The Director-General of the Northern Elders Forum, Prof Doknan Sheni, has stated that Nigeria’s growth from 1960 till now has been a roller-coaster, adding that “we started well and then the military intervened and put their structures in place; we had another civilian administration, then the military intervened again, and then we had civilians again. So, it has been filled with ups and. Nonetheless, the economic boom of the 1970s was perfect for Nigeria because the government of those days laid out structural plans for developing Nigeria.|

According to him, many things were laid for the growth of Nigeria as a whole and even when Shehu Shagari’s government came, what only thwarted that government was the corruption that was rampant in those days “but the oil revenue, and development of Nigeria, as far as education is concerned where I am a little bit familiar with, is that we started with one university in 1960, the University of Ibadan was part of what they called Imperial College of London. Now, 63 years later, we have more than 150 universities – private, state and federal in the country. So, we’ve done very well in terms of development. I am proud of Nigeria, and I wish Nigeria the best.”

He said that “if Nigeria’s oil revenue was not available, we might not have developed Abuja as it is today. The health status of Nigeria; if you look at the number of teaching hospitals, the National Hospital, and the various state hospitals that have been built, we have done well. It is because of the oil revenue. Remember ECOMOG, we did very well in our region because of the oil revenue. We couldn’t have interfered and stabilised other nations if we did not have the oil revenue. However, I think we should have done better. There are many more things we should have developed using our oil revenue but for corruption.”

Speaking on how the north had fared, he stated that “on whether the North has done well in the past 63 years, I will say the North would have done better because I don’t think we’ve addressed poverty enough, I don’t think we have addressed out-of-school children and child marriage enough. I think what is bothering us is our tradition; some of our cultures are very conservative. This conservative culture found a home in religion. Religion itself may not be conservative, but conservative culture finds home in some of these religions. So, they promote things like that. Let me give you an example; in girl child education, my grandparents were not educated, either in Western education or in Islamic education.

“So, they were neither Muslims nor Christians, but they didn’t like to go to school. Their conservative nature tells them that when the girl child has reached puberty, she should just get married. It has nothing to do with religion. It is their conservative culture, and because the conservative culture is based on what I call shame culture, you know. They want their girls to get married quickly because a girl who gets pregnant before marriage brings shame to the parents. Some parents can even commit suicide, or even kill the girl for bringing shame to them if what they feared eventually happened. So, shame culture is the issue, not religion.

“Let me give you another example. People tell us that northerners don’t want their children to acquire Western education because of religion. I disagree. Recently, at the Nasarawa State University, there is a professor, a woman; she is a professor of Islamic Studies, and she’s the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the university. She’s a Muslim. She delivered an inaugural lecture. Does it mean that her parents are not Muslim enough to allow her to go to school and to become a professor? It’s not religion. It’s our conservative culture. And we must differentiate our conservative culture from religion,” he reiterated.

On insecurity in the north, he stated that “first and foremost, the security agents, with my little interaction with some of them have given recommendations to the Federal Government on addressing the problem. They know who the bandits are; they even know where their hiding places are. The security agencies have written concerning equipment. What I now read in the papers or hear on the television is that the government has bought helicopters and other equipment; the government has bought some of the equipment that the security agencies need to tackle insecurity.” (Story adapted from The PUNCH)

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