“The Somalialization of Nigeria is taking place right now. We need to sit down and get to the root of the problem and find a solution to it.”
That was Nigeria’s former Defense Minister, Theophilus Y. Danjuma, expressing concern over the recent security trend in some parts of the country.
General Danjuma spoke at an event organized to mark the 50th birthday of the publisher of Leadership Newspapers, Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah.
“As far as Nigeria is concerned, I am an optimist. I tell myself each time we seem to stumble as a nation that we shall muddle through. But, in the last few months, I have begun to wonder why our house is on fire,” lamented Danjuma, who chaired the event, and spent long minutes drawing the attention of political leaders to a number of socio-economic problems in the North that could turn the country to another Somalia if unattended to.
“The Somalialisation of Nigeria is taking place right now. We need to sit down and get to the root of the problem and find a solution to it,” he charged. “Let us not deceive ourselves, the chief security officer of a state is the governor. Where are our northern governors? Borno is a failed state. Jigawa is almost a failed state. Kano is threatening to be a failed state. Where on earth are we going? You hear talks about multimillion naira fences around government houses, but what about the people?”
Other speakers after him expressed similar concerns. Former president of the Senate, Senator Ken Nnamani, in his contribution postulated that the country suffers from two maladies: a total lack of shame, and the seeming inability to rein in those bleeding the country dry through corrosive corruption.
Dignitaries at the gathering include former Head of State and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, (CPC), Major-General Muhammadu Buhari; the guest speaker, Professor Ango Abdullahi; Alhaji Shehu Malami; former chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr Ahmed Joda; former Minister of Finance, Alhaji Adamu Ciroma; elder statesman, Alhaji Maitama Sule; former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Lieutenant-General Jeremiah Useni (rtd); the Etsu of Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar; and Alhaji Waziri Tambuwal, Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, among others.