Coordinator of the Concerned Northern Groups (CNG), Jamilu Aliu Charanchi has stated that the North is not necessarily against President Bola Tinubu, but with his policies, which he said have pauperised not only the region but also the entire country.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the CNG leader said there was the need to first address the economic hardship and the security challenges in the country before talking about restructuring or a new constitution, arguing that the governors will use the state police to torment political opponents.
Why is the North angry with President Bola Tinubu?
The North is not angry with President Tinubu as a person, but we are angry with the policies of the government he is driving. Not only the North, Nigerians in general are angry with his policies, particularly, the economic policies. The North is not angry with Tinubu, but with the All Progressives Congress (APC) government starting from former President Muhammadu Buhari because of the high level of insecurity in the region. The government at all levels has not been able to solve the security challenges. The issues are his policies, and not President Tinubu.
The North brought President Tinubu into power. We gave him about 62 per cent of the votes. If we are angry with him, why did we give him over 62 per cent of the votes? It’s not the president, but his policies that created the economic hardship that we are attacking. Not only us, generally, all Nigerians are also not happy with his policies. The North is angry over the level of insecurity, the level of poverty, the high level of hardship and the economic policies. We are eyewitnesses over the alarming insecurity in the north. Nobody can go to the farm, nobody can even sleep; there are villages where people cannot sleep with two eyes closed. Many people are now scavengers, a lot of people cannot go to farm, rearing has become difficult. These are some of the things that the North is angry with, not Tinubu.
What are the things that the president should do for the North that he is not doing?
It is to rewrite the unfavourable policies that are affecting Nigerians, particularly, the issues of fuel subsidy removal, electricity subsidy removal and tackling insecurity, which are what the north is concerned about. Like I said earlier, the level of insecurity in the north is alarming; people are kidnapped on daily basis, people are dying on hourly basis in the hands of bandits and kidnappers, and they are moved from cities to the forests until ransom is paid. The kidnappers keep them under the rain, under the sun in the forest.
It seems the government is not doing enough to arrest this insecurity. We have seen instances where kidnappers communicated with the families of their victims with the communication system in the country; they are on social media platforms. However, the government will always be saying that they are about to tackle the insecurity. This is what people are angry with. Kidnappers are moving with audacity, they move wherever they want and stay wherever they want unchallenged, and the government appears to be helpless. If today, somebody goes to the social media platform to abuse a governor and other leaders, I can tell you that within the shortest possible time, the security forces will arrest him. Why won’t the same security forces locate the bandits? We have seen videos where the bandits were abusing the president, governors and others. Is it that the security forces cannot locate where they are? We have a situation where a woman who just delivered twins through caesarean section was kidnapped in Kaduna. We have seen an emir kidnapped and killed at the end of the day.
Many people in the north are in the kidnappers’ den in the forest. Some may not make it alive. Millions of naira has been moved from the cities to the forest for ransom. This is why we are not happy. If Tinubu can rewrite these, why would we be angry with him?
It appears some Northern leaders are also not in support of restructuring, state police and the new constitution?
The north is not opposed to restructuring, but there are so many issues that need to be addressed first. We all are witnesses to the severe economic hardship in the country. Some weeks ago, Nigerians were in the streets protesting against the economic hardship. Nigerians are complaining about insecurity. These are the issues that people should focus on. To bring the issue of restructuring now is just about personal interest or someone’s agenda. The issues before us now should be how to deal with the economic hardship, insecurity, rising inflation, the depreciation of the naira, the issue of fuel subsidy removal, electricity removal etc. the issue of restructuring and new constitution is not for the people. On the issue of state police, we have governors who are politicians rather than leaders. They only concentrate on how to win the next elections; they don’t care about the next generation. In a situation where somebody can abuse the local government autonomy, abuse the State Independent Electoral Commission, there is no two ways about it that he would also abuse the state police if the opportunity is given to him. At the end of the day, the state police might be turned to thugs. They would be bearing arms in the name of policing the community, whereas they will be attacking political opponents and people like us who are telling the government the truth. We are very much sure that the introduction of state police at this very dark hour of Nigeria will spell doom; the government will misuse it, even use it to squander the treasury of the state.
Why don’t we focus on increasing the general welfare of the Nigeria police we have today? A governor who claims that he cannot pay N70, 000 minimum wage, how can he recruit the personnel of the state police, provide logistics and fund it?
