Behold the Northwest

In the midst of worries about Nigeria and its future - the growing population, the increasing poverty and insecurity, etc - one does not fail to find something that puts a smile on his face from time to time.

One of such moments is the raining season when the Most High blesses us with abundant rains, year after year, to grow crops that we eat and sell. Nigerians in all states and regions respond to the arrival of this season with hard work, often with their bare hands holding the most basic tools that their ancestors invented thousands of years ago. They till the land and make food available to all with no incentive or subsidy from government. I salute our hard work. Yes. This is one thing I love with us. We feed ourselves. It is a sign of responsibility.

It is a celebration that comes to mind every time I travel across the country, as I often do, during the raining season. Each region engages in crops suitable for its ecological zone. I pass by million of hectares that attests to the hard work of the ordinary African who remain in the field sweating for us while the few irresponsible lot engage in shameful corrupt practices in government offices.

Of such beauty that I witness all over the country, it is that of the Northwest I behold most. The level of engagement is just unassailable. It is defeating from whatever angle you look at it. As you drive into the zone, whether from Bakin Iyaka border with Plateau, or from the Nasaru border in Bauchi State, you leave behind you patches of uncultivated grassland lying between small farms and start enjoying the company of a continuous green that extends to your left and your right as far as your eyes could reach, until you reach the gates of Kano or Zaria. As you leave the two cities to head for Katsina, Funtua, Gusau, Sokoto and even beyond to Kebbi, the escorts of green resumes and remain with you all through your journey. Nowhere else can you witness a better collective level of commitment to the soil. The picture in the post was captured just outside Pambegua in Kaduna State. I tried to see if my eyes could reach the end of the crop vegetation but to no avail.

How is this possible?

It is a product of its long tradition empire building, farming and higher population. It is not that the Hausa here is more hard working than his counterparts in other zones or that he uses more farm machinery than the others. No. There are even more hard working people among the Jukuns, Miyango and Angas, for example. Where the Hausa man is better is in his sheer number as the voters register has attested. The attention of the Northwest citizen is not diverted by industrialization as the Southwest or trading habit of the Southeast, two zones that are denser population wise.

This is not the testimony of a 21st Century beholder. Earlier, Leo Africanus has narrated their astonishing farming skills and industry to the world in the 16th Century. The British audience equally received the same admiration through the articles that E. D. Morrell published in the London Times in 1911 after visiting Northern Nigeria.

As our population increases, other zones will also come to fill their remaining empty fields and also, like the Northwest, accord us that escort by a continuum of green each time the rains come falling and we travel across them. However, right now, as I say bravo to the while country, the Northwest continuous to hold the trophy and it will remain with it for quite a while.

Gaishe ku Hausawa. Ba don abinda Kanawa suka mun ba, da na muku kirari. Ko d'azu sai da na buga da 'yan karota.

Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde