THE GHOST OF JANUARY 15: WHY NORTHERN NIGERIA’S LEADERSHIP VACUUM REMAINS UNFILLE

 THE GHOST OF JANUARY 15: WHY NORTHERN NIGERIA’S LEADERSHIP VACUUM REMAINS UNFILLED

By Tijjani Sarki 

Good Governance Advocate and Public Publicy Analyst 

Sixty years after the assassination of Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the condition of Northern Nigeria provokes not pride, but pain. A region once guided by discipline, vision, and moral clarity now staggers under the weight of poverty, insecurity, and lost direction. What should have been six decades of consolidation and progress have instead become years of drift and decline. 

The tragedy of January 15, 1966, did not end with the gunshots in Kaduna and Lagos, it lives on in the daily realities of a people still searching for leadership equal to their history.

On that day, the cold barrels of mutinous rifles did more than end two remarkable lives they punctured the soul of Northern Nigeria. Today, with nearly 70% of the region’s population living in poverty and an educational system in visible distress, the most haunting truth is not simply that we lost Sardauna and Balewa, but that we abandoned the lessons their lives so clearly taught.

And one question continues to echo, uncomfortably and insistently,What exactly is obtainable in today’s Northern Nigeria, when the towering legacy left behind by Sardauna and Balewa lies unused,as if no one is ready, or willing, to pick it up?

The Sardauna and Balewa embodied a form of leadership that now feels almost mythical value-based governance, sacrifice over self-enrichment, service over spectacle. Their lives proved that leadership could be moral, restrained, and purposeful. In contrast, today’s political culture appears addicted to excess and estranged from conscience.

LESSON ONE: THE PHILOSOPHY OF INCLUSION BETRAYED

One of the gravest post-1966 failures is the abandonment of the Sardauna’s Northernization policy not as an exclusionary weapon, but as a framework for unity and internal capacity-building. His admonition to ministers remains timeless: “You cannot run and rub your buttocks at the same time.” Public office, in his view, was a calling, not a commercial venture.

That ethic has been replaced by a “gather and greed” mentality. Historical accounts, frequently cited by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation, remind us that the Sardauna died with almost nothing one house, no bloated bank accounts. Today, many leaders from the same region accumulate wealth that could finance entire state budgets, while their people endure life as citizens of Nigeria’s poverty capital. This contrast is not accidental; it is moral failure.

LESSON TWO: EDUCATION AS A SECURITY STRATEGY

Bello and Balewa understood a truth that today’s leaders ignore at their peril,a region that neglects education courts insecurity. They invested in institutions like Ahmadu Bello University and scholarship schemes that cut across class and lineage, ensuring that talent not privilege determined opportunity.

The erosion of this vision explains much of today’s crisis. Millions of out-of-school children roam the streets. The Almajiri system once targeted for reform and integration by the Sardauna has been left to decay, becoming a ready recruitment pool for bandits and insurgents. A region that refuses to educate its youth is not merely failing them,it is arming its future enemies.

LESSON THREE: INTEGRITY AS THE ULTIMATE DEFENSE

The 1966 coup plotters claimed corruption as their justification. While the ethnic imbalance of the killings revealed deeper agendas, historical records including Max Siollun’s work show that nepotism and ostentatious living dominated public resentment of the political elite.

The irony is bitter. Instead of responding by strengthening integrity and restraint, many subsequent leaders embraced the very vices that supposedly “justified” the coup. The breakup of the old Northern Region into 19 states was meant to bring governance closer to the people, in practice, it often brought the cost of governance closer to their throats, while service delivery remained distant.

THE WAY FORWARD: FROM LAMENTATION TO AWAKENING

The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) have repeatedly lamented that the North has never been the same since 1966. They are correct but lamentation alone is not a strategy. Endless conferences and “Sixty Years Without Sardauna” memorials will not rescue the region from decline.

The enduring lesson is clear, the North’s strength never lay in its grip on federal power, but in the quality of its internal governance. To truly honor Bello and Balewa, today’s leaders must rediscover a people-first philosophy one that narrows the obscene gap between the luxury of the rulers and the hunger of the ruled.

Yet this task does not rest on leaders alone. History suggests that moments of deepest crisis often precede awakening. There is hope that Northerners, long burdened but not broken will rise to the responsibility of reclaiming and rehabilitating the legacy of Bello and Balewa. When that awakening comes, it must demand integrity, investment in education, and governance rooted in service.

If we fail to do so, we will not only have dishonored January 15, 1966,we will have surrendered our future to its ghost. But if we rise, consciously and collectively, the legacy left behind can still be amended, renewed, and made to serve generations yet unborn.

Sarki write from Kano

15th January,2026