Unlike previous years, all the 19 northern governors were absent from the 52th anniversary of the death of Sir Ahmadu Bello, premier of former Northern Region and the absence elicited a lot of rumour. In this interview with IBRAHEEM MUSA, the Managing Director of Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation, Dr Shettima Aji Ali, gave reasons for not inviting their Excellencies and also spoke on the activities of the foundation.
On January 15th, the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation organized a conference to commemorate the 52th anniversary of the death of the premier of the former Northern Region. But surprisingly, none of the 19 Northern governors attended the occasion. Didn’t you invite them?
First of all, I have to be candid with you. As always, we have been having problems having the Executive Governors to attend such programmes. You know, January 15 is also the Armed Forces Remembrance Day and in most cases, the governors will like to celebrate that event in their own states. The second thing is that, particularly because of the topic of the conference, we wanted an open discussion. Over the years, we have had big challenges of leadership in the north. In almost all the conferences that we have held, we realize that when you make it too ceremonious, the real issues will be sidetracked. Substantial part of the conference will end up in eulogies and goodwill messages. So, when you come to discuss the real issues, you don’t usually have the time to do justice to it.
And then, there is also the consideration that many northerners have become so restive. And there is a tendency to seize this kind of opportunity , when you have leaders and people in authority, to use strong language on them which is not in line with the culture of the north. Particularly, this is not the time to start casting aspersions and calling people names and all the rest of it. The conference was about Sardauna and the late premier never encouraged this kind of thing. At the same time, we wanted everyone to come and contribute to the conference and be real. So, that at the same time we will come up with solutions. We don’t want anybody, whether he is a leader or connected to leadership, to feel that we are discussing him or her. So, we decided that why don’t we make the conference a people’s parliament, kind of. Make it a people’s forum; get the intellectuals, get the people and just discuss. Have an open discussion and tell ourselves what we think are the problems, especially in terms of leadership.
Of course we know that we have so many problems and you can’t just say that the leaders are to blame. There are so many things and even at this particular conference, they came up. So, these were some of the reasons that led to, in the first place, not particularly investing our time, in trying to get their Excellencies to be here. We know fully well that whatever we discuss, it will still go to Northern Governors’ Forum and other places, including the presidency if need be, on how to deal with democratic set up and activities in this country, to ensure that people that have the heart to serve are elected into positions in 2019.
If I understand you, the governors didn’t boycott the conference but you deliberately refused to invite them in order to shield them from embarrassment.
No. It was not specifically to shield them from embarrassment. We actually wanted time for ourselves. We wanted to ensure that people were not restrained in any way in coming up and openly discussing what they think the problems are. We are not shielding them. No, no, no. If we are talking in terms of failure, I can tell you that even in the last conference, issues came up; that the failure was actually due to the leaders as well as the followers.
One of the attributes of Sardauna was getting feedback from people directly. Why didn’t the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation imbibe this spirit in this year’s conference, by inviting the governors to hear the people’s complaint first hand?
Well, we have always been doing that. This is not the first time that we have held a conference. During the 50th anniversary of the premier’s death, a complete panel was set up on issues of leadership. And those issues were discussed on a one-on-one basis. We have always been discussing with our leaders and even when we go and meet them at the Northern Governors’ Forum, we open up and tell them; the submissions that we make to them either as a group or individually, we have always told them of the need to have a focused leadership. You should start talking about new leaders, new set of Sardaunas, in the north.
People are saying that the governors actually boycotted this year’s conference because it was organized in conjunction with Arewa Research Development Project(ARDP), which is somehow linked with former Vice president Atiku Abubakar. It is alleged that the conference will be used to champion his presidential ambition, that was why the governors boycotted it. How true is this allegation?
This conference was actually organized by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation; it was the foundation that funded it. I’m not aware of former Vice president Atiku’s connection with ARDP. All that I’m interested in the ARDP, is the quality of research that is coming out from that organization. We have collaborated on so many research activities, not particularly geared towards supporting any particular candidate.
Of course, they may have their own political agenda but that is not the interest of this foundation. All we need in this foundation is the unity of the north and to ensure that it benefits from qualitative leadership. This is the first time that I’m hearing that the ARDP is connected to or supporting the candidacy of former Vice president Atiku Abubakar.
Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation is sitting on a lot of money but some of the late premier’s legacies are laying comatose owing to lack of funds. The New Nigerian Newspapers and Kaduna Textiles are virtually dead. The New Nigerian Development Company(NNDC) is merely struggling to survive. Is this foundation thinking of reviving these legacies so as to create jobs and improve the local economy of the north?
When you say that Sir Ahmadu Bello Foundation is sitting on a lot of money, it is like we are having something like N100 billion or N200 billion. But that is not the case. This foundation, when it was launched, the total amount that was pledged by governors and individuals was just about N5 billion. And just about 31% of the amount was realized up till today.
So, what we eventually came to meet as management was just about N1.8 billion. And it is to the credit of this management that we invested it. When we came on board, we asked ourselves whether we should spend the N1.8 billion in one year or two years?
Or dedicate it to the course of New Nigerian and sit back and say that the foundation has exhausted all the money so it is waiting for governors or some other people to raise another money so that it will carry on with other activities? We took a very tough decision and said no, we should invest the N1.8 billion and then come up with programmes that we can now execute in assisting the people.
For example, we said that in the north we have the problem of lack of quality education and even in terms of science and technology that is driving the whole world, the north is lagging behind. We then decided to institute a scholarship programme so that our young ones, the promising scientists that we have, we will identify ten in each of the 19 northern states and the FCT every year and sponsor their first degrees. And then, if we find it necessary after they qualify, we can look at the possibility of sending them to higher degrees. So, we instituted this scholarship programme. The other problem is poverty and unemployment.
Of course we cannot take the role of government, we cannot do anything that can eradicate poverty or even empower all the young people by creating jobs and all the rest of it. So, we came up with this Skills Acquisition and Empowerment Programme. And across the 19 northern states, we have trained about 2,700 young people. We have entered an agreement with one of the banks and we have raised a deposit; we are not dishing out any money to anybody. But have placed a deposit in that bank and said that that is a guarantee and we are going to send our trainees to you as cooperatives not individuals. We asked the bank to assess their proposals and lend them money; we indicated a maximum amount that they can lend to any group that comes.
In the worst case scenario, that these people cannot pay the loan, this amount should be used as a guarantee. We have also instituted the Free Medical Volunteer Scheme and we went to rural locations and offered free medical services.
All these is in addition to holding conferences, lectures and contributing in terms of researched papers on topical issues. For example, this foundation did quite well in coming up with a position on restructuring. We are also working with Northern Governors’ Forum, Arewa Consultative Forum and the rest of them. We have also participated in the forum that was created by Northern Governors and Traditional Rulers on restructuring. We were part of that think-tank and we contributed our own quota. Even before it became this bad, we looked at the issue of farmers/herders clash and given our position to the Northern Governors’ Forum on what needed to be done. Our position included ranching and all these cattle colonies that people are talking about.
The notion out there is that the north is afraid of restructuring but you have just said that you even have a position on restructuring. What is the north’s position on restructuring?
The north is not against restructuring. What the north is saying is that let’s do it properly. There is a system of restructuring the economy and whatever. But what the other group is saying is that the present constitution was given to us by the military. This is not correct. The military of course was at the head but those people that actually wrote the constitution are those people that are now making the noise about restructuring. The experts that looked into it subsequently are all not military men. They made inputs and recommended them to the military and that was how the military adopted the constitution. So, it is not true what they are saying that the first constitution, the independence constitution, was the only peoples constitution. If you are criticizing subsequent constitutions as military constitutions because they were midwifed by the military, you can also argue that the independence constitution is the colonizers’ constitution. It is the same thinking because it was the colonizers that actually put the thing together.
What is the Foundation’s recommendation to end this incessant farmers/herders clashes. Is it colonies or ranching?
We are talking about almost the same thing. When you are talking of colonies, this is an expanse of land that the government will need to develop, where you will encourage irrigation schemes so that grass will grow throughout the year that can feed the animals. And you can also have some other amenities in the place. For example, the Nomadic Education programme was not successful because the Fulanis are always on the move and you don’t expect the teachers who are not Fulanis, to be following them all the time. So, the programme was not very successful. But if you have these kind of colonies, you can actually establish schools there, you can even have a small scale industry for processing diary and even beef processing. And the difference between that and ranching is that ranching is basically a commercial activity. And it requires individuals and groups to come up with huge sums of money to acquire the land and come in with the facilities.
We know that even during Sardauna’s time, Fulanis used to pay Jangali or cattle tax. This can be re-introduced and the Fulanis, I am definitely sure, will be very interested in paying the tax when they know that their animals and themselves are very safe, when they know that their animals will have fodder to feed on, when they know that there is water. At that time, there were veterinary services that were looking after the animals. I’m definitely sure that once you have these facilities, the Fulanis will pay the cattle Poll tax.
And I always tell people that the vast of the north, particularly the northern fringes, is an arid place and we are complaining about desertification and we are talking about re-aforestration and the rest of it. This vast land can be developed into colonies, by growing grasses and turning the whole thing into a money generating business. The Jangali alone, if we are talking about 20 to 25 million herds of cattle, if it is N10 you are collecting as tax from each cow or bull, that will be a lot of money. At the end of the day, all these services that you will be providing will be financed from this tax.
