Arewa Center For Regional Development - ACRD

THE CHINESE & THE FUTURE
Chinese domination of the Ph.D. programs in the US has become a national security issue. They will research, defend and return to China and set business to rivals American business and efforts. Here is the result and how they do it.

Selected smart Chinese, almost all of them, under Chinese government scholarship study in America’s best universities and United Kingdom top ivy leagues; and are studying courses that have to do with the future. They study artificial intelligence (AI), information systems, system science, robotic engineering, systems engineering and hard core courses for tomorrow’s world. Their social lives are almost zero strictly focus toward one agenda and the big picture. Surprisingly this is a deliberate state policy. You never see a Chinese student on scholarship studying arts, social sciences or religion. China is a country that thinks ahead and every Chinese outside of China is a potential suspect.

The Chinese have a Development blueprint that had sent fear around the world. It is meant to transform China from a labour intensive economy that makes hi-tech toys like phones, smart tvs, cloths, pharmaceuticals, equipment manufacturing, etc., to one that engineers advanced products like robots, electric cars, AI driven products and the Internet of Things, space explorations and Nano technologies. The Chinese are believed to be the most determined species of the human race. Once they set their minds to achieve a goal nothing stops them.

While the economies of the world including the United States are exporting production distribution and exchange in an era of globalization, China is pursuing an agenda of localizing production. They promote a policy to get almost 80 percent of their production value chain domiciled locally. This is very dangerous because in the future the entire world will answer to China in terms of production. The question everyone and every government should be concern with China is how can a country and a people get it so right? Always many steps ahead of the rest and always scheming at a time our own kids are roaming the streets begging while simple and basic necessity of life like, power, portable water, access roads with clear markings and signs, basic education and healthcare; safer and secure environment elude us.

The more we ponder about them, the more one can’t help falling in love with these guys. They have leaders that think and citizens engaged. They have leaders that plan for tomorrow and citizens that seize the moment. More interesting, even children as young as five years in China know that they have to be better at whatever they do in a team-spirited environment and that their government, like their parents care so much about them, about their future and well-being and the value of being a law abiding, proud, hardworking Chinese citizen, and they in-turn must work hard to protect one another, their country and conquer the world.

The big question: Can we ever have a country built on values, not of greed, hopelessness and despair? Unfortunately, this is our biggest handicap in Nigeria. Our leaders think only of themselves. Selfish and greedy, lack of vision and not seeing the big picture and some of our young people think only of what they can scoop out of these greed and get rich-quick syndrome. With so many development challenges and lack of opportunities, the government themselves are busy politicking while the masses are busy killing themselves with no regard to attain the goals of eradicating herdsmen-farmers clashes, countless senseless kidnappings, the Boko-Haram threats, the dire infrastructural need of the nation and opportunity that every decent Nigerian needs.

Our hospitals are still consulting clinics, women still give birth at home without medical support, one only needs to visit any government hospital, he will come out with tears, our roads in disrepair, our schools abandoned, decaying and our politicians clueless (if a law maker can commission a community borehole or a local government culvert, that means he is clueless about why he is there). The question therefore is: Is there hope for our country, can we ever plan and execute with precision like the Chinese?

It is good to be optimistic and hope while thinking that those young Chinese kids in Western schools studying robotics and artificial intelligence are the ones to compete with our own kids 20+ years from now at a time, if we continue in this line, our educational system and universities are dead and lecturers still going on strike with crises and insecurity everywhere, farmlands abandoned, etc!.

As I see it, the way forward for Nigeria is a giant leap, a shift to REAL export led growth-economic policy, signing economic partnership agreement (EPA) in today’s multilateralism environment with Citizen Engagement in every aspect of development, which will be the Game Changer, the HOPE, for local, state and national economic development and opportunity for all.

Dr Baba J Adamu
President of Arewa Center for Regional Development (ACRD)

Arewa Center for Regional Development (ACRD) Arewa Center for Regional Development for a sustainable developed and innovative Arewa with inclusive growth - The Voice of Nigeria - bringing up to date development activities of northern Nigeria to the world...

Why Citizen Engagement is a game changer for national development and very critical for maintaining national security?
History has shown that engaging citizens has led to more sustainable, open and just governance. Whether formally integrated in documents such as the Magna Carta and the Code Napoleon, or informally presented at local levels, the concept of citizen engagement is widely global. Going back in history, the first Islamic State has based its “Medina compact” on a social contract whereby it clearly explains the nature of collaboration and accord between the citizens and the state, shaping the relationship governing them. World Bank also draws on a long history of advancing governance reforms, on multi-stakeholder engagement, citizen participation, social accountability, and government transparency. An important development was the establishment in 2012 of the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA), to enable civil society organizations to work together with their governments to solve difficult governance problems using citizen engagement and social accountability mechanisms. The 2017 World Bank World Development Report, on Governance and the Law, also highlights the importance of creating the space for citizens to affect government policies. The Report focuses on the determinants of policy effectiveness, exploring how policies for security, growth, and equity can more effectively achieve their goals by taking the underlying drivers that influence governance into account. Given the complex landscape of citizen feedback with so many experiments underway around the world, the time is ripe now for Nigerian Government to look at citizen engagement holistically as a game-changer for national development and very critical for maintaining national security. Read on at

Arewa Center for Regional Development (ACRD) Arewa Center for Regional Development for a sustainable developed and innovative Arewa with inclusive growth - The Voice of Nigeria - bringing up to date development activities of northern Nigeria to the world...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy8mhH8wQxU

I AM NORTH. addressing the stereotypes the world has about the northern part of nigeria (arewa)

citizens
Absolutely, engaging citizens can bring better services because citizens are in the best position to guide the best development initiative and final results. Government works best by closing the feedback loop and putting poor people (citizens) at the center of service provision. Engaging citizen has more benefits than just looking at costs, time and other consideration. Example, like in social innovation, it is self-evident that citizen engagement is critical to the development and implementation of new solutions: public and civic engagement activities are now widely seen as critical in building trust in public institutions, developing social capital and social cohesion in local communities, and lending great legitimacy to public decision-making processes - dr baba j adamu

CITIZEN AND KNOWLEDGE ENGAGEMENT FOR DEVELOPMENT
First of all, change doesn't happen overnight. The important thing is to start on what is possible and then learn from that action in order to think about the next action. We can't go from 0 to 50 overnight. Start slow, see how we’ve gone, reflect on what is learned, and start again. And do it all inclusively in a way that's most comfortable, focus and result-oriented and which fits best in the spaces and opportunities that we have.

Now that's the advice for citizens, but for policymakers, the advice is equally apt and should not implement citizen engagement from above. What policymakers can do is provide the spaces into which citizens and civil society can step in to engage, bottom-up approach through convening groups of unlikely alliances to help them develop alliances. Ultimately citizen engagement is about the people but that's not to say that citizens will do it alone, in today's globalized world, it's the combination of citizens coming together with those in power and with strategic allies, building from below and across all levels, which ultimately will make the difference.

So, in addition to working at each of our levels, learn how to build links and relationships and trust amongst those people that are working across the levels, because again in a global world where local problems are also linked to global issues, it's how we solve the problems together at every level through a linked citizen engagement that will really make a difference. This is our challenge, Arewa challenge but very possible…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52mtaRXPpWo

Digital Artifact Video by Baba J Adamu Citizen Engagement is a game changer for national development - Corruption-free, transparency, accountability and responsiveness to people's needs are crucia...

Prof. Chukwuma Charles Soludo’s removal of the Arabic inscription that explained the denomination of our currency in “Ajami” (Hausa language written with Arabic inscription) when he was Governor of Central Bank showed his ignorance and lack of understanding of the reason why the British Colony wrote it in Naira. The Arabic script was already assimilated in the officialdom of Northern Nigeria and naira was and still used by other African countries for trade that, though people could not speak English, they used Hausa language written with Arabic inscription to communicate and trade, so therefore, the inscription on a naira note only denotes the denomination of each note in Arabic, it is not Islamic in nature or was it a means to Islamize the currency, which the British Colony recognised and appreciated.

When Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III asked the former CBN governor to explain why the Arabic inscription was removed from the new currency notes, Soludo became dump-founded and struggled to say it was done to promote Nigeria’s unity and culture; clearly showing his blind prejudice against the north and failure to research well before taking such a sensitive decision that makes more than half of Nigerians understand the naira notes.

Professor’s assertions first, reflects how poorly our leaders are doing in history awareness and the second is with the rather childish quality of the reasoning by the educated illiterate Prof Soludo who did not even know that Arabic has been a part of Nigeria’s language before the English ever dreamt of getting it as clearly captured by Ustaz Abubakr Siddeeq Muhammad. When Luggard reached Northern Nigeria, there were about 25,000 schools whose lingua franca was Arabic and Hausa. They wrote both languages using Arabic alphabets. The whole of West Africa knew Arabic as a major language and its alphabets were widely used to write native languages. Since the languages were not Arabic, people called them Ajami (writing in Arabic characters). In Nigeria, apart from the Hausa language, the Yorubas also wrote their language in Ajami at least a hundred years before the coming of the colonialists. Yorubas were in contact with Arabic speaking Muslims and Islam before Christianity. In fact, in reference to the fact that Malian traders brought Islam to the Yoruba people, Islam was nicknamed “Esin Imale”, the Malian religion. Spanish documents still exist in Ajami script and as many as 420 million people around the world speak Arabic, making it the fifth most spoken language with a rich history. Incidentally, Arabic letters were derived from Aramaic letters (the original language of the Hebrews). A little bit of research would have helped the biased Professor Soludo but ignorance and cunning was the bane of his decision. Not too long ago the CBN mistakenly captioned the portrait of the famous Zuma Rock on the 100 Naira note as located in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The Niger State Government petitioned the federal authorities on this annexation of its landmark. It was corrected in subsequent printings of the naira note. Unlike the annexation of Niger State’s Zuma Rock the removal of the Arabic was not in error. It was a decision clearly informed by prejudice and to test the collective resolve of the north. Similarly the Nobel Literature laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka once said that the North was the problem with Nigeria, equally surprising and amazing was his mental contortions he was prepared to take his listeners through to prove how the North surreptitiously inserted its coat-of-arms in our currencies. This is all the more reason why the north must be proactive in all issues and especially on its economy and clamouring for restructuring.

In today’s complex and knowledge-economy, citizen engagement and input is very crucial for planning and policy-making. That is why government decision-making requires the knowledge, experiences, views and values of the public. Implementing difficult decisions depends on citizens’ consent and support, just as growth and development requires intellectual capacity where knowledge, innovation and creativity are the main source of value and competitive advantage.

Honouring the past, creating opportunities today and inspiring the future for Arewa.

Arewa Regional Policies and Programs
The proposed Five-Year Arewa Economic Development Plan, 2017-2022 has for its fundamental goals the attainment of sustainable economic growth, more equitable distribution of the fruits of development and total human development. By design, the plan should aim for accelerated development of the rural area, LGAs and States with focus on agriculture and agro-allied industries, manufacturing, mining, technology and SMEs as the centerpiece program. In essence, total renewed strategy to develop the entire northern Nigeria.

All these clamours abour restructuring are based on the fact that the like of former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, Prof. Pat Utomi and many other southerners erroneously believe that northerners are backward and uneducated and think that the North is dependent on the south simply because they have oil. In actual fact, the reverse is the case, because north has oil too. Soludo removed the inscription that explained the denomination of our currency in “ajami” – Hausa written using Arabic in naira when he was Governor of Central Bank showed his ignorance and lack of understanding of the reason why the colonial masters wrote ajami in Naira. Naira was and still used by other African countries that, though cannot speak English, they use Hausa language written with Arabic inscription. Soludo and the likes are educated illiterate that should be barred from anything Arewa. Also, the south depends on the north for staple foods grown locally like: rice, yam, wheat, corn, other grains, tomatoes, onions, peppers, meat etc.; and a high proportion of northerners are highly educated with strong sense of togetherness and collective sense of development. For someone to say “northerners are parasites and that the north feared domination by the more advanced south, and, hence, was unenthusiastic about independence” is an insult to the intelligence of the northern peoples; as clearly pointed out by President Muhammadu Buhari on Sept 20, 2014 saying “it is the highest level of insult considering the contributions of the region to the growth and development of the country in the areas it has comparative advantages”. Although, the concept of restructuring has been challenged by some from northern Nigeria, perhaps due to globalization and the fact that there is no ideal federal system or true federalism across the world, former Vice President Atiku posited that restructuring the country would ensure the development and growth of the federating units and it is in the interest of the North and Nigeria to restructure; adding that he found odd and somewhat unhelpful, the argument of those who said that the country`s unity could not be renegotiated. Based on the aforementioned, it is hereby strongly recommended to the Northern States Governor’s Forum (NSGF) leadership to come together and speak in unison and take charge proactively to look at creating a Five-Year Arewa Economic Development Plan, 2017-2022 in the interest of the north and Nigeria at large