The chairman of the forum, Ibrahim Shehu Dandakata, stated this at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, lamenting that Northern Nigeria suffers from everything wrong with the country, from poverty to insecurity, unemployment, and the burden of many out-of-school children.
The Arewa Economic Renewal Forum (AERF) has explained how the Northern region is at the receiving end of the challenges facing Nigeria.
The chairman of the forum, Ibrahim Shehu Dandakata, stated this at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, lamenting that Northern Nigeria suffers from everything wrong with the country, from poverty to insecurity, unemployment, and the burden of many out-of-school children.
The forum thus challenged the political class to present a clear roadmap for the emancipation of northern Nigeria before running for office, according to PRNigeria.
The forum, whose members include businessmen, ICT specialists, security experts, academics, and seasoned technocrats, stated that it will mobilise the masses of the region to vote for any presidential candidate who has the best blueprint to solve the existential problems of northerners.
Dandakata described the north as the most endowed and yet the most marginalised region of the country, adding that the country's leaders have allowed the north's massive agricultural potential to rot away.
He said, "The resultant consequence for our region is poverty, substandard education, lack of access to credit financing and other negative underdevelopment indicators.
"No doubt the size and dimension of the population of the Northern region displace in terms of size any other African country apart from Nigeria itself. In other words, if this region would have been a country of its own it would still remain the most populous country in Africa and one of the 10 most populous in the world,
"The Northern region of the federation accounts for over 70% of the total arable landmass in Nigeria, geologically created in such an advantageous way that it could allow for 12 months of agriculture as it is traversed by river basins and aquatic reservoirs that would allow for three seasons of harvest every year, yet, only about 23% of the landmass is fully utilized for agricultural purposes.
"Similarly, out of the over three million hectares of potential dry season agriculture river basins, less than one million hectares is inefficiently utilized yet Nigeria has about ten river basin development authorities in existence for over 45 years.”
The AERF leader described as unacceptable and unsustainable the fact that the North has "the worst human development index, with an estimated 87 million people living on less than $1.90/day yet none of the top-ranked five economies in the world- Norway, Ireland, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Iceland - are more naturally endowed than Nigeria and indeed the North."
He said, "In terms of Access to Finance and Credit for Investment and Development from the National Financial System, the Northern Region has consistently over the last 10 years been shortchanged sometimes by a deliberate policy of the government and private financial institutions.
"The gross distribution of development and investment finance by government institutions and other financial institutions have always been skewed in favor of other regions, enterprises and institutions in Nigeria.”
"The Bank of Industry (BOI) 2019 annual report shows a disproportionate and unfair distribution of financing/loans to enterprises across the various geographical zones in Nigeria with the south's 191.7bn surpassing that of the entire North's share of 41.4bn by more than four times," he added.
He also noted that "in the last five years, about seven of the biggest banks in Nigeria by policy do not accept real estate asset as collateral for any business in the entire North except assets in Abuja".
"Over the last 10 years, loan portfolios or Nigerian banks have equally been in favour of other regions and to the disadvantage of the entire Northern region with some slight exceptions for Abuja.
"This same trend is visible in other financial institutions including development finance institutions owned by government and special intervention funds provided by budgets and or Central Bank of Nigeria special intervention financing."