The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) chairman, Audu Ogbeh, has lamented that politics was the only business in the north.
Speaking at a meeting with the Governor of Borno State, prof. Babagana Zulum, he said the security situation in the north is “depressing”.
He was in Maiduguri where he led a delegation to meet with the governor and commiserate with him over the Zabarmari killings.
Over 40 farmers were killed when Boko Haram insurgents attacked the village in Jere local government area weeks ago.
The former minister said that politics has “never grown any society”.
“We are depressed, very depressed. And anyone of us, of our age, who was not depressed, he was not well-born. Because we have nothing to leave behind for our children, and violence will not sustain us,” he said in a statement on Monday.
“The tragedy of the north today is that the only industry left is politics, and politics alone has never grown any society. We have to re-grow Borno State, we have to re-grow the north, we have to re-grow Nigeria. We have no industries, agriculture has declined and our own children have now turned to violence as a means of livelihood.
“Your Excellency, in ACF we have decided that we will not talk too much politics, we decided to focus on something else, we are going to start a program of developing small-scale agro-industries across the north.”
Zulum thanked the forum for commiserating with him and the state over the killings and asked the federal government to find lasting solutions to the insurgency in the north-east.
