By Abdulrahman Abu Hamisu

That idea captures the biggest challenge facing Northeast Nigeria today. Despite vast natural and human resources, the region’s development has been held back less by money or materials, and more by gaps in human capacity needed to transform the region.

The ability to subdue the mind and have mastery over it is called freedom. Consciously used, the mind drives progress and actualization. Poorly guided, it breeds stagnation and bondage.

The Northeast, which comprises Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe states, as projected in 2012 accounts roughly for 12 per cent to 14 per cent of population of 23.6 million or 14.0 per cent of Nigeria’s population and a land area of about 280,420 square kilometres or 30.8 per cent of Nigeria’s total land area.

Though, culturally diverse and naturally endowed. The Northeast is a major producer of livestock, and of food and cash crops including sorghum, millet, cotton, groundnuts, cassava, wheat and rice. The land and climate favor agriculture and agro-processing on a large scale. But, years of conflict, years of setback since 2009, the region has battled one of Nigeria’s longest security crises which has displaced millions, destroyed schools, hospitals, roads and power lines, and crippled public institutions, have made it lags behind amongst its contemporaries.

The North East States Transformation Strategy (NESTS) published in 2014 was a response to the various challenges faced by the Region before the insurgency. The history is replete with great Kingdoms that established track records of prosperity, peace and security. The region according to the study is greatly endowed in human and natural resources. The zone should be a powerhouse. Instead, it remains at the bottom of most socio-economic indices as of insurgency and past neglect.

During the period under review, lack of timely and comparable data at both the national and sub-national levels was the most critical data challenge despite steady progress being made by various actors engaging the documented challenges.

For instance, in the case of government fiscal operations, government budgets, including estimates of revenues and current and capital expenditures are often approved and published before the commencement of the fiscal year.

Little information is available, however, on actual revenue and expenditure performance or on budgetary financing and borrowing requirements, which is a major gap. No matter the level of successes recorded and impact made in the lives of the people if the region, once the are not recorded in a data form that is easily transmittable, such successes and impacts are irretrievably lost forever, creating data vacuum or gap, which has a way of affecting planning and the demand for accountability.

This is another major challenge currently affecting the region, lack of data whether credible or not. Another key challenge is the lack of disaggregated national accounts statistics at the sub-national level.

While the NBS publishes GDP, inflation and other national accounts data for the country, the data are hardly disaggregated according to the States and local governments. Currently, the NBS and NPC are assisting the States to compile their own GDP statistics, while these are major issues, the core challenge is the human capacity development of the region despite the overwhelming relationship between data, planning, education and peoples wellbeing and productivity

With the youths making up about one third of the region’s population, and a large proportion having never attended school or gone beyond the secondary school level, this segment of the society are already excluded and they can be easily manipulated for destructive purposes and therefore affects the human capacity development of the region.

Tackling illiteracy and poor access to education in the North-East as various tiers of governments are currently doing, however slow they may be, is one of the most effective ways poverty and insecurity in the region can be quickly addressed.

The region has been enduring years of insurgency beginning in 2009, school closures and displacement, have worsened the situation, leaving millions of children out of school. Northeastern Nigeria (Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe) have low human development as a result.

According to the United Nation Development Program (UNDP), Nigeria Human Development and the National Bureau of Statistics Nigeria MPI, over 86 per cent of the population in states like Gombe suffer from multidimensional poverty, while out-of-school rates exceed 60 per cent in conflict-affected regions. The region’s human development statistics reveal significant regional disparities across many indices for measuring wellbeing and development compared to the rest of the country.

As a result, net attendance ratios are drastically low. The zone struggles with some of the highest out-of-school children statistics in the world, heavily compounded by long-term regional insecurity that has disrupted schooling infrastructure.

It’s expedient to know that when young people grow up without basic literacy, vocational skills or employment opportunities, they become more vulnerable to recruitment by criminal armed non-state actors networks, insurgent groups and other violent actors who exploit frustration and economic hardship. They would easily be conscripted to join these armed groups, making their defeat nearly impossible, because of their vulnerability exacerbated by illiteracy and pauperisation.

On Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI): The incidence of multidimensional poverty is critically high. For example, Gombe State records approximately 86.2% of its population as multidimensionally poor, and Yobe State sees over 80 per cent.

*Human Development Index (HDI)*

State-level HDI values in the Northeast are among the lowest in the nation. Adamawa leads the zone with an HDI of roughly 0.539, whereas states like Taraba (0.527) and Yobe lag further behind. Life expectancy at birth remains under 55 years, and severe acute undernutrition (stunting and wasting) affects over 40% of children under five in the region. The economies of the States in the North East generally lag behind those of virtually all the other regions of the country, according to the NESTS document, except the North West, going by most of the selected indices. The region has some of the worst social and economic indicators in Nigeria.

The poor social and economic conditions have been cited as major contributors to the insurgency currently ravaging some parts of the region, particularly, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. Using Internally-Generated Revenue (IGR) as an indicator of economic activity, the Region accounted for only five per cent of non-Federal IGR, ranking jointly last with the South East Zone, a factor, which can be attributed to the paucity of businesses and poor collection methods in the Region.

In the WB (Doing Business Report) on Nigeria, Borno, Yobe and Gombe States were among the best-performing States in Nigeria, going by some of the indicators, such as: Days to Register Property: Borno (12 days); Nigeria (82 days). On this indicator, Borno would rank 26th out of 183 economies globally, while Nigeria ranked 140th out of 183 economies.

Cost to Register Property: Yobe State was rated the best performing State in Nigeria (5.2 per cent of property value) compared to Nigeria’s 20.9% of property value. Globally, Yobe State would rank 104th out of 183 economies globally, while Nigeria ranked 178th out of 183 economies. This goes to show that it is not all tales of woes.

Expanding teacher recruitment and training, supporting girls’ education, providing scholarships, and strengthening technical and vocational education can help equip young people with practical skills for agriculture, construction, technology and small businesses. A teenager in a displaced community who learns a trade or gains access to quality education is more likely to earn a livelihood than to be drawn into violence.

An important key that will unlock the potential of the region and set it on a path of economic development is the re-establishment of peace, and the adoption of measures for ensuring the security of lives and property. The incessant killings and aggression, especially within the past years, which are now spreading to other parts of the country, clearly have served as strong disincentives for the economic development of the nation in general and the region in particular.

Citing the Chinese human capacity development plan, where human capacity development is a strategic national focus on upgrading its population’s skills, health, and education. It is in the Interest of the Northeast to transition from the current educational system that neither teachers skills nor nurture creativity as a way of moving away from low-cost manufacturing to an innovation-driven economy, just as China invests heavily in STEM education, vocational training, and early childhood development to boost productivity and foster high-tech industries to enhance the wellbeing of its citizens.

The six States of the region should shift from building physical infrastructure to heavily funding human capital that imbued the people with skills, capacity, while nurturing talents and creativity. This includes massive state investments in universities, research institutes, and a push to produce millions of STEM graduates annually to dominate sectors like AI, advanced manufacturing, and green technology.

Building roads and military bases and other infrastructural projects is important , but building people will ultimately provide the strongest defence against future instability in the North-East region, offering in the process, incentive for transformation.

 

Abdulrahman Abu Hamisu

A Researcher, Public Affairs Analyst, and Leader, Independent Researchers writes from Abuja.