Muhammad Haruna, NNDC, and Nostalgia

By

Abdullah Musa

kigongabas@yahoo.com

The reader who knows the seasoned journalist who was once the Managing Director of New Nigerian newspaper may be confused with the name in our title above. The ace journalist’s name is usually written as Mohammed, the secular and English way that the name of our noble Messenger Muhammad is written.

It is that same Mohammed whose Wednesday’s column is the focus of our discourse today. His subject however was the acclaimed poverty that is seen as bedeviling the Northern States of Nigeria, more than any of the other constituent parts. Society should be grateful if journalists become preoccupied with the problems that hurt society all the more painfully.

Poverty may defy definition. By this we mean that the scourge of poverty is known only to those who suffer poverty. Many of us experience the pangs of hunger for many reasons: first being that it is the body’s natural prompting that a recharge of energy-giving substances is needed for the body to function smoothly.

The rich may be indulgent such that one decides to eat fairly regularly so that pangs of hunger are not felt. Many Muslims do fast at least once in a year during Ramadan fasting period. However though the hunger of Ramadan is instructive, it is mild when Ramadan is undertaken by one who knows that at the end of the fast food is ready for him or her. With the poor, such guaranty is lacking. The pangs of hunger may be fully or partially assuaged; and hunger may always be with its victim as everlasting dull pain.

Muhammad Haruna when writing on NNDC was not focusing on its ability to serve as a development institution: if by development institution we mean that which focuses on not for profit, but necessary development projects. He was in this instance projecting NNDC as a poverty ameliorating institution!

Nigerian governments have been fighting poverty since the time of President (un elected) Babangida; particularly since his SAP (Structural adjustment Program) devastated the economic foundation on which the modern Nigerian State rested.

President Umar Yar’Adua inherited former President Obasanjo’s Magnus Kpakol, but I think the poor still remain poor. Those with warm and compassionate hearts feel that the best program that Northern Governors should run for their populace should be how to tackle and subdue mass poverty. And Muhammad Haruna feels that NNDC should be empowered to do just that.

Let us digress a little. Human beings by our very nature function best within the familiar. We will find life very harrowing if each day our environment is transformed such that known landmarks keep changing daily: for instance today your street bears the signs you knew since childhood, but tomorrow it looks like that of New York, while you have never been there! While trying to become familiar with it, the next day it changes to a street in Tokyo! You can hardly function effectively in such volatile environment.

Though life’s challenges do not come with such chameleonic rapid changes, many of us are still not comfortable with change. NNDC, New Nigerian, Ahmadu Bello Stadium, Ahmadu Bello University, all one have trait in common: they are symbols of the Sardauna legacy. I do not know a people so much dazzled by their past like Northerners: all the possible good happened during the time of Sardauna; and thus all institutions he established are sacrosanct, akin to the divine Qur’an; not a word or phrase should be removed! That is true with Qur’an, a Book of divine guidance. But any human institution so established may have to either adapt to changing circumstance or become either a dinosaur, by facing extinction; or to become an albatross on the necks of its owners which is even more disastrous.

The seasoned journalist wants Northern States’ Governors to redeem the pledges of the needed recapitalization of NNDC so that they may be able to tackle poverty! Anya! Which comes first: program before money, or get the money first and then later decide how to spend it? There may be questions we would like to ask, but since NNDC does not belong to us; and by ‘us’ we mean we who are voiceless, we should spare the reader the agony of wasting time reading lengthy passages. But one question we will surely ask, ko da za a daure mu: what is the track record of NNDC in tackling poverty?

The answer to such question and the many others which we have decided to swallow is in real fact not useful to us. The reason being that if Northern Governors become convinced of Muhammad Haruna’s intervention pleas, we will not know when the treasuries of the North would be opened for NNDC’s management to diba da kansu; meaning: serve yourself!

Muhammad Haruna is a good fellow whom I have never met. Unfortunately, he has swallowed the bewitching concoction called ‘Sardauna legacy’. This legacy will always keep Arewa on its knees: institutions that ought to die due to mismanagement are kept alive an ‘infusion/hemorrhage’ endless circle!

NNDC may do certain things well. They impress me with their partnership with ICAN to produce Northern Professional accountants. That is not however the reason they were set up. They were set up to industrialize the North, with particular emphasis on the industries that would use the North’s abundant agricultural produce: cotton, groundnuts, seseme seeds, ginger, mangoes and the likes. They failed miserably! Now they are into telecommunications, oil exploration. Who knows, they may partner with China to make sure that the Northerner is the first Nigerian to attempt the space walk! If our voices were to be heard, I would suggest that Northern Governors divest 50% of their holdings and sell to the public. Let NNDC sell its prospective endeavors to the public, and let us see if the public (Northern and Nigerian) do share the blind trust that Northern Governors used to repose in NNDC’s management.

Rebels like me would have wished that except for the educational institutions, all other Sardauna’s legacies should be allowed to die and rest in peace with their creator. You may not agree with me Nda, but that might be the best way to fight poverty in the North, if you follow my drift!

PS: I am no fan of NNDC. I once referred to them as Arewa’s Bermuda Triangle.