part of its men, with the sole aim of alienating
them from their constitutional rights will soon
realize that with disaffected men no significant
progress is achievable. This is especially true for
the north of the country today. It is just natural
that people who have traditional views on life
also tend to be more averse to changes, even when
the benefits of such changes are too obvious. For
the North of Nigeria, any changes in the status
quo – particularly those not originated from the
traditional leaders – are perceived as deviance
and disobedience to the authority, and potential
threats to life.
Thus, leaders of the region feel complacent
and secure in their domain and so are averse to
pursuing creative and constructive agenda that
would lead to progressive changes however the
backward their region is.
Leaders of northern Nigeria have tacitly
pursued programs that make western secular
education a privilege for the few, not least,
engineering and technology have been
systematically neglected for a very long time,
public schools are poorly funded and derelict,
while teachers are raptly allowed to waste away.
Unsurprisingly, elsewhere reversion to the
traditional old ways of life and preferences for
the one-man hegemony has resulted in nothing
but poverty and misery for most Africans. The
findings in this volume should have policy
implications for the leaders of the northern
Nigeria. Institutionalized stratification and social
exclusion have long reached a point of inflection.
We are at a point at which the disruptive social
media and the internet both can make inequality
so intolerable as to garner radical supports for
movements to change it.
Institutionalized stratification in Northern Nigeria
