Former National Vice Chairman (North West) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Moh. Lukman, has exonerated President Bola Tinubu from the under-development and challenges experienced in the north. According to him, ‘the region lost it during the eight-year reign of former President Muhammadu Buhari who failed to turn around its fortunes’. The former member of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) absolved Tinubu in an open letter he wrote to political leaders of Northern Nigeria, titled ‘Explosive North: Open Letter to Northern Politicians’. Lukman lamented that the living reality in Northern Nigeria today is very explosive. The letter reads: “If anyone is interested in finding the practical meaning of the Hobbesian description of life being ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’, just look at what life is in Northern Nigeria. Indices of poverty, unemployment, inequality are beyond description. Conditions of schools and hospitals is, to say the least, depressing. The civil service in virtually all the 19 states is a shadow of itself, with hardly any public service activity taking place. “Our illustrious and respected traditional institutions have been devalued and reduced to a state of hopelessness. Most of our religious leaders and centres are far removed from God’s way of life. Few industries exist in the region. And, on account of insecurity, agricultural activities, which is the main stay of the economy of the region, is on the decline. “Not to talk of drugs and substance abuse, the number of broken homes and abandoned children is quite alarming. As it is, the north is an explosive waiting to explode. We have lost virtually all our homes, our families and our children. Every person with human feeling should be saddened with the reality of what the north has become. Sadly, even the one strength the North is known for, which is strongly united political leaders, has been lost
