News Editor
By Ibrahim Nasiru
Albab Abdullahi’s recent piece, “North, wake up! your bandits and terrorists are the real problem” is a masterclass in shallow analysis.
By framing the North’s agony as a self-inflicted wound, Abdullahi conveniently ignores the infrastructure apartheid that has systematically strangled the region for decades. To suggest that the North’s insecurity is a “choice” is not just wrong—it is an insult to millions living under the weight of federal abandonment.
Abdullahi’s first mistake is treating security as a local Do it yourself (DIY) project. In Nigeria, security is on the Exclusive Legislative List. The North does not control the Army, the Police, or the intelligence budget. To blame a region for failing to stop bandits when the Federal Government holds the keys to the armoury is like blaming a passenger for a plane crash while the pilot is asleep in the cockpit.
The most glaring hole in Abdullahi’s argument is the total disregard for the link between development and peace.
You cannot secure a region you refuse to build. While multi-billion dollar rail projects and “Blue Economy” initiatives flourish on the coast, the North’s critical lifelines-like the Kano-Maradi rail and the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road-are treated as political favours rather than national priorities.
When the federal government fails to complete the AKK Gas Pipeline, it isn’t just a delay; it is the death sentence of the textile mills in Kaduna and the industries in Kano. Energy poverty is the primary recruiter for terrorists.
When a youth has no factory to work in and no irrigated farm to till because the Lake Chad Basin has been left to dry up without a massive recharge project, the “bandit’s rifle” becomes his only tool for survival.
Abdullahi mocks concerns over “Foreign Bases” as a distraction. He fails to see that our forests are “ungoverned” because the Federal Government has refused to build the roads, bridges, and communication towers necessary for a modern military to function. You cannot police a territory you have failed to road, light up, or map.
The North isn’t “sleeping” —it is being starved of the basic tools of 21st-century governance.
It is time to stop the lazy narrative of “Northern failure.” The insecurity we see today is the inevitable harvest of decades of infrastructure neglect. We don’t need condescending “wake-up calls” from those sitting in the comfort of federally funded coastal hubs. We need the dams, the power grids, the gas pipelines, and the rail networks that were promised but never delivered.
Insecurity will end the moment the North is treated as a partner in industrialization rather than a mere source of votes. Until then, the blood of the innocent is not just on the hands of bandits-it is on the hands of a system that chose vanity projects over regional stability.
Chief Ibrahim Nasiru
A Public Affairs Analyst and writes from Abuja.
