By Samson Obande,  Abuja

From the First Republic to the Fourth Republic, Nigeria has survived on one fragile but sacred gentleman’s agreement – the North-South understanding.

It was there in 1960 when Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello and Awolowo learned to balance the tripod. It was there in 1979 when the NPN understood that you cannot win Nigeria without both the Sokoto Caliphate and the Niger-Delta creeks. It was there in 1999 when the nation, bleeding from June 12, conceded power to the South-West to heal itself. It was there in 2007 when Yar’Adua and Jonathan sealed the unwritten doctrine of rotation, and again in 2015 when the South supported the North to complete its eight years.

This is our political history. Rotation, zoning, federal character – call it what you will – it is the only formula that has kept this diverse federation from collapse.

But today, that formula is being deliberately sabotaged – not by the South, not by the East, not by militants, but by a clique of Northern political elite.

Every election cycle, the same drama. Four years to election, they preach national unity. Two years to election, they weaponize poverty in the North. Six months to election, they whisper that the South cannot be trusted, that power must never leave the North, that the understanding must be broken.

Who are they? They are not the common farmer in Zamfara who wants fertilizer. They are not the student in ABU Zaria who wants a job. They are the Abuja mansion elite – those who have turned politics into inheritance, who see the Presidency as a family heirloom, who treat the North as a voting warehouse to be opened every four years and locked up after.

They disrupted 2011 when consensus failed. They disrupted 2015 with the politics of no alternative. They attempted to disrupt 2023 by tearing up the very zoning principle their fathers signed. And now, as 2027 approaches, they are sharpening their daggers again, holding nocturnal meetings, funding division, and trying to convince Northern youth that the South is our enemy.

Let us say it with fire: They are lying.

The enemy of the North is not the South. The enemy of the North is this elite that has ruled the North for 40 years and left it with 14 million out-of-school children, with banditry in Katsina and Zamfara, and with poverty deeper than at Independence.

The South never destroyed our schools. The South never looted our local government funds. The South never told our governors to abandon agriculture for federal allocation.

This compact between North and South – that power must rotate, that both regions must feel a sense of belonging – is the only reason a boy from Daura can be President and a boy from Otuoke can be President in the same republic. Break that compact and you break Nigeria.

We in the Northern Youth Progressive Network are done being foot-soldiers for their ambition. We will not allow a few entitled elite to mortgage our future every election cycle. The North must honour agreements. The South must honour agreements. That is statesmanship.

From Lugard’s amalgamation to the return to democracy in 1999, Nigeria has only progressed when North and South shook hands. Any elite – Northern or Southern – who tries to cut that handshake is an enemy of national unity, and history will remember them as saboteurs.Enough is enough.