By Danlami Nmodu
The activities of Boko Haram are rubbing off negatively and widening the economic gap between the north and south.This was the position espoused by Professor Ebere Onwudiwe of the Ken Nnamani Centre for Leadership today at the YarAdua Centre, Abuja.Onwudiwe said this at a seminar on reviving the northern economy.
He said while it was correct that every section in Nigeria always feels marginalized, there was no question that in terms of economic development ,the north is backward, a fact attested to by several reports.Onwude then added violence by ‘ Boko Haram is even increasing the gap between the north and the south and any solution must put into consideration ways of ending the violence.’He believes violence is crowding out investment thus increasing the economic gap between north and south.
Onwudiwe who was responding to the presentation “Moving Beyond Despair:New Governance Strategies for Reviving the Northern Economy” by Paul Lubeck, said he was in support of a Marshall Plan for the North as Lubeck suggested. But Onwudiwe said the Marshall Plan must zero in on education .He is also a supporter of the return of Marketing Boards to aid agriculture.
Lubeck had earlier identified some of the structural drivers of Boko Haram to include demographic forces such as populatuin explosion ,enormous poverty,regional industrial decline among others .He said economic governance has to address the urban governance crisis.
Lubeck argued that redistribution or more petrol rents will not solve the northern crisis.He called for a Marshall Plan for the region and a revival of regional management structures.Aside from reviving regional infrastructure, he argued that there should ,inter alia,be focus on private sector investments.He identified the Kano-Zaria-Kaduna axis as very important .
He also urged Nigerian leaders to learn appropriate lessons from Malaysia that overcame similar fissiparous challenges to build a strong economy.The occasion had Maryam Uwais as chairman.
