For the North in 2027: Why President Tinubu remains the choice

Perhaps not too surprisingly, some segments of the northern political elite have embarked on an orchestrated campaign aimed at dissuading the region’s electorate from voting for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election.

The only question that agitates the minds of experts is: how has Tinubu sinned specifically against the North since he came to power just over three years ago?

Barring those whose thoughts and views have been marred by political bias, the Tinubu administration deserves to be commended for demonstrating a high level of fairness, fairness and justice in the dissemination of nominations and citation of development infrastructure across all federated units in the country.

Without misunderstanding, it can in fact be said that the North was particularly favored. What about the region’s dominant presence in strategic leadership positions in the two branches of government: the executive and legislative, as well as the nation’s security architecture? To emphasize this point, let’s take a look at the nation’s immediate past to reinforce this perception.

In terms of infrastructure, we cannot even accuse the current federal government of cheating our part, the north of the country. For example, while cynics are always ready to attack the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, they conveniently overlook the equally large road transport infrastructure in the Sokoto-Badagry highway of the same Tinubu administration.

This is even as the government has seriously resumed work on the over 1000 kilometer Maiduguri-Kano highway; the Mina-Suleija, Zaria-Funtua-Sokoto-Gusau and Kaduna-Abuja roads, as well as a host of other hitherto abandoned road projects in the North. Also NOT abandoned are the crucial Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline and the Kaduna-Kano-Katsina railway. Haba!

Those in the North committed to the president’s de-campaigning project have made much noise about insecurity problems in the region. This is either a case of collective amnesia or a deliberate distortion of historical facts.

The Islamic insurgency groups Boko Haram, ISWAP and recently Lakurawa and Mahmudawa, originated in the northeastern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa in 2009 under the presidency of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. They pretend to forget that since then there were six years of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration and eight years of the late President Muhammadu Buhari before Tinubu’s election in 2023.

Similarly, banditry and kidnappings emerged in 2015/2016, during the tenure of one of our own, the late President Muhammadu Buhari, who hailed from the North. So, how is it rational for us to point accusing fingers at President Tinubu on the issue of insecurity?

Similarly, the phenomena of communal clashes in some parts of the North preceded the Tinubu presidency by several years. Yet, the troublemakers make it seem as if they were created by him.

Likewise, the nation’s economic recession is seen as a sign of Tinubu’s failure. Its cynics extol the withdrawal of oil subsidies as the sole causal factor of the prevailing economic challenges. For obvious reasons, this sentiment is more stridently orchestrated in the North.

There is, in fact, no doubt that the difficult times in which President Tinubu’s economic reforms, in particular, the withdrawal of oil subsidies, have had constraints on the population. However, the effects of the reforms are felt nationwide and are not limited to selected segments of the country.

Every enlightened opinion has hailed President Tinubu’s withdrawal of subsidies on petroleum products as a deft, timely and courageous action that saved the economy from imminent collapse. The so-called subsidy was nothing more than a dump by a small clique of cabal in the oil industry. Successive administrations had avoided taking the bull by the horns for fear of its political reactions.

With the end of the subsidy regime, more funds went to states and local councils for salary payments and critical development projects at the grassroots level. Furthermore, it has meant more funding for the federal government, resulting in the ability to undertake myriad ongoing projects across the federation.

Significantly, the withdrawal of subsidies on petroleum products has reflected positively on the nation’s fiscal profile. For example, in September this year, foreign exchange reserves reached an unprecedented $54.61 billion. This marks an 18-year high and represents an unusual gain of 30.5% in one year. Furthermore, for the first time since 2008, it surpassed the $54 billion mark.

Other benefits of Tinubu’s fiscal policies include strengthening the country’s liquidity, thereby improving its ability to meet international payments. This is in addition to the stabilization of the exchange rate of the naira against the dollar, leading to control of inflation and strengthening of foreign investor confidence.

By the way, let us reflect on the reasons why some social diseases such as absolute poverty, fratricidal wars, kidnappings, banditry, virulent religious extremism and insurgencies are particularly prevalent in the North?

There are Muslims and Christians in the southwest, but we have no sectarian crisis in that area. When kidnappings raged in the Niger Delta, unlike our case in the North, they did not assume the dimensions of large-scale killing of poor people, innocent children, women and elderly people or the callous and reckless burning of houses, in addition to large-scale destruction of entire communities and agricultural lands.

To get out of trouble, the North must sincerely and courageously introspect, call things by their name, tell themselves the bitter facts. In that case, instead of looking for scapegoats, we would blame the region’s political elites as the architects of most of the socio-economic travails plaguing the region today. NOT President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Certainly, President Tinubu was not responsible for the collapse of dozens of textile companies in Kaduna, Kano, Gusau and Funtua, oil mills, cotton gins and other industries that decades ago employed hundreds of thousands of able-bodied youth.

The stubborn refusal of the Northern elites to give access to the majority of their citizens to modern educational opportunities has, inevitably, led to the current situation of the appalling population of illiterate and unemployed youth and street children who invariably provide reserves for the recruitment of rebels, kidnappers, bandits and serve as canon fodder in communal wars and political criminality.

Instead of vilification, President Tinubu should be recognized for having the vision, courage and political willpower to embark on a path from which his predecessors had strayed.

“Yabon Goni ya zama dole” is a Hausa proverb that translates to “give honor to whom honor is due.”

President Tinubu has performed excellently by adhering to the principles of fairness, balance and justice. He deserves a second term for good governance, a virile democratic culture, national integration and peace, tranquility and prosperity.

…Engineer Shibkau is the President of Nigerian Professionals in the UK.

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