A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Engr. Babachir Lawal, has lashed out at Northern leaders describing them as incompetent.
The former SGF who was sacked by President Muhammadu Buhari over corruption told Daily Independent newspaper that problems ravaging the northern part of the country were caused by the incompetent leaders.
“ The North is full of incompetent rulers. All they want is to ride in convoys and people are hailing and waving at them. When they come home, people sit on the mats while they are the only ones sitting on a chair because they are governors. They see themselves as Deputy Jesus. They are not interested in serving the people, all they care about is ruling” he said.
Lawal blamed insecurity in the region on unemployment. He said banditry and Boko Haram terrorism thrive because of mass unemployment.
“Now, bandits have overrun the North and there is nothing to do. The youths are idle. They have lived the good life and they want to sustain that good life but they don’t want to work. Even those who want to work; there are no jobs for them. So, insurgency has gone all over the North and we have been overrun by insurgents, not necessarily religious or tribal. Technically, on my own side, I don’t differentiate between what is happening in Zamfara and what is happening in Southern Kaduna because it is the same group of bandits that are running up and down. They are just following the forests where they can hide and get out of the sights of security agents. My advice is that people in Northern Kaduna should not start to celebrate over what is happening in Southern Kaduna” he said.
Lawal decried the marginalization of Christian minorities by the Muslim majority.
He said, “Nigeria belongs to other entities too that if we do not take their own aspirations into consideration, the unity we are clamouring for might not come. We cannot continue to be second-class citizens inside our country. These are the issues that Nigerians don’t want to face.
“Why should Kaduna end up with Muslim governor and Muslim deputy governor? The Speaker is Muslim as well as the Deputy Speaker. Two cabinet ministers are also Muslims. There are about six or seven local governments in Kaduna that are predominantly Christians. Nigeria must look at these issues because the day it will explode, it will surprise everybody. While elders like us are willing to tolerate these things because of peace and harmony, our children may not be able to do so because they can’t accept to be northerners only during election periods and suffer neglect when positions are shared. They say the North has 52 percent of votes, yet have forgotten that out of that 52 percent, 30 percent are Christian votes from the Middle Belt and Adamawa, Gombe, Taraba and Borno. These are solid Christian states. Nigeria doesn’t belong to Muslims alone. We are there too and we are contributing our quota effectively. Until recently, we are the educated Northerners. We suffer the insurgency the most because until now, the insurgency is restricted to Non-Muslim areas until when they run of victims in the Middle Belt or North East and they now went hunting for others.”
Lawal is facing trial for diversion of funds and criminal conspiracy to the tune of N1.1 billion.
