North has lost its values, direction, Ango Abdullahi laments

Elder statesman and Convener of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Professor Ango Abdullahi, has lamented that the North has lost its values and leadership direction, warning that for the region to return to its former path, it must retrace its values to those upheld by past leaders.

Speaking at the third edition of the Late Gen Hassan Usman Katsina Memorial Conference held at Arewa House, Kaduna, with the theme, “From Sacrifice to Strategy: Rekindling Gen Hassan Usman Katsina’s Vision for a Prosperous Northern Nigeria”, Prof Ango said the North had departed from the values inherited from its parents and pioneer leaders.

He insisted that the region’s decline was rooted in moral and leadership failure rather than a lack of physical development.

“The North has lost its values. You may not want to hear this, but that is the case today. If we had not lost the values we inherited from our parents and our pioneer leaders, the North would not be where it is today,” he said.

According to him, although cities across the North had witnessed physical expansion, the virtues of discipline, honesty, sacrifice and selfless leadership that once shaped the region had gradually disappeared.

“The North is in a pathetic situation. For me, that is the only reason why the North has stagnated. Don’t worry about the buildings you see. The basic issue concerning where the North finds itself today is the loss of our values,” he stated.

He urged Northern leaders to draw lessons from the life of the late Gen Hassan Katsina, whom he described as one of the generation that upheld integrity, accountability and service to society.

“If we can go back to those values, particularly by remembering those who inherited them and practised them, there is no doubt in my mind that the North would have been different today,” Abdullahi added.

In his keynote address, Prof Usman Bugaje also painted a grim picture of the state of the North, saying the region had suffered decades of economic decline, insecurity and institutional collapse because it had drifted away from the leadership ideals of men like Gen Hassan Katsina.

“The troubles of the North are many and varied. Food production is going down daily, hundreds of thousands are being displaced from their homes, the economy has been shrinking, poverty has nearly tripled, education and healthcare have collapsed, and our human capital has been depleted,” he said.

He added that insecurity had continued to cripple agriculture, commerce and social life across the region.

“It is indeed time to ask how much of the North still remains. Or better still, how much of the sanity of the elite, especially those in government, still remains? Today, who is there to go to? Where are the General Hassans to complain to? Where exactly is the leadership? Where is the direction?” he asked.

Bugaje criticised what he described as the complacency of sections of the Northern elite, saying many preferred lamenting the region’s problems without offering practical solutions.

“It has become the pastime of the elite to sit in the comfort of their homes and say that the North is in trouble. Some even scream that the North is finished. These comments only betray the complacency or even the complicity of the Northern elite,” he said.

Recalling a personal encounter with the late Gen Hassan Katsina, Bugaje narrated how the former military governor stood by him after the then American ambassador complained about an article he had written criticising Western imperialism.

“The American ambassador came all the way to Kaduna to complain about the article. General Hassan read it himself and called me. Instead of asking me to stop, he told me to write more of such articles. That was the kind of leader they were. When they knew what was being done was right, they encouraged it,” he recalled.

Bugaje said leaders of Hassan Katsina’s generation combined modern education with deeply rooted Northern values, describing them as contented, community-oriented, disciplined and committed to justice.

“General Hassan’s generation had an infusion of a high dose of our value system. We saw it in their contentment, commitment to their communities, respect for rules and procedures, modesty and decorum, and their vision of a prosperous North where every Northerner became his brother’s keeper,” he said.

He urged today’s leaders to return to those principles if the North was to overcome its growing social, economic and security challenges.

The annual memorial conference was organised to honour the legacy of the late Gen Hassan Usman Katsina and promote discussions on leadership, governance and the future of Northern Nigeria.