The N9 Billion ‘Lifeline’: Will Northern Nigeria Learn?
By Ahmed Balarabe Sa’id
The recent Silver Jubilee of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) culminated in a moment of profound significance, with the realization of a staggering N9 billion from its endowment fund launch. This sum represents a colossal reservoir of hope and a tangible measure of the trust placed by Northern Nigeria’s elite in the ACF to serve as the architect of the region’s redemption.
Yet, this triumph also presents the Forum with its most defining test. It arrives at a critical juncture of stark contradiction: a region endowed with unparalleled agricultural and mineral wealth languishing in a self-imposed shadow, while other parts of the country navigate the currents of the 21st-century global economy.
The judicious deployment of this fund will force a choice between perpetuating a legacy of wasted potential or pioneering a radical break from it. To succeed, the ACF must learn from the ghost of a recent failure: the defunct Almajiri schools project. That well-intentioned federal initiative, which saw the construction of hundreds of schools, now stands as a monument to top-down planning, cultural insensitivity, and a catastrophic lack of sustainability.
The N9 billion must not suffer the same fate. The most urgent investment is to confront the crises that stem from this history of failure, primarily the catastrophic number of out-of-school children and the consequent social breakdown that fuels rampant insecurity.
To understand the depth of the crisis, one must first acknowledge the great disparity. While Southern Nigeria makes strides in tech hubs and financial services, the North remains trapped in a historical economic model it has failed to modernize. It holds over 60% of the nation’s arable land and is a treasure trove of solid minerals, yet the National Bureau of Statistics consistently ranks its states as the epicenters of multidimensional poverty, with rates exceeding 80% in some areas. This is not a fate imposed by nature but a failure of strategy. In the midst of a rapidly changing, technologically driven global economy, the North’s best resources remain buried in the ground or tilled with methods from a bygone era, its youthful population largely untrained for the digital age. This strategic stagnation has created a vicious cycle where poverty begets insecurity, and insecurity, in turn, makes development impossible.
The most devastating symptom of this failure is the silent, crumbling educational infrastructure, with figures clearly becoming an embarrassing indictment. With Nigeria accounting for over 20 million out-of-school children, the North is the undisputed epicenter of this catastrophe. According to UNICEF, in several Northern states, over half of all children are not in school. The collapse of the Almajiri schools project is a painful part of this reality; a failed attempt to address a problem that has only grown worse.
These Northern children are not simply “out of school”; they are a generation being systematically de-activated from the modern economy, left as raw material in a landscape where alternative opportunities have been squandered. They are the human consequence of a region that has failed to convert its vast resource wealth into human capital.
This educational deficit constitutes the primary fuel for the insecurity that now defines the region. The link is brutally causal. The spate of current attacks on schools in northern Nigeria, as tragically experienced in Kebbi and Niger states, has led to the mass closure of dozens of schools, including 45 Federal Government Colleges. Already, this mass closure of schools is a dangerous signal and a stark reflection of the anomie in the region and a capitulation to forces of chaos. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project recorded thousands of fatalities from bandit violence in the Northwest alone, suggesting that these gunmen on rampage are the products of a system that offers no classrooms, no skills for a tech-driven world, and no viable pathways to livelihood.
When the foundational structures of society collapse, as demonstrated by abandoned school buildings and now actively targeted institutions, the promise of the future is extinguished. What remains is a vacuum of desperation, where violence thrives and education becomes a casualty.
Therefore, the N9 billion fund secured by the ACF is a huge lifeline. It must be leveraged as a strategic instrument to break this cycle, learning from the mistakes of the Almajiri project. This requires a comprehensive, community-driven, and transparent plan.
First, the bulk of the fund could be allocated to a Northern Education Voucher Scheme, providing direct financial aid to the poorest families, empowering them to choose sustainable education paths for their children, rather than having impersonal institutions built for them.
Second, for the millions of adolescents too old for conventional primary education, a Modernized Skills & Apprenticeship Fund is essential. This must go beyond traditional crafts to include digital skills, renewable energy technology, and agri-tech, creating a workforce for the economy of tomorrow, not yesterday.
Furthermore, a portion must cultivate human capital through a Northern Teacher Corps, recruiting and incentivizing the best graduates to teach in high-risk rural areas. Finally, a transparent Advocacy and Monitoring Unit is non-negotiable to pressure state governments to convert resource wealth into tangible investments and to ensure this new fund does not vanish into the same void of mismanagement that consumed past initiatives.
The challenge before the Arewa Consultative Forum is ultimately one of historical courage. To spend this N9 billion on conventional, low-impact projects would be to repeat the errors of the Almajiri schools and the past. This fund represents a significant seed. If planted in the fertile but neglected soil of Northern Nigeria’s human potential, through smart, sustainable, and community-owned initiatives, it can grow a new future. An educated, skilled, and technologically literate child is the most permanent asset for security and development, far surpassing the fleeting value of any mineral extracted from the earth. The North’s vast resources were not enough to save it from decline; its true redemption lies in its people. The ACF must now prove it has the vision to learn from history and make that investment.
Sa’id is a Strategic Communications Consultant, and he writes from Abuja.
