Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Friday issued one of his bluntest warnings yet to Northern leaders, declaring that the region risks permanent stagnation unless it confronts its deepening divisions, failing education system, collapsing industries, and widening agricultural deficits.
Speaking at the 25th anniversary of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Atiku praised the Forum for surviving “the thick and thin” of a turbulent quarter-century but said the time for celebration must give way to sober reflection.
“Anniversaries are for reflection,” he said. “We must wake up from our complacency. We cannot stagnate.”
Atiku recounted how, in 1999, he helped midwife the ACF by uniting a fractured North. He described dispatching a committee led by the Emir of Ilorin to merge rival political blocs and restore cohesion to the region’s leadership.
But he warned that Northern unity—once the region’s greatest asset—has weakened to a dangerous level.
“The major issue with our unity is our failure to manage our diversity,” he said, pointing to countries like China and India as models of inclusive development. “Why can’t we do better?”
He accused unnamed actors of exploiting ethnic and religious tensions using technology to destabilise the region.
“Their target is our God-given wealth,” he cautioned.
Atiku’s most forceful critique came in his assessment of the North’s development trajectory. Revisiting the goals of Sir Ahmadu Bello—education, agriculture, and industry—he said the region had strayed far from the path of progress.
He detailed the early 2000s Northern Development Program he championed, which exposed the “shambolic” state of Northern education, revived teacher training, and doubled school enrollment in several states. But he lamented that two decades later, many of the same problems persist.
On industry, he was even more blunt:
“Amazingly, two decades later, we appear still to be where we were.”
Atiku painted a stark picture of the coming demographic storm, noting that Nigeria’s population is projected to hit 300 million by 2030.
“How do we feed this population? How do we educate it? How do we provide jobs for the teeming youth in their hundreds of millions?” he asked.
“The competitive environment of the 21st century will not accept complacency,” he warned. “It will not accept absentee leadership.”
In a closing appeal heavy with historical symbolism, Atiku urged Northern leaders to live up to the legacy of Sir Ahmadu Bello and resist the temptation of selfish politics.
“How would we like to be remembered?” he asked. “As people who made necessary sacrifices—or as people who only buttered their bread?”
He ended with a rallying cry:
“If there is any time for the North to unite, it is now.”
