HAUSAS AND DEVELOPMENT IN ASABA

It was the best course of action when the government of Delta State chose to develop the Cable Line neighbourhood of Asaba with a view to transforming this locale into a “New Dubai” business-and-resort sprawling complex. Really, that is how a state government should function; seek and develop business opportunities that would make the state less likely to depend too heavily on monthly handouts from the central government at Abuja. Even if not for business purposes, state governments should strive to clear city-centres of hovels and a now widely-accepted quote should be recalled herewith: “If truth must be told, it is not the responsibilities of low-income earners to strive to acquire plots of land in city centres and then commence to deface these locales by building slum apartment dwellings; it is the responsibilities of state governors to build decent template-based housing units with sewage processing and all-encompassing external concrete-flooring or tarmac-flooring thrown in the midst to discourage breeding of pests like flies, mosquitoes, fleas, gnats and vermin like rats and cockroaches.”

So, it was with a sense of sadness and disappointment that I read the Sunday Trustnewspaper headline of Sunday, November 12, 2017, that essentially thrust the resident Hausas of Asaba into victim status. Why this influential Northern Nigeria newspaper should glorify the Hausas of Asaba reveling in victimhood was, well, not quite much beyond my comprehension: that is the superior Northern psyche in the present-day Nigeria when certain parties are certain they are pre-ordained to conquer and dominate. Such a feeling was one of the reasons IPOB campaigned for the boycott of the Anambra State gubernatorial election. Over there in Zamfara, Katsina, and other Northern states the sitting governments have no qualms ordering bulldozers to pull down decades-old apartments, business premises, and kirk buildings because they want to “develop” that section of town. The government of Delta State is not out to forcibly dislodge any group of folks, but the resident Hausas of Asaba should not arrest development of Asaba by resisting entreaties to move away from prime locales suitable for real estate development.

If state governments of Northern Nigeria take a leaf or two from this desire to boost sources of internally generated revenues from the Delta State Government and given the massive influence that the Hausa-Fulani stock has in the present APC government and the capital that they can thereof influence to move to these states, then there should be very little excuses for the Hausas migrating in droves and settling “for over 200 years” at Asaba. By the way, how long now has Asaba been continually inhabited? Furthermore, it is now incumbent upon the people of Northern Nigeria to sit down amongst themselves and discuss what the widespread destruction wrought by Boko Haram has done to the North. If Boko Haram had not arrested development in the North by way of violent jihad then it would not be altogether necessary for Northerners to seek solace in migration and find contentment in other peoples’ land and even stake a claim to part of the capital of their state. Sunday Adole Jonah, Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna