Tafida rues North’s future

AN Arewa chieftain and former Vice Chairman, Kaduna-North Local Council, Mallam Jibril Tafida, has lamented the bleak economic future of the North, saying that the current leaders of the region have no plans to salvage it from its woes.

Tafida, in a statement yesterday, stated that “there is an intolerable level of poverty and unpardonable rise in unemployment” in the North, which according to him, had combined “to create an unprecedented insecurity challenge for the North”.

He argued that the unfortunate situation in the North has closely been “followed by an economic collapse, which can be seen from the way and manner several industries in the North were allowed to die.

“Worse still, after abandoning agriculture, the region is now leaning on oil-endowed states of the southern part of this country. Nothing makes this situation more disturbing to millions of concerned northerners than the fact that in this atmosphere of general breakdown, the northern leaders, political leaders, elders, political appointees, elected representatives and opinion leaders are still confused about how to save the North from further going down the abyss”.