Northern Nigeria ‘conquered society’ – Mahdi Shehu

Public affairs commentator Mahdi Shehu has described Northern Nigeria as a conquered society, blaming what he called poor leadership, greed, insecurity, and worsening economic hardship for the region’s current challenges.

Shehu made the remarks in a post on his X handle on Thursday, where he argued that the North had been defeated physically and tactically under democratic rule.

According to him, the region’s problems were largely self-inflicted.

“The North has been defeated physically and tactically,” he wrote.

“The defeat became possible on account of some greedy and cowardly Northerners with material afflictions, who mortgaged the North on selfish grounds just for them to remain comfortable,” he said.

Shehu also blamed what he described as the complacency of many northerners for the region’s current situation.

According to him, “The defeat has been foretold because docility became part of the pathology of majority Northerners.”

He further argued that poor judgment and a lack of foresight had contributed to the North’s decline: “The defeat became inevitable on account of the avoidable stupidity and shortsightedness of most Northerners.”

The public affairs commentator said many people in the region misunderstood the nature of modern conflicts.

“We lost the war because we stupidly thought wars are fought with guns only whereas propaganda and shamelessness are the modern-day weapons of war,” he said.

Criticising northern elders for their failure to provide courageous leadership, he said: “A society whose population of elders is made up mostly of cowards, selfish imbeciles with too much survival instinct is a society whose defeat is inevitable. Such is the Northern society.

“With the level of hunger in the North, increasing death tolls from wanton killings, arson, deliberate murder, hunger, starvation, diseases, malnutrition, total collapse of infrastructure, compromised culture and values, total confusion and frustration, which are all signs of a conquered society, what remains is for the North to surrender and become prisoners of war.”

Shehu concluded by claiming that the North had been conquered and decimated under democracy through a combination of violence, economic policies, and what he described as the region’s own stupidity and docility.