GRADUALLY, THE NORTH IS GOING INTO EXTINCTION. Written by Saint-Olawale Jimoh

        In the last few years till now, Northern Nigeria has witnessed bloodsheds like never before. Much more than that of civil war and the usual argument by the Northern elites is that North has always been peaceful before the emergence of President Goodluck Jonathan.
    History has proven this claim to be wrong. The North has always been known for bloodsheds. Killings began in the North during 1966 riot that started in May and lasted till October where thousands of people mainly Igbos were killed. Some were buried alive, others were crucified and killed gradually by having their eyes plucked out, their ears chopped off, their tongues cut and their manhood hacked off. The luckier ones just had their heads severed from their body. Women were raped and thereafter broken bottles forced into their womanhood and President Jonathan whom the North loves to blame for their crisis was probably still in secondary school at the time.

     If today, powerful people in the North, for reasons best known to them chose to make Nigeria ungovernable for Jonathan, who bears the brunt of their Boko Haram activities? A visit to Borno, Yobe, Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Barkin Ladi (Jos) and parts of Adamawa provides one with  views similar to that of the remnant of nuclear war scene. The other time, despite assisting Kano to repair some affected areas with some undisclosed billions of Naira, Sanusi Lamido still lamented that #50b cannot restore the damages Boko Haram activities caused the State and that was just Kano alone.

     Anyone who visits some of these affected areas would not need a soothsayer to tell him or her that North is dying and gradually may become history. Killed by the Northerners themselves and not Jonathan or PDP. Why? Because a Northerner started Boko Haram and most prominent people that have been arrested so far in connection with these killings are core Hausas. Kabiru Sokoto, Nuhu Mohammed even a serving Senator Alli Ndume linked to this dreaded sect are all from the North. It's possible original Boko Haram may have been hijacked by foreign forces but why start a war when you cannot predict the end in your own soil?

  Things are getting worst everyday over there; over 200 kidnapped school girls are still in the custody of the dreaded Boko Haram, businesses are closing down, textile companies are dead, factories closed; students can't go to school for fear Boko Haram, still, everyday people get killed. If head counts is taken today in all the affected states in the North, I am sure more than 10million would have gone yet the killings hasn't stopped. Indeed the North has murdered its own sleep.
   This is the same North that can boast of extremely powerful and rich individuals many of whom are ex-rulers and are still relevant in governance today. None of these individuals in the area has moved into the trench to assist in efforts to stop Boko Haram. These are people who made their names, fortunes and positions due to their geographic area of origin. Atiku for instance, owns one of the best private universities in Nigeria with several other giant investments all over Nigeria; Aliko Dangote, the richest black person in Africa is from same region. What about the powerful and super rich retired military generals, T.Y Danjuma, Ibrahim Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari?
  These are persons with quality pedigree and enough clout to rouse the North into action against Boko Haram. Babangida once threatened to fight whoever preaches disintegration in Nigeria but his region is being troubled today and the old general doesn't seem to be moved.

  If elders in the Niger Delta made the militants to dropped their guns, these individuals and the so called Northern elders and Arewa should be proffering solution to the incessant killing of innocent Nigerian by Boko Haram instead of concentrating of anything of lesser values while innocent folks get killed everyday.
   Few months ago, a report has it that in one of the communities in Borno State, there has been several cases of some families losing almost all their family members to these killings. If things continue unchecked, many families in the North will be wiped out almost completely!
   This is therefore a wake up call to the Northern elites to swing into action before the North gets wiped out. If the sincere intervention of the likes of Atiku and Buhari could stop this large scale killings, they would have saved thousands of lives, which is far better than the badly dreamed-of Presidency.

LASU FEES REDUCTION: BEFORE STUDENTS START REJOICING. Written by Saint-Olawale Jimoh

    The recent reduction in tuition fees of the State-owned Lagos State University surely call for celebrations among the students. This is understandable given the fact the battle that lasted for almost nine months eventually ended in their favour. So you can't blame the students for throwing a party and doing a thorough boogie down when the news broke out.
 But the real question the students should have asked Fashola, instead of celebrating, is until when because quite frankly, this sudden decision calls for suspicion?

   The decision to return to the old fees regime of about N25,000 (minimum) was announced by Governor Babatunde Fashola at the 19th graduation/convocation of the school which held at the main campus, Ojo last Thursday, after almost two years of running battle, punctuated by agitations and protests by students, lecturers and non academic staff. Before now, the fees were raised to N192,000 for arts courses and N350,000 for sciences (medicine). The announcement by Fashola while delivering his address at the convocation sparked off wild jubilation among the students and staff of the school.

 Indeed, the reversal is a good development no doubt but I personally see this gesture as a ‘Greek gift’ which shouldn't be trusted. Anyone familiar with trend of events lately in this nation will undoubtedly agree the decision is politically motivated and aim at appeasing parents and students who might have resolved have resolved to vote APC out of Lagos in forthcoming due to its anti-people policies. I had written earlier that these armies of boll weevils and termites called APC can do anything to get people's votes in the forthcoming general elections. The gesture is momentary, deceitful and politically-induced rather than being in good faith.

 My advice to the students is to postpone their celebrations until after February next year. If APC wins Lagos State and the fees remain untouched then, they could go about celebrating the fees reduction but right now, it would be unnecessary!

 On the contrary, if Fashola had done it in good faith, why has he ignored public outcry in the first instance, thereby causing irredeemable losses in the system? How is he going to make up for students who were unable to attend school for the three years that the policy had been in place?

I think Fashola needs to tender an apology to the students, who had been victims of school fees policy for the past three years, and their parents for the trauma they went through.