Insecurity: A Blueprint for Peace – The Urgent Economic Intervention the North Needs to End Insurgency

Insecurity: A Blueprint for Peace – The Urgent Economic Intervention the North Needs to End Insurgency.

Given the incessant spate of kidnappings and murders hiding under the respectable name of banditry, the Northern Governors Forum needs to adopt this economic action plan immediately. We have tried the kinetic approach for over a decade; it is time to try an economic masterstroke that drains the swamp of recruitment by offering a superior alternative. You cannot defeat an ideology born of poverty and idleness with bullets alone. You defeat it with a feed compounder in Funtua and a dairy plant in Hadejia.

Here is the masterplan that must move from paper to implementation before January 2027.

First of all, the Kaduna State government should set aside 5,000 square kilometres to build a massive cattle ranch in Birnin Gwari that will be home to about 5,000 herdsmen. We must end open grazing by making ranching not just a policy slogan, but a physical reality. This ranch must be a modern concern with veterinary services, residential quarters, and schools for the children of the herders. It moves the Fulani pastoralist from a life of subsistence and friction with farmers to a life of commercial productivity.

Then, the Katsina State government needs to reach an agreement with Al Rayan Islamic Bank to open an animal feed compounder at Funtua, which will supply the Birnin Gwari ranch. There is no use having a ranch without a steady, affordable supply of feed. This plant ends the archaic practice of transhumance in search of pasture. It creates a backward integration chain that employs hundreds in Katsina while stabilising the herds in Kaduna.

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Then I would like to see the Kano State government reach a deal with the New York Giants Leather & Suede Jackets Company to open a manufacturing facility in Rano. Today, we export raw hides and skin for a pittance, only to import finished jackets sold for a fortune. This facility will absorb the massive leather output from our modernised abattoirs and consume the produce of the ranches, turning Kano into the Milan of West Africa.

Then can the Jigawa State government successfully woo Nestle to come and open a dairy plant in Hadejia? The name Jigawa should become synonymous with milk powder, yoghurt, and condensed milk in the West African sub-region. We are not just settling herders; we are inserting them into a global value chain. You do not kidnap for ransom when your cows are producing milk for a multinational with a guaranteed off-take agreement.

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Zamfara State government should then open Africa’s largest abattoir in Kaura Namoda. It can be funded with an Islamic Finance loan. This abattoir must be Sukuk-compliant and built to the highest sanitary standards for meat export. It will process the beef from Birnin Gwari and other ranches, creating a cold chain logistics sector and providing massive employment in meat cutting, packaging, and export logistics.

Malaysian Islamic bank should then be approached to loan Sokoto State $5bn to build an intra-state light railway programme. This will engage up to 2 million youths over a five-year programme. The future of Northern Nigeria cannot be built on okada and rickety trailers. We need a rail network connecting the agro-allied zones—from the dairy plant in Jigawa to the abattoir in Zamfara to the tannery in Kano. This is the New Deal, and the idle hands currently wielding AK-47s will be the ones laying the tracks.

Kebbi State government should then open at least two technical training colleges in each of its 21 local government areas. Animal husbandry, agriculture, and leather processing will be among the major courses taught. You cannot run a modern leather economy or a dairy revolution with an unskilled workforce. We must train the youth to run the feed mills, the solar panels, and the laboratory tests. These 42 colleges will be the intellectual engine room of the region’s renaissance.

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At the Birnin Gwari ranch in Kaduna State, there shall be a disarmament centre where all armed herdsmen and bandits can hand in their weapons without prosecution. You cannot negotiate with a man who has no alternative. Put the ranch, the jobs, and the housing on the table first, then give him an amnesty window that is dignified and final. Come with your weapons, leave with a job badge and a veterinary apron.

As from January 1, 2027, the nineteen Northern governors will commit to matching Michael Okpara’s policy of spending 45% of their annual budgets on education. The late Premier of Eastern Nigeria understood that the mind is the ultimate resource. Our current budgets are consumed by overheads and frivolous security votes that bring no security. We must starve the crisis of its ignorance and feed the future with knowledge.

Then, the Kaduna State government will open a 1,000 square kilometre solar farm in Makarfi. It will have an adjoining factory that manufactures solar panels with the view of providing employment for at least 20,000 people. An industrialised Northern Nigeria cannot rely on a failing national grid. We need energy independence to power the abattoirs, the cold rooms, the dairy plants, and the trains. Let the sun of Makarfi power the factories of the North.

The era of waiting for Abuja is over. The Northern Governors must adopt this plan today. The alternative is to continue counting the corpses of our sons and daughters. The choice is ours.

By Ahmed Baba Dikwa

Insecurity: A Blueprint for Peace – The Urgent Economic Intervention the North Needs to End Insurgency.