.
The chairman of Northern Governor's Forum lamented that "It is sad to note that our royal fathers who used to be highly respected and above board, who could summon their subjects to explain their sources of wealth no longer have the moral authority to do so.

"In fact, a traditional ruler is not supposed to be afraid of his subjects and it is part of his responsibility to ensure that any of his subjects whose source of sudden wealth is questionable is sanctioned and declared pariah so that everybody begins to respect hard work, dignity of labour and respect for constituted authority."

Aliyu, who stated that the abject poverty suffered in the region was due to poor leadership, argued that with good and purposeful leadership and accountability, the North would be free from the shackles of poverty.

He pointed out that, "Another dimension of leadership in Northern Nigeria today that appears to perpetuate poverty in our midst is the moral decadence in our society.

"The theme of this symposium is quite apt and timely if we take into account the report of recent studies into the Northern poverty phenomenon which shows that up to 95 percent  of all the people in a particular state are classified as poor and that the 19 Northern states have an average poverty rate of 71 percent. Thus we must pay serious attention to poverty eradication in the north. But there is no way we can move forward or change the situation without changing our established norms, without challenging some privileged people who are accustomed to the privileges of their offices, without questioning old wisdoms to come out with new answers," he added.

Aliyu insisted that all hands must be on deck to win the war against corruption, else the war against poverty will remain futile "and we would have failed ourselves, our generation and even posterity. We must all own up and accept the fact that at the base of the deepening poverty in our states and the country at large is the endemic corruption in our country and we must join hands with the president to fight corruption to a standstill."

The Niger State Chief Servant who declared that almajiri as an embarrassment opined that, "We can only realise our developmental aspiration if we resolve today to say no to poverty in our states by providing responsible, accountable, transparent and God fearing leadership. We have to change the people's orientation and value system so that we can all appreciate that leadership is not an opportunity for plundering our resources, but a privilege to render service to our fellow human beings in the most accountable and dignified manner."

He said, "We need to discourage the ranka ya dade syndrome which abuses and dehumanises the people by offering them stipends out of the often stolen wealth, and encourage laziness while some of us go about in arrogance. We also need to address the embarrassing almajiri phenomenon in our states; we need to question what appears as the Islamisation of poverty. We need to ask, why do we have endemic poverty in Muslims dominated settlements, when Allah has enjoined the faithful to balance the search for the thereafter with the search for this world?

He stated that "we need to constantly tell ourselves the truth about our situation, because we cannot measure up to others in terms of development index unless we take our destinies in our hand and stop deceiving ourselves, creating the impression that some of our unfortunate cultural practices and habits like begging, indolence and get rich quick tendencies are synonymous with Islamic injunctions.

"Those of us who understand Islam know that it is a radical religion, an equitable religion that encourages everybody to be self sufficient and to be his brother's keeper. Indeed, a major part of our responsibility in our leadership roles today is to intensify campaign for people to seek knowledge and to be well educated about their religion, its dos and don'ts so that they can appreciate the essence of their worship and their being as humans,"

"It is very important to appreciate good governance which is manifested in real exercise of leadership and not rulership, because this is the only way people can understand our actions. Some of us are too educated to be manipulated; too exposed to know that we have not been doing much as a society and as a nation to move forward; experienced in administration to know that we cannot move with the old wisdoms and dogmas."

http://news.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1001&Itemid=1

[Fateez]

My goodness! This is the LAMEST EXCUSE I have ever heard! Na wa for these northern

governors sef! Was it not a northern governor that churned out millions of a state's money

to buy cars for Kano's royal family? Who's promoting materialism then?

So basically what I gather from that article is that the traditional leaders should clean up the

mess that the state governments cannot. Why are they always trying to pin their imcompetency

on other people? If it isn't a conspiracy from the south it's the northern traditional leaders.

So what now, the traditional leaders should have their very own EFCC? Sorry but the traditional

leaders don't have that much power anymore. Since the third republic traditional leaders are pretty

much just a ceremonial role except in smaller communities where I'm pretty sure the "corrupt"

population is very small - if any. So it's not about the moral authority, it's the fact the leaders don't

have the power that they used to. The person has a right to not disclose their wealth to the emir and

what's the emir to do? Sue them?


This man is just putting his foot in his mouth. Most of these "problems with trad. rulers" are ironically

the same problems with the political rulers. The "ranka ya dade syndrome" also applies to political

rulers and even to everyone. It's no one's fault in particular, it's just an indication of how bad the poverty

is in the society. He sounds really full of himself too! He's making it seem like the northern traditional

rulers are a bunch of illiterates!


All we need from these governors is for them to step up, claim responsibility for their actions and do their

job. Not going around and playing the blame game that will stir nothing but trouble. I wonder how

Alhaji Bahago feels about this - He's the emir of Minna right?

[gogannaka]

This made sense:

"We need to discourage the ranka ya dade syndrome which abuses and dehumanises the people by offering them stipends out of the often stolen wealth, and encourage laziness while some of us go about in arrogance. We also need to address the embarrassing almajiri phenomenon in our states; we need to question what appears as the Islamisation of poverty. We need to ask, why do we have endemic poverty in Muslims dominated settlements, when Allah has enjoined the faithful to balance the search for the thereafter with the search for this world?'

Quite honestly,lack of education is to blame for the North's poverty.
To add salt to injury,the northern youths are seriously into drugs now. Sholusho,wee-wee,benylin and what have you. Some people see this as a minor influence but really the level of drug use in the North is too much. A friend of mine who has an NGO working on drug abuse showed me some statistics from the NDLEA and their research and i saw a very bleak future for the north. Bayelsa is the largest producer of weed in Nigeria but Kano is the largest consumer. A kano yau har matan aure ne suke sayarda weed.Its a bubbling industry now.

That is part of the moral decadence he is talking about i guess.

[HUSNAA]

I think the governor has a point really. The traditional rulers may not have any power in how government is run, but they have the power to query where their subjects' wealth is coming from and they dont do that. Instead like he said they award titles to the nouveau riche with no questions asked. Whats more the nouveau riche have to gift the amirs just so much in order to be considered for titular rewards. So in a sense they are reinforcing the poverty that way. Another thing is that I havent really ever heard any traditional ruler who is a patron of some sort of charitable organization that helps the less fortunate in society. There might be, I just havent heard of any that's all.

[Muhsin]

Wow! This man is wonderful. As Husnaa said, he has a point in what he said. And su kuma so-called fathers of the people din, what are they doing? Why can't they show anything tangible and useful they did to their subjects? Have none.

Yesterday on VOA Hausa service, I heard in the morning news a good response by Governor Aliyu's secretary of press on the mounting criticism his governor has been receiving following what he said.

In the response, he categorically explained how they are handling the eradication of poverty. As he said; two things are key to that. 1st education. They give free and mandatory education to the citizens, which is practice in no other state. 2nd, the govt sell fertilizer to the people at a very affordable prices, to mention but two things.

Isn't it a good response?