THE MYTH AND MEANING OF THE NORTH

THE MYTH AND MEANING OF THE NORTH
By Mas Damisa
To an average Nigerian, the ‘North’ means the peoples of the geographical area created and made a region called Northern Region by the British colonial powers, which existed up to the creation of states in 1967. That region became defunct thereafter but cleverly retained for political purposes. Thus, you hear of a so-called ’19 Northern States Governors’ meeting or Commissioners of this and that of the “19 Northern States”.
The sheer physical size of the defunct northern region was about two-third of the whole country and for that reason, it was also assumed by the powers-that be that the region was numerically more populous than whatever was called the Eastern and Western regions put together. Now that the Bakassi Peninsula have been awarded to Cameroon, the ‘South’ has shrinked even further.
For whatever reason, purposes and motive, those who created ‘Northern Nigeria’ as described used it to intimidate and cow the South into submission to their designs for Nigeria. This is because having had the first contact with Europeans and embraced western education, the peoples of the ‘South’ were more vociferous in the struggle against colonial rule and the call for independence of Nigeria.
Thus, pre-independence census and electoral exercise were guided to return figures which served to confirm the assumption of the ‘North’. In fact, post-independence censuses and elections have largely been teleguided to conform with the myth of the North. It is called a myth because neither the peoples nor the area constituted into ‘Northern Region’ are actually in the geographical North; and the population allocated to them never tally with demographic principles, norms and rules. The so-called Northern Nigeria has the largest ethnic nationalities and therefore, the most heterogeneous part of Nigeria and never monolithic as assumed in some quarters up to now. Therefore, what is the North?
In ethno-geographical terms, the real North consists of the Hausa-Fulani, the Fula and the Kanuri. They occupy the far-north of British Northern Nigeria, they also share artificial borders with the Republic of Niger and Chad. Two points need to be made clear: why Hausa - Fulani and why artificial borders? Since the Uthman Dan Fofio’s jihad of the 19th century, a period of over two hundred years have passed during which the patrimony of the Hausa nation was captured by the Fula and ever since, there has been inter-ethnic marriage between the Fula and the Hausa which has produced a people who are a combination of both.
These people prefer to be known and called Hausa-Fulani because they speaks only Hausa language and do not hear Fula language and also because they have the two bloods in their veins;thus enjoying the strenght of both ethnic groups. As at now, there is hardly a pure Hausa ethnic nation and so, Hausa is reduced to a language spoken by the Hausa-Fulani and some others to whom it is a second language. The Fula is distinct as they retained their own language and culture and hardly inter-marry with other ethnic nations.
And why artificial borders? It is an open secret that since before independence and thereafter, there is no actual borders between Nigeria and Niger. Immigration officials never bothered themselves to control or check the influx of people between both countries. The reason is that the Hausa ethnic nation constitute about 50% of the population of the Republic of Niger, a country in the Sahel region which suffers from drought for over 4 decades now. They enter into Nigeria at will as they have biological relations across the borders. This has always helped to swell the number of the Hausa in Nigeria and aided the distortion of census figures and election results in the country.
To the Hausa-Fulani and real northerners, the North is composed of Muslims and as such, other ethnic nations in the defunct Northern Nigeria are mere statistics so long as they are non-Muslims and are useful only to the extent of their services in the pursuit of the interests of the Hausa-Fulani.
Given the experience of ethnic cleansing during the incessant Muslim fundamentalists riots of Kano, the non-Hausa/Fulani Muslims have now known that they don’t belong neither are they part of the ‘North’. Of course, the ‘North’ as a system maintains clients among some other ethnic nations within the defunct Northern region and other parts of the country. These clients are individuals whose political relevance are consciously oiled for as long as they are supportive of, and loyal to the interest of the ‘North’. Here lies the myth and real strength of the North. These individuals are perennial office holders and are recycled by the system so as to be economically strong. It must be noted that where loyalty is concerned, the North can pay any price to keep their clients who remain loyal and besotted to northern interest, regardless of the religion the loyalists professed. Minus the Hausa-Fulani, the Fula and the Kanuri, all other ethnic nations are in Central Nigeria, are of distinct culture and languages and are not religiously monolithic, most of who prefer to be called and known as Middlebelters. They occupy what the British colonial administrators choose to call ‘non-Muslim … pagan areas.’ of their ‘Northern Nigeria’.
In view of the foregoing, and whenever elements like Alhaji Tanko Yakassai speaks, they pretend to speak for all the people of the defunct Northern Region. At least we now know who he represents. Like when he said to The Nation newspaper that “our reason is that given our sheer number, since the North has more than 50 percent of the population, the North will always retain the leadership of this country, if we would go by our number”. He was talking about the PDP’s zoning formula and rotational tomfoolery.
In summary, the confidence with which Alhaji Yakassai or other Northerners speaks of their numerical strength and ability to win election derives from the fact of the influx of Hausa immigrants from Niger Republic. To them, the Hausa or Fula, no matter which country they belong are bona-fide Nigerians. They are employed and deployed to fight the Jihads of the Hausa-Fulani and the North. Yakassai’s statement also presupposes that the ‘North’ is monolithic, votes for one party and only for that party’s candidates. Meaning therefore that only the ‘North’ is Nigeria and no other ethnic nation is part owner of Nigeria; their boasting of always winning election cannot mean otherwise. Just as there is no monolithic North, there is no monolithic South Nigeria is a plural country and highly heterogeneous and ought to be politically organized and administered as such. Until then, the ‘North’ is free to make all manners of claims and roam over the country at will.