The Buhari presidency, insecurity, and North’s selective outrage — by Fattykolly Alimi
I have watched, with a mixture of amazement and pain, the sudden awakening of Northern conscience in the last 26 months. And I must confess, for the first time in my adult life, I am seeing Northern elites, well-read youths, professors, traditional title holders, and social media influencers speaking up so loud, so boldly, so relentlessly against a government.
My question is simple: So the North has a voice this loud?
Because in the Buhari era, what we had was a dead silence. A chilling, complicit, graveyard silence.
Can anybody look me in the face and say all was well under Buhari’s administration?
Let us be honest with ourselves.
Under Buhari, a mudu of rice moved from N400 to N1,800 and we were told to be patient.
Under Buhari, the Naira collapsed from N197 to N740 to a dollar, and we were told it was “the previous administration.”
Under Buhari, Katsina, his own home state, was overrun. Kankara boys were kidnapped in their school. The President was in Daura when his own district was attacked. Villages in Faskari, Sabuwa, Batsari buried 30, 40, 50 people every week. And the North said nothing. We were told not to embarrass our own.
Under Buhari, ASUU was on strike for 8 months, our universities were locked, our children were at home. And the Northern elites were on holiday.
Under Buhari, fuel was scarce for 8 years, we queued for days at N195 per litre, and the North said “Sai Baba” must continue.
Under Buhari, Nigeria borrowed N77 Trillion, sold our future, emptied the treasury, and the North clapped.
Where were the Emirs then?
Where were the Arewa Consultative Forum press releases then?
Where were the well-read Northern youths on Facebook and X then?
Where was this courage then?
Every arsenal was on holiday. Every mouth was sealed. Every pen was broken. Because the man in power was our son. He was one of us.
Today, a Southerner is in power — Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu — and suddenly, every Northerner has become a human rights activist. Suddenly, hunger has a definition. Suddenly, insecurity has statistics. Suddenly, everyone remembers that a bag of millet is N2,800.
Yes, there is hunger. Yes, there is insecurity. No one is denying that. But why is the noise louder now than when a village in Katsina was burying 50 people in a single day under a President from Katsina?
This is selective justice. And selective justice is injustice.
Let us call it what it is: This is not about hunger. This is not about insecurity. This is about power. It is about the fact that the South is holding the power that the North feels it owns. That is the bitter truth.
If we are to build Nigeria, we must learn to be vocal at every sense of injustice, not only when our son is not in power.
If an Emir can speak today because people are hungry in Katsina, that same Emir should have spoken yesterday when people were hungry AND being slaughtered daily in Katsina under his own son.
If a youth can abuse Tinubu today because fuel is N1,500, that same youth should have abused Buhari yesterday when there was no fuel at all, even at N195.
You cannot use a different stroke for Buhari and a different stroke for Tinubu and expect anybody to take you seriously. Nigerians are not fools. History is recording.
I am a Northerner. I am Fulani. I am from Katsina. But I will not be part of this hypocrisy. The North cannot claim to love the poor only when a Southerner is in power. The talakawa were hungry under Buhari too. They were dying under Buhari too. But you kept quiet because it was “our government.”
That is not love for the people. That is love for power.
President Tinubu did not cause all the problems. He inherited a corpse. A country where N400 billion was stolen monthly in the name of fuel subsidy. A country where the CBN was turned into a private ATM for a few Northern elites under Emefiele. A country where crude was sold forward for money already spent.
