A terrorist insurgency has deepened a poor region'salready grave problems
恐怖叛亂—貧困的北方雪上加霜
THE roads are thick with traffic and pavementsthrong with hawkers selling phonecards, sunglasses and leather sandals. At night, streetcorners are lit up with a red glow from grills cooking spicy meat. But the bustle of Kano,Nigeria's second-biggest city and the commercial capital of the north, masks anuncomfortable reality: northern Nigeria is in steep decline.
An increasingly bloody insurgency waged by Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist group, hassharpened frustration over the disparity between the jobless north and the oil-rich south. Inrecent months Kano has been relatively stable, following a military offensive to contain theterrorists. But though the pause in violence has brought people back onto the streets, theyhave rediscovered other problems. “Stoves are gone, people selling beer have gone, there is nomarket, there are few customers and I haven't been able to save any money in months,” saysChineu Abason, sitting in her wooden-shack restaurant in Sabon Gari, a mainly Christiandistrict, where Boko Haram bombs have killed scores of people this year (see picture above).
The fear of terrorism continues to cast a long shadow over the city and across the north.Bombings, kidnappings and bloody assaults by Boko Haram, as well as the army's efforts tokeep a lid on the fighting, have deterred investment. Farming, the north's main source ofincome, has been hamstrung. Consumer-goods companies say that insecurity has forced themto retreat from some areas. Commercial drivers say dangerous roads and military checkpointsadd 5-10% to their costs.
Despite a construction boom across Nigeria, many foreign companies avoid the north. InFebruary seven employees of Setraco, an international construction company, were abductedin Bauchi state by Ansaru, a group that splintered from Boko Haram, prompting an immediateshutdown of the firm's operations up north. PZ Cussons, the maker of Imperial Leather soap,and Guinness Nigeria are hanging on but have been hit by the conflict, too.
Even before Boko Haram's insurgency intensified nearly three years ago, the north wasstruggling. Unreliable electricity, cheap Chinese imports, smuggling and counterfeit goods havemade life hard for local companies. Vast spaces on Kano's edges have become industrialgraveyards. In rural areas the picture is bleaker still. Poor education puts off investors seekingskilled labour. Whereas the literacy rate in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital on the coast, is92%, in Kano it is 49%. In the north-eastern state of Borno, where Boko Haram got going, it is15%. Without better education, the region will struggle to attract investment or create jobs.The malaise is a useful recruiting tool for terrorists, as well as politicians with their eye on thetop.
Northerners habitually complain that politicians have made personal fortunes from thebooming oil industry in the south, while failing to share its benefits. Mutterings of a north-southdivide have grown louder with the prospect of President Goodluck Jonathan, a southernChristian, running for a second term in 2015. Northerners resent what they see as a violationof an unwritten rule that the presidency should rotate every two terms between the largelyMuslim north and the mostly Christian south. A southerner has held the post for 11 of the past14 years.
Nigeria's finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, insists that the government recognises thenorth's need. Nigeria has courted $20 billion of foreign direct investment in the past threeyears, 10% of the African total. Yet most investors set up shop in Lagos. “When we adviseinvestors coming to Nigeria, they don't even talk about the north,” says a South African bankerin the plush Hilton Hotel in Abuja, the capital, which lies between north and south. “It simplyisn't a consideration. It's the sad truth and it isn't about to change.”
There are few signs of revival in Kano, though it is nearly as big as Lagos. “Shoprite OPENINGSOON” is splashed on a red-and-orange sign where the Ado Bayero Mall, the north's firstmodern shopping centre, is going up. It has been a long wait: Shoprite, a South African fooddistributor, has been operating in Lagos since 2005.
Kano's state governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has poured millions into infrastructure. Taxisweave through huge concrete columns that will eventually support a flyover. But while three-lane highways are being built, feeder roads from rural communities remain decrepit. Amultimillion-dollar development, the Mega Five Projects, will have three posh housing estatesand two transport terminals.
卡諾的州長Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso投入了上百萬用于基礎設施。巨大的水泥柱下出租車往來穿梭,而上面將支撐起一座立交橋。但是正當三條高速公路建設時,通往農村社區的支路卻還是殘破不堪。投資百萬美元的5個大型項目將建成3個豪華住宅區和2個運輸站。
Such projects make little sense when many northerners, struggling to make a living, aredeciding to leave Kano in search of better prospects—down south. “It is the only logical wayfor the government,” says the owner of a big construction company. “Visible developmentgives the impression of stability and progress.” But it will not be enough to close the gulfbetween Nigeria's two halves. As a result, northerners are increasingly resentful.