By Mohammed Bello Doka
16 May, 2026.
In December 2025, I published an article titled “Is Tinubu Waging a Silent War Against the Muslim North or Are These Just Mere Coincidences?” The response was as predictable as it was telling. Instead of engagement, there were insults, rejoinders, accusations of paranoia, and the usual chorus of whataboutism. The spokesperson to the president, Mr Bayo Onanuga, even took the trouble to share a number of rejoinders on his verified social media handles. The goal was clear: bury the questions under a pile of abuse and move on.
Fast forward to May 2026, and the questions I asked have not only remained unanswered, but things have only exacerbated. What was once whispered in private is now being shouted in public. The Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs has repeatedly conveyed the anxieties of Nigerian Muslims to President Tinubu, with assurances given that Muslims would not be sidelined in governance or national policymaking. The Arewa Consultative Forum has warned that the northern region retains the unenviable status of “poverty capital of the world,” cautioning that if hopelessness and despondency continue to deteriorate, the political authorities risk the people’s wrath.
Prominent northern Islamic scholars have openly accused President Tinubu of abandoning Muslims after using them to secure victory in the 2023 elections, with Professor Mansur Ibrahim Sokoto declaring that “Tinubu won the election in 2023 using the Muslim-Muslim ticket, but presently Muslims are suffering under him. He is not after Muslims or Islam”. One Islamic scholar has even warned that if Tinubu continues to frustrate Nigerians, the North will massively shift to Peter Obi. Civil rights activists and traditional institutions have lent credence to these concerns, yet the most painful question remains unanswered: why does the northern political elite continue to disregard the damage being done to the North?
The evidence is now overwhelming, and it is no longer confined to political appointments alone. The Muslim North is bleeding across every measurable indicator of human development, and the silence of its elites is becoming complicity.
Consider insecurity. Between January and April 2026 alone, at least 1,100 people were abducted across northern Nigeria, according to Amnesty International. On February 3, armed attackers killed about 200 people and abducted 176 others in Woro village, Kwara State. On January 18, gunmen attacked three churches in Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State during morning worship and abducted at least 166 worshippers. In early April, 150 people, mostly women and children, were abducted in Bukkuyum Local Government Area of Zamfara State. The International Crisis Group confirms that armed violence is unfolding across four main theaters in Nigeria, with deadly criminal gangs frequently raiding villages, schools, and religious centers, killing people and abducting others to extort ransoms. The United Nations has reported at least 402 people, mainly schoolchildren, kidnapped in four north-central states since November 2025. Yet the response from the federal government has been lukewarm at best.
Now look at poverty. According to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, poverty rates in the North-East and North-West stand at 71.9 per cent and 64.8 per cent respectively, compared with 12.1 per cent in the South-West and 21.3 per cent in the South-South. The Arewa Consultative Forum has declared that Nigeria, and especially the northern region, retains the unenviable status of “poverty capital of the world”.
The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index for 2025 reveals staggering figures: Sokoto at 90.5 per cent, Gombe at 86.2 per cent, Jigawa at 84.3 per cent, and Kebbi at 82.2 per cent. Over half of the populations of Kebbi, Jigawa, Sokoto and Bauchi are living in severe poverty. Approximately 141 million Nigerians, about 62 per cent of the population, are projected to live in poverty by 2026, with northern states bearing the brunt. The World Food Programme reports that 6.4 million children under five in the northeast, northwest and northcentral states are acutely malnourished and in need of treatment. Nearly 35 million people are projected to face acute and severe food insecurity during the 2026 lean season, the highest level recorded in a decade.
On malnutrition, the picture is even grimmer. UNICEF states that Nigeria has the second-highest burden of stunted children in the world, with a national prevalence rate of 32 per cent of children under five. An estimated 2 million children in Nigeria suffer from severe acute malnutrition, but only two out of every ten affected children are currently reached with treatment. The states in northern Nigeria are the most affected by stunting and wasting, with child stunting rates in the North Central region estimated at around 30 per cent. The 2025 Nutrition SMART Survey revealed that 11 per cent of children under five in Sokoto are wasted, while severe acute malnutrition is projected to affect more than 500,000 children across Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara states.
Maternal mortality tells an equally harrowing story. In Kaduna State, the maternal mortality rate stands at 1,025 deaths per 100,000 live births. Across the north-east and north-west, maternal mortality exceeds 1,000 deaths per 100,000 live births, far higher than rates in southern regions. The WHO estimates Nigeria’s maternal mortality ratio at 1,047 deaths per 100,000 live births, ranking the country among those with the highest maternal deaths globally. An estimated 20,811 maternal, neonatal and under-five deaths were recorded between January and September 2025 alone. Medecins Sans Frontieres ( Doctors without borders) reports that 2025 was the year with the highest admissions for malnutrition in Nigeria in recent years, with over 440,000 children put on treatment.
Unemployment has reached crisis proportions. Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has disclosed that over 60 to 65 per cent of people in Northern Nigeria, particularly in the Northwest, have no sustainable means of livelihood, a situation that has made many young people vulnerable to recruitment by bandit groups. The National Bureau of Statistics confirms that northern Nigeria records some of the highest youth unemployment and underemployment rates nationwide, with states like Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Bauchi consistently ranking among the worst hit. Over 18 million out-of-school children in Nigeria are concentrated in the North, representing more than 70 per cent of the national total. Literacy rates in the North-West and North-East are roughly 44 to 48 per cent, compared to over 80 per cent in southern zones, with some northern states having literacy rates below 20 per cent.
The Muslim North is bleeding on every front: insecurity, poverty, malnutrition, maternal mortality, unemployment, illiteracy, and displacement. Yet, the irony cuts deeper than any statistic. The very northern elites who should be raising alarm are instead propping up the same government that is systematically dismantling their region. They sit in their Abuja mansions, fly their private jets, and collect their salaries while their constituents are being abducted, starved, and buried in mass graves.
Do these northern governors think they are immuned to what happens to Nasir El-Rufai? The former Kaduna State governor, who according to multiple accounts help delivered about 60 per cent of the APC’s success in 2023, has been pushed into detention for over three months for no capital offence committed. His political structure has been threatened, his voice silenced, and his allies persecuted. Do they think they are immuned to what happens to Abubakar Malami, the former Attorney General of the Federation, who is now facing EFCC detention and anti-graft pressure on his family? Do they think they are immuned to what happens to Sale Mamman, the former minister under Buhari, who has been dragged before anti-graft agencies, sentences to over 70 years and politically isolated? Do they think they are immuned to what happens to Abdullahi Ganduje, who lost the national party command after being used and discarded? Do they think they are immuned to what happens to Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, who resigned from the position of Minister of Defence under pressure? Do they think they are immuned to what happens to Hakeem Baba-Ahmed and other prominent northerners who have resigned from their positions? For crying out loud who is decieving the North?
Consider the pattern. Ganduje, Muslim North, exited as APC National Chairman, replaced by a Northern Christian. Mahmood Yakubu, Muslim North, exited as INEC Chairman, replaced by a Northern Christian. Badaru, Muslim North, exited as Minister of Defence, replaced by a Northern Christian. Senate security oversight was reshuffled, removing a Muslim North chair. Elite discussions continue about replacing Vice President Kashim Shettima, Muslim North, with a Northern Christian in 2027. Who is now the most powerful northern Muslim leader in Tinubu’s cabinet? The answer is uncomfortable: the highest-ranking northerner left use to be Nuhu Ribadu, who is currently been sidelined as a figurehead despite being weaponised against other northern leaders.
Ask the northern governors a simple question: do you think you are immuned today? Do you think you will be immuned tomorrow? When the war against the North reaches your door, who will come to your defence? When the security agencies come for you, which of your colleagues will speak up? When the media labels you a terrorist financier or a corrupt official, which of your allies will risk their positions to defend you? The silence of the northern elite is not a sign of strength; it is a death warrant signed in their own blood.
Ask the northern ministers a harder question: why are you still there? What have you achieved for the North from your assigned portfolios? The Muslim North holds holds Budget and Economic Planning, through Atiku Bagudu. It holds Transportation, through Sa’idu Ahmed Alkali. It holds Health and Social Welfare, through Muhammad Ali Pate. It holds Agriculture, Housing, Labour, Information, Environment, Livestock, Women Affairs and other portfolios. Yet the commanding heights of Power, Justice, Finance, Interior, Works, FCT, Petroleum, Aviation, Marine, Power, Communications, Foreign Affairs and Defence, most of these levers lie outside the Muslim North.
Ask the northern traditional rulers a question that should keep them awake at night: when the Sultan of Sokoto conveyed the feelings and anxieties of Nigerian Muslims to President Tinubu, and was assured that Muslims would not be sidelined, what has changed since that assurance? The president told the Sultan that Muslims would not be sidelined in governance or national policymaking. Yet every week brings fresh evidence of sidelining, displacement, and marginalization .
Now ask a question that cuts to the heart of the matter: why are northern Muslim politicians being persecuted and jailed while Yoruba ministers who served under Buhari walk free? Where is the EFCC case against the Yoruba former ministers who presided over the same ministries as their northern counterparts? Why is the anti-corruption war so selective that it targets only one region, one religion, one political bloc? Is corruption a northern Muslim monopoly? Or has the fight against graft become a convenient weapon to neutralise political opponents from a specific region?
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, “I am not upset that you lied to me, I am upset that from now on I cannot believe you.” The Muslim North gave Tinubu its votes, its political cover, and its blood. The Muslim-Muslim ticket that brought him to power was defended, explained, and absorbed by northerners who bore the brunt of international criticism and domestic outrage. Yet after victory, the pact has been broken, and the trust has been shattered.
The ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Has President Tinubu subdued the Muslim North without firing a single shot? Has he achieved through appointments, budget lines, and strategic silences what no military campaign could achieve?
Niccolò Machiavelli, in The Prince, wrote: “Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.” The northern elite have been deceived by the promise of proximity to power. They have exchanged their constituents’ welfare for ministerial appointments. They have traded their region’s future for a seat at a table where their voices carry no weight and were often viewed as part of the menu.
The American political scientist James MacGregor Burns wrote that “leadership is not about position or power, but about mobilising people to act in pursuit of a common purpose.” Where is the leadership of the northern Muslim elite? Where is their mobilisation of the people? Where is their common purpose?
The psychologist Erich Fromm, in Escape from Freedom, argued that “the most important human drive is not towards freedom, but towards the escape from it.” The northern elite have escaped their freedom to speak, to act, and to defend their people. They have chosen the safety of silence over the danger of resistance. They have chosen their personal comfort over the collective survival of their region.
The Muslim North must ask hard questions before the next election. What exactly is our stake? Where exactly is our power? Who exactly is protected? Who exactly is rewarded? And who exactly pays the price after victory? Because if this pattern continues, our numbers will keep winning elections, while others inherit the power, define the government, and decide the fate of those who brought the votes.
May Allah bring an end to this system.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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