by Charles Ohia

“There is beauty in truth, even if it’s painful. Those who lie, twist life so that it looks tasty to the lazy, brilliant to the ignorant, and powerful to the weak. But lies only strengthen our defects’’

-Jose’ N. Harris

From experience, I have come to realize that it is imprudent trying to overwhelm an ignorant person in an argument because it is simply a waste of time. However, I am making an exception to this time tested fact based on my chancing on an article written by Geoffrey York for The Globe and Mail. I became aware of Geoffrey York following his twitter spat with Tolu Ogunlesi over the refusal of the Nigerian government to grant some of his colleagues entry visas to enable them cover the Nigerian general elections. One thing l took away from that episode was the sense of entitlement arrogantly expressed by Geoffrey York.

This sense of entitlement was taken a notch higher in the form of an op-ed in which Geoffrey attempted a diagnosis of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. What I have set out to do is banish the banality being propagated by Geoffrey York and the Western press as exemplified by this article in The Economist, that ‘’the impoverishment of the North by the South’’ is what the Boko Haram insurgency leverages on.

Geoffrey York’s article was informed by the familiar but naive liberal assumption that Jihadism is an inexorable by-product of poverty. Sequel to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, this was the dominant orthodoxy until investigations revealed that none of the perpetrators or their benefactors was remotely poor or uneducated.

Yet this narrative continues to be disseminated following any terrorist attack, the socioeconomic background of the culprits notwithstanding. Geoffrey York’s piece therefore is as obstinate as it is predictable because the very same myths have been reflexively deployed regardless of the facts.

I disagree with the article’s suggestion that the insurgency has flourished because the people in the North-East are impoverished; one which Geoffrey York alludes to as being maintained by the South. In any case, rural areas in Nigeria are impoverished and the population has stayed docile anyway. If the North is uniquely impoverished, what is to be said about the tens of millions who inhabit the vast squalid slums of Lagos, or the tear-inducing deprivations that define the Niger Delta; a region which also has the peculiarity of being the most polluted natural environment on God’s green earth?

Why aren’t these Southerners running around beheading every human being in their sight, if poverty is the problem? For those ordinary Southerners who don’t experience crushing poverty, Geoffrey York probably has no idea what personal sacrifices they make to unshackle themselves and their children through education; the very thing the Boko Haram sect so arrogantly despises.

Geoffrey York and his ilk in the West must divorce religious bigotry from poverty. So, what is responsible for the British citizens’ involvement in the brutality of ISIS against innocent Iraqis and Syrians? Poor people can’t afford SUVs, rocket launchers, RPGs, APCs with which Boko Haram has waged its infantile war; a war in which they force people to accept their own faith and doctrine yet their apologists glibly mouth off about poverty as if the case of the North-East is worse than what is obtained in other parts of Nigeria.

From the videos released by the psychopathic Shekau, it is evident that what Boko Haram wants is an Islamic state, devoid of any western influences which in their reckoning is represented by constitutionalism. If Geoffrey York had the basic understanding about fanaticism of any kind, he’d have appreciated that it is often informed by its own twisted logic; totally independent on everything else, none the least poverty.

Boko Haram’s motivations lie not so much in ‘’a protest against government’s neglect’’ as Geoffrey would want us to believe, as in religious fanaticism. Their signature cry is ‘Allah Akbar’ while killing, raping, or abducting their targets who are mostly Christians or moderate Moslems. It has nothing to do with neglect or anything for that matter, other than their warped interpretation of the Koran.

As far as the continuously misleading “impoverishment of the North by the oil rich South” goes, Geoffrey York would do well to be schooled on the history of governance in Nigeria. Northerners have ruled Nigeria for a total of 38 out of 54 years of its corporate existence. What is happening in the North is a result of age old neglect by their very own leaders at Federal, State and Local Government levels. It is merely mischievous for anyone to feign ignorance of the entrenched symbiotic relationship between average Northerners and their ruling elites, one which demands absolute loyalty in return for privileged citizenship eminence.

This Northern leadership ideology which has endured through so many centuries is a feudal oligarchy in which the rich lord it over the poor and the poor accept this lordship enthusiastically as long as the occasional handouts are doled out. This mindset has been carried over into the present day socio-political climate in the region where political office holders have virtually unhindered prerogative on all state finances. Consequently, all requisite finances essential for developing the North to create viable opportunities end up in the pockets of these elites.

A critical element of this subjugation is made manifest in the area of education, perhaps because a less enlightened populace is easily prone to manipulation. And therein lies the irony; having been deprived of obligatory education and exposure, the majority lower class who are now susceptible to indoctrination, have become brainwashed by their elites and the propaganda machine of the West, to believe Southerners are to blame for all their lack as a result of this educational deficit.

It is therefore not surprising that the present government led by Goodluck Jonathan (whom Geoffrey pointedly referred to as being ‘’from the Christian South’’) has taken steps in addressing this issue of educational deprivation and to put a lie to Geoffrey York’s assertion that ‘’the government instead of dealing with the root causes – poverty, repressive security forces and a government that neglects the North- Nigeria’s ruling politicians have largely preferred to ignore the conflict’’.

In its midterm developmental assessment, investments in the North amounted to N792 Billion; almost twice the total investments in the South-South, South-East and South-West geopolitical zones put together. Part of these investments  include the setting up of 125 Almajiri schools in 13 Northern States; a development which no less a personality than the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Sa’ad III, opined was unprecedented in the history of Northern Nigeria.

In addition, seven of the newly established fourteen federal universities have been cited in the North. We cannot also discount the transformation of the agricultural sector from subsistence to commercial and mechanized farming which has the agrarian North as the primary beneficiary.

It is not difficult to blame poverty on the Boko Haram insurgency whilst enjoying a cup of coffee and planning your next holiday destination. However, it is steeped in absolute ignorance.

Geoffrey York simply displayed this trait!

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Charles Ohia is an Environmental Management consultant and his tweet prints can found on @9jaBloke.