Northern Nigeria's Decline Rooted in Leadership Failure, Loss of Values, Leaders Say

Prominent Northern Nigerian leaders have voiced grave concerns over the region's decline, attributing it to a significant erosion of moral values, leadership, and a loss of direction. Elder statesman Professor Ango Abdullahi, former Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, stated that the North has lost the values inherited from its pioneers, leading to its current "pathetic situation" and stagnation.

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The North has lost its values. You may not want to hear this, but that is the case today. If we have not lost the values we inherited from our parents and pioneer leaders, the North would not be where it is today.

During the third Late Gen. Hassan Usman Katsina Memorial Conference in Kaduna, themed 'From Sacrifice to Strategy: Rekindling Gen. Hassan Usman Katsina’s Vision for a Prosperous Northern Nigeria,' speakers highlighted that while physical infrastructure may have expanded, virtues like discipline, honesty, and selfless leadership have vanished. Professor Abdullahi emphasized that the core issue is not a lack of development but a fundamental loss of values.

Political economist Professor Usman Bugaje and former Chief Security Officer Major Hamza Al-Mustapha (retd.) echoed these sentiments. Bugaje linked decades of economic decline, insecurity, and institutional decay to the region's departure from the leadership ideals of Gen. Hassan Katsina and his contemporaries. He pointed to declining food production, widespread displacement, a shrinking economy, tripled poverty rates, collapsed education and healthcare systems, and depleted human capital as consequences.

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The North is in a pathetic situation. For me, that is the only reason why the North has stagnated. Don’t worry about the buildings you see. The basic issue concerning where the North finds itself today is the loss of our values.

The leaders stressed that insecurity continues to cripple agriculture, commerce, and social life. They called for a return to the integrity, accountability, and spirit of service exemplified by the late Gen. Hassan Katsina, believing that emulating these past values is crucial for the North's potential resurgence. The environmental and economic consequences of the shrinking Lake Chad were also cited as contributing factors to the security threats in the North-East.

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The troubles of the North are many and varied. Food production is going down daily, hundreds of thousands are being displaced from their homes, the economy has been shrinking, poverty has nearly tripled, education and healthcare have collapsed, and our human capital has been depleted.