By Idris Muhammed Abdullahi
Arewa!!
The great North — home to over 150 million Nigerians. A land blessed with vast resources, rich history, vibrant culture, and deeply resilient people. Yet today, in the 21st century, Arewa stands alarmingly bare in the global economic arena — a sleeping giant robbed of its voice, its industries, its independence.
Let’s say it as it is:
There is no single indigenous Arewa company worth ₦100 billion headquartered in the North.
Not one.
No homegrown bank.
No insurance powerhouse.
No regional stock exchange.
No independent power producer.
No commodity market.
No seed bank.
No arms manufacturing plant.
No international media house.
No globally reputed airline.
No publishing giant.
Not even a privately-owned, Grade A agro-allied conglomerate.
And yet… this is a region that boasts some of the most fertile land on the African continent.
Haba! Kamar taron birai?
How did we get here?
Look to the Southeast — states like Abia are reforming their power sectors, restructuring Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), reviving small industries, and rebuilding textile clusters.
In the Southwest, Lagos thrives on VAT from active ports, reformed taxation, border trade, and deliberate ease of doing business.
And in Arewa?
No functioning seaports.
No land-border logistics hubs.
No strategic economic planning.
Who did this to us?
No bombs.
No sanctions.
No drones.
Just self-sabotage, silence, and decades of leadership failure.
We outsourced every tool of wealth creation.
We handed over banking, telecoms, commerce, insurance, education — even agriculture — to others who have no stake in our prosperity.
We became dependents. Not developers.
Consumers. Not creators.
So how can poverty not cling to us like a curse?
Ta yaya talauci ba zai mana katutu ba?
How do a people rise without industries, without innovation, without independence?
Let’s ask the bitter but necessary questions:
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Where are our representatives at FAAC meetings?
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Why is there no regional economic blueprint?
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Why haven’t we built dry ports, revived processing zones, and tapped into cross-border trade with Niger, Chad, and Cameroon?
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Why are we still stuck in colonial bureaucracies while the world is sprinting into AI, Green Energy, and Smart Infrastructure?
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Why aren’t Kaduna, Kano, and Jos becoming tech and industrial hubs?
While the South invests in education, innovation, and industry, the North plays politics with school roofs and calls it development.
Is this politics — or is it stupidity?
Arewa has not been conquered by an enemy’s guns.
We have been defeated by our own complacency, division, and refusal to evolve.
Only the trauma of war humbles a people like this.
Maybe only a war of consciousness can revive us now.
We must rise. Not with blame, but with building.
Not with violence, but with vision.
Not for religion, but for relevance.
We must:
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Unite across tribe and sect to form economic alliances
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Establish industrial cooperatives and regional banks
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Invest in local ventures, border reforms, logistics corridors, and functional dry ports
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Demand our governors declare economic states of emergency and act
The future of Arewa will not be written in Abuja.
It will be shaped in Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Bauchi, Zamfara, Gombe, Jalingo, and Jos.
Arewa cannot afford to sleep anymore.
It is time to wake up. Now.
Idris, a political analyst, is a Tax Evasion and Asset Recovery and Proceed of Crime Investigator and Expert for Nigeria
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