THE VOICELESS NORTH

Everyday comes with so many unreported or underreported tragic stories in Zamfara state. 

Deaths from bullets, abduction and rapes is becoming a routine mourned momentarily only by the victims and the bereaved and not leaders. 

Our Northern elites are the cause of our own woes! We don't have a voice of our own. No media power to tell our own sorry story. In vain do we boast of being more politically oriented since pre-colonial period than our Southern counterpart when the media mouthpieces belong to them. 

We are as weightless as feather even with "our" richest man who is capable of establishing a media as big and famous as CNN and Aljazeera. It is pathetic that most Northern satellite television channels are devoted to local movies many of which deform rather than inform. Some of them are morally detrimental to our children and they swerve our attention from our real problems.

#Polithinking #Bazaume 

- Ibrahim Bello Zauma 

       15/03/2019

WHERE IS OUR PARIS CLUB REFUND MONEY?

In the futile attempt to justify its misgovernance and insensitivity to issues, the Zamfara State government, through the Secretary to the State Government faulted the Zamfara Circle's conclusion that government has not been doing what it should do. With confessions and denials mingled, the SSG's effort to wrap up the mess with the blanket of rhetorics and manipulated scriptural gymnastics woefully failed to conceal the smearing excrement on the government. The excuse that we don't know the workings of the government is a self-defeating argument. Do we not have the right to know what is going on? Why is the government enshrouding its financial disbursements in cult-like secrecy? How are the trenches of bailout funds and the Paris Club refunds used? We read with keen interest how Borno State government released huge sum for the settlement of arrears and leave grants while other governors are making consultations with relevant stakeholders on how to spend the money.

Here in Zamfara, the deepening silence as usual is an ominous indication that the details are not forthcoming and the money are metamorphosing into high flying invisible birds. 

YOUTH AND UNEMPLOYMENT: A WAKE-UP CALL.

Few months before the creation of Zamfara State in 1996,  I got two job offers and turned down one. That was when the government wasn't saturated and there were many job slots to fill and few qualified prospective employees. 

Today the situation is different. There is overwhelming number of graduates jostling to occupy few vacancies and our political and business elites are unwilling to establish private investment to absorb the teeming unemployed youth.

Our youth, on the other hand, refuse to accept the change in the labour market. They are somehow fixated in the past when every graduate anticipate for a lucrative government job. This terrible economic dependency on government makes our youth indolent, less-creative and zero-business oriented.  They fail to understand that even those employed in the civil service are now regretting putting all their eggs in one basket. Few lucky ones amongst them developed economic tentacles to carry their burden and keep their heads above water.

To tackle the menace of unemployment, I proffer the following approaches which require the participation of government in different dimension, the business class, parents and the youth themselves:

1. The government should influence political and business class and all relevant key stakeholders to devise means of creating jobs for youth by establishing local private investments. It should also revive the Skill Acquisition Programme to make our youth economically independent. 

2. Parents should enroll their children in private apprenticeship centres like automobile repairs centres, carpentary workshops, tailoring shops etc.

3. Every community should endeavor to establish its skill acquisition centre and support it through donations in the same way they do when building a Masjid because eating comes before worship. 

4. Every youth should start a business however menial. Agriculculture is there for you and me. Do not think of loss as deterrent to success. The whole life itself is full of risk (Ko a cin tuwo ma kana shakewa /kwarewa). Life is all about risk taking.

THANK YOU FOR READING AND HEEDING!

- IBRAHIM BELLO ZAUMA

          11/03/2019