The late Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardaunan Sokoto and first premier of the  defunct Northern Region will turn in his grave at the damage his  descendants have done to his legacy in the region he once presided over.  Serial killings, socio-economic dislocations caused by years of  despising, religious and ethnic intolerance and debilitating poverty  have combined to destroy the peace of the once-harmonious north.  Discordant tunes by leaders of the region are indicators of how bad  things are.
Things are truly falling apart for the north. Yet, one indisputable fact  northern Nigerians across the ethnic and religious divide are agreed is  that the late Sir Ahmadu Bello contributed immensely to the religious  harmony the region enjoyed prior to and, in the years after  independence. The late premier was said to be tolerant of non-Muslim  populations of the north, appointed them into sensitive positions in the  regional government and ensured that some of his closest advisers and  confidants were people who did not necessarily profess his faith.
The late premier embraced all, tolerated all and never discriminated  against any one on the basis of religion. Many in today’s middle belt  who were originally non-Muslims were encouraged to adopt the Islamic  faith largely on account of the way the _Sardauna_ fellowshipped with  them. Yes, he was one Muslim political leader who never allowed religion  to influence his dealing with others. If any non-Muslim of his era or  any non-Muslim northerner of this era harboured misgivings, it could not  have been on the basis of religious differences.
As a mortal, Sir Ahmadu Bello had his shortcomings. But, he succeeded as  a political leader because he was what many of us are not. A little over  fifty-one years after he and some of the country’s finest political  leaders were brutally cut down by drunken and over-pampered soldiers,  Sardauna’s name is still nostalgically mentioned in the present.  Sadly, even the meanest of today’s human locusts and vultures are  quick to bandy his name of around without even pretending to replicate  what the man stood for.
What made the late Sardaunan Sokoto a successful politician was his  heart that was large enough to accommodate everybody and anybody with  views contrary to his. And what is more, he had foresight. Aware of the  large concentration of non Muslims within his domain and aware of what  they could contribute to his success as a leader, the late _Sardauna_  reached out to all and left out none. Fifty-one years on, Sardauna’s  time-tested dictum of ‘let’s understand and appreciate our  differences’, has been turned upside down.
For northern Nigeria, things are dangerously falling apart and the  centre appears incapable of holding. The region has inflicted so much  damage to itself and, today, no thanks to the leadership paralysis in  the region occasioned by the greed, gluttony and short sightedness of  the present crop of political leaders, the already economically  marginalised region is at great risk of being politically marginalised.  Unhappily, even supposed authentic voices that should chart the way  forward engage in needless bickering.
At the heart of the matter is the failure of the north to, permit the  usage, put its house in order. The north has never been this disunited  and unwieldy .Proof that things have got so bad is the near universal  fact that you could unwittingly, though innocently, be igniting a mini  civil war by simply referring to a Kaje or Birom or Higgi person, or any  member of the ‘northern minorities’, even the Muslims among them, as  Hausa.
The reverse was the case some few years back. Nothing underscores this  flight of tolerance than the crises in Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna and  Plateau states, among others. Until very recent times, the Birom or  Angas saw nothing wrong with a Hausa or Fulani man from Wudil or Wurno  setting up home on the plateau, taking up ‘citizenship’ of Plateau  state and enjoying all the benefits of an indigene. Again, the  now-vexing issue of settler/indigene dichotomy, the new source of  tension and blood-letting in the north, was virtually absent few years  ago. No more so! Today, it is common for northerners to murmur endlessly  that they no longer feel ‘at home away from home’     Of course, the ill-feelings of the recent past and the acrimonies that  have continued to ignite senseless killings can/. be reversed. The first  point of departure is to quit, for once, the ingrained pretences that a  particular religion or ethnic group js more northern than others.  Secondly, it was not an accident that God peopled northern Nigeria with  Muslims, Christians and animists. It was not an accident that different  ethnic groupings found themselves in the region. Had God wished it,  mankind would be speaking one and the same language and profess one and  the same faith.
As it is today, Sokoto, Katsina, Kano, and Zamfara, among others have  indigenous, though minority, Christian populations. We are not even  talking of such states in the so called ‘Muslim north’ as Kaduna,  Borno, Adamawa, Taraba, Gombe, Bauchi, Niger with heavy concentration of  Christian populations. Of course, it is assumed we all know there are  states in the so-called Muslim north where majority of indigenous  populations are Christians! That, precisely, is the genesis of the  problem with the north, a problem which the Sardauna understood and  never allowed to come in the way.
Ultimately, the senseless blood-letting in the north with the attendant  loss of lives will come to an end. Before then, however, we cannot  pretend that more innocent lives will not be lost to more needless  killings. Whatever the case, the north should be big enough for all.
And, until every northerner, irrespective of ethnic and religious  leanings feels at home in any part of the vast plain of the region, the  dream of a return to the old north which literally set the national  agenda will remain in the pipe.
For now, no one should delude themselves into believing the north is  headed in the right direction. It is not!
Written by Abdulrazaq Magaji
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