Opinion: Who Listens To The North?, By Azu Ishiekwene
Journalist and former Minister of Youth Development and Sports, Bolaji Abdullahi, wrote a thought-provoking piece last week entitled, “Who speaks for the North?” The article reinforces the need for an important conversation, especially as we reflect on our past, engage with the present and contemplate the future.
Each one of them has at different times spoken about the need for the political elite to pay more than lip service to the poverty and social injustice wrecking the region. But who is listening? Who is doing? Never a bargain hunter, Umar’s entire career has been devoted to standing up for a fair shake for one and all and he laid down his army commission to prove it. He is just as opposed to injustice by one Northern against another, as he is against injustice in the country, wherever it expresses itself.
Sure, the North could do with honest voices, those who shine the light not with microphones and empty speeches, but with their deeds and lifestyle. But the more urgent problem is not so much a shortage of speakers as it is acute shortage of listeners willing to do what they know is right by their people.
Instead, the voices that could shape the future, the voices that Abdullahi and other young, like-minded politicians should seek to engage, are those coming from the streets.
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