North at Breaking Point

…Insecurity, Climate Change and Almajiri Crisis Dominate Govs, Monarchs Summit, As Bandits Push Towards Kano

By Franklin Adole
Insecurity, climate change, and the deepening Almajiri crisis dominated deliberations yesterday as Northern Governors and traditional rulers opened a crucial joint meeting in Kaduna. Addressing the gathering at Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, Chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum and Gombe State Governor, Alhaji Inuwa Yahaya, warned that the region faced an “existential threat” driven by terrorism, poverty, environmental degradation, and widening social vulnerabilities.

Yahaya said recent mass abductions in Kebbi, Kwara, Kogi, Kano, Niger, and Sokoto, as well as renewed Boko Haram attacks in Borno and Yobe, had once again exposed the North’s fragility. While commending President Bola Tinubu for the prompt rescue of some victims, he declared, “An attack on education is a direct assault on our future. Terrorists target our schools and farms because they want to cripple the tools that empower our youths.”

He stressed that insecurity had spiralled into a national emergency that “spares no one—the poor and the rich, Muslims and Christians, the young and the old,” adding that without peace, “there will be no politics to play and no state to govern.” Yahaya tied the crisis to “deep-seated underdevelopment, illiteracy, lack of opportunities, and the intensifying effects of climate change,” arguing that dwindling resources were fueling deadly conflicts.

Placing the Almajiri and out-of-school children crisis at the top of the agenda, he said: “The reality of millions of Northern children roaming the streets instead of being in classrooms is unacceptable and a stain on our conscience.” He reiterated support for state policing and urged the National Assembly to fast-track constitutional amendments.

Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani insisted that Nigeria’s centralised policing “can no longer protect a country of over 230 million citizens,” while Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, pledged that traditional rulers stood “100 per cent behind” efforts to secure the region: “We have no other place to call home.”

Meanwhile, civil society organisation CPACI warned that recent bandit incursions into parts of Kano, “the North’s last impenetrable fortress,” posed a grave threat. Executive Director Bishir Dauda cautioned that allowing Kano to slip into banditry would have “unimaginable” consequences, urging unity and condemning politicians “fuelling insecurity for political leverage.”