As the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) marks its Silver Jubilee in 2025, calls are growing for Northern Nigeria to unveil a unifying icon capable of steering the region towards real competitiveness within the Nigerian federation.
In a paper authored by Arc. Kabir Ibrahim, the North is urged to look beyond rhetoric and identify a selfless leader—chosen on merit rather than religion, ethnicity, or geography—who can midwife the regeneration of the region’s legacy and reposition it for development.
For over a decade, Northern Nigeria has remained at the center of national discourse, largely for the wrong reasons: widespread poverty, insecurity, and millions of out-of-school children. Ibrahim argues that these challenges, while daunting, underscore the urgent need for visionary leadership that can harness the region’s immense potential in agriculture, innovation, information technology, and politics.
“The regeneration of the legacy of our heroes past and Northern Nigeria as a whole should be midwifed by a selfless icon, identified through due diligence conducted largely on merit,” he emphasized.
According to him, if such leadership emerges, even elected officials—particularly at the local government level—would defer to this figure in addressing critical issues such as sustainable security, quality education, healthcare delivery, and food security through modern agricultural practices.
The paper also advocates for structural reforms to strengthen small businesses across the North. Ibrahim recommends the creation of a Small Business Administration (SBA) model in every local government to regulate enterprises, prevent oversaturation, and ensure inclusivity. He insists that youth empowerment through gainful and sustainable employment is the most effective strategy to defeat insecurity.
Equally important, he noted, is the establishment of a support system for inclusive businesses, which should be handed to the 19 governors of Northern Nigeria to implement—drawing lessons from the DAWN Commission model in the Southwest.
“The governors of the 19 states will discover that it is in their larger interest to work towards the restoration of the dignity of Northern Nigeria by making the people the focus of governance and not personal aggrandizement as, unfortunately, pursued today,” Ibrahim wrote.
As the ACF prepares to celebrate 25 years of existence, the paper concludes that the conversations around the milestone should not be about festivity alone, but about forging a roundtable of clear-headed Northerners to chart a pragmatic framework for the region’s sustainable development and competitiveness in the Nigeria Project.
