By Sani Danaudi Mohammed

Long before the colonial borders, the North of Nigeria was the heartbeat of commerce in West Africa. From Kano to Katsina, Zaria to Sokoto, our cities were not just centers of learning and faith, they were the engine rooms of the trans-Saharan trade.

Caravans loaded with leather, textiles, kola, natron, and gold moved north to Tripoli and Cairo, and returned with books, spices, and silver. The North didn’t beg for wealth. It produced, processed, and traded. Our markets were disciplined, our guilds were organized, and our reputation for quality was continental. That was our first security: prosperity.

I speak to you as a Fulani herder who has lost cattle, family, and peace to the unrest that has torn the North apart and endangered the very bond of our coexistence. I welcome this initiative and I applaud the governors for this important and strategic planning, and for trusting men like Gen. Agwai and Alhaji Yayale Ahmed to lead it.

Let us not deceive ourselves: the North almost sank itself when we abandoned production for politics, when we let our markets, our ranches, and our schools collapse while chasing handouts.If this Trust Fund is to be different from the Bank of the North that died quietly, then it must protect not just the towns, but also the herder in the bush, the farmer on his field, and the child in the classroom, so that we can rebuild trust, secure our livelihoods, and never again allow greed and neglect to drown the North.

That prosperity was built on three values we have since lost: production over consumption, processing over export of raw materials, and trust over extraction*. The ancient Kano dye pits didn’t just sell indigo. They added value. The Sokoto leather industry didn’t just sell hides. It made shoes, saddles, and bags that were sought after across the Sahara. Even our cattle economy was circular. Milk, meat, hide, and manure all had a market. We understood value chains 500 years before the term existed. What we sold was not just what the land gave us, but what our hands and minds had improved.

We lost those values when oil made us lazy and insecurity made us fearful. We stopped processing tomatoes and started importing paste. We stopped tanning leather and started exporting raw hides. We stopped organizing trade routes and started paying bandits to let trucks pass. The trans-Saharan spirit of enterprise was replaced with a palliative mindset: wait for allocation, wait for intervention, wait for Abuja. As a result, the same land that once financed empires now finances ransom. The same young men who would have been apprentices in a tannery or a mill are now foot soldiers in the bush. We didn’t just lose trade. We lost identity.

We must also confront our history with honesty: the Bank of the North died a natural death not because the North lacked capital or vision, but because it was starved of political will, hijacked by politics, and killed by poor governance and zero accountability. It started as our pride, a vehicle to finance northern enterprise, but ended as another monument to good intentions without structure.

So the hard question today is this: what assurance do we have that the Northern Nigeria Security Trust Fund will not suffer the same fate? Unless this Fund is insulated from politics, run with transparent quarterly audits, tied directly to measurable outcomes in lives saved and jobs created, and governed by the discipline that Gen. Agwai and Alhaji Yayale Ahmed represent, we risk repeating history, collecting ₦1bn monthly only to fund meetings, allowances, and another legacy of waste.

The Northern Nigeria Security Trust Fund can be the bridge back. With leaders like Gen. Martin Luther Agwai and Alhaji Mahmud Yayale Ahmed at the helm, we have the credibility to revive what worked. Revival means going back to the trans-Saharan model, but with modern tools: agro-processing zones instead of dye pits, meat and dairy factories instead of open grazing, mining corporations with community equity instead of illegal pits. It means rebuilding trust through data, infrastructure, and justice. If we recommit to production, processing, and trade, the North will not only defeat banditry. It will once again become the commercial gateway of Africa, just as our forefathers did.

The appointment of Gen. Martin Luther Agwai (rtd) and Alhaji Mahmud Yayale Ahmed as co-chairmen of the Northern Nigeria Security Trust Fund Board is a bold and timely move by the Northern States Governors’ Forum. Inaugurated on Wednesday at Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, Kaduna, the board sends a clear signal: the North is tired of waiting and is ready to take charge of its own security destiny. The choice of these two patriots reflects both gravitas and experience, and for that, the governors deserve commendation.

Gen. Agwai is not just a former Chief of Defence Staff. He is a soldier’s soldier who commanded at the highest levels, led Nigeria’s contingent in Sierra Leone, and served as Joint Special Representative for the UN-AU Mission in Darfur. He understands counter-insurgency, civil-military relations, and the human cost of war. Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, former Minister of Defence and former Head of Service of the Federation, brings the rare blend of bureaucratic mastery, political reach, and national security policy experience. Together with a board packed with ex-COAS Lt. Gen. Faruk Yahaya, ex-IGP Usman Alkali

Baba, ex-SGF Boss Mustapha, and other retired generals and security chiefs from the 19 northern states, they are coming with a fantastic team.

But we must say it plainly: security alone cannot cure what ails the North. The governors’ resolution that each state and its LGs will contribute ₦1bn monthly for 12 months is well-intentioned. That is ₦19bn from states, and more from LGs, in a year. Yet when measured against the scale of banditry, terrorism, kidnapping, and cattle rustling across a region larger than many countries, it is a drop in the ocean. Without addressing the economic roots of violence, we risk funding an endless emergency response.

This is a policy problem, not just a security problem. For too long, our budgets have prioritized guns over growth. We buy more trucks, more drones, more allowances for operations, while leaving idle the greatest assets the North possesses: land, cattle, minerals, and people. A region that feeds Nigeria cannot feed itself out of poverty. A region that sits on gold, limestone, tin, and coal cannot export raw poverty and import finished wealth. That must change, and it must change now.

First, agriculture and its value chains must become the centerpiece of the northern response. The North accounts for over 70% of Nigeria’s food production, yet post-harvest losses run as high as 50% because we have no storage, no processing, and no markets. We should establish agro-industrial processing zones in each geo-political zone of the North. Think tomato paste factories in Kano and Katsina to end the annual tomato glut and importation. Think rice mills in Kebbi, Niger, and Nasarawa operating 24 hours. Think maize and soybean processing for poultry feed to crash the cost of food. Ethiopia turned agriculture into a growth engine through clusters and cooperatives. We can do the same.

Second, we must industrialize cattle. The North has over 20 million cattle, yet we export live animals and import beef, milk, and leather. That is economic suicide. We need modern abattoirs and meat processing plants in Maiduguri, Sokoto, Jos, and Kaduna that meet export standards. We need dairy collection centers and milk processing plants so Fulani families earn from milk daily, not just from selling a cow in distress. We need tanneries and leather goods factories in Kano to revive what once made “Made in Kano” shoes famous worldwide. Brazil earns over $7bn annually from beef exports because it moved from herding to industry. The North can too.

Third, mining must be formalized and localized. The North is sitting on gold in Zamfara, Niger, and Kaduna; limestone in Gombe and Sokoto; tin in Plateau; coal in Kogi and Benue. Today, artisanal miners dig and smuggle, bandits tax them, and the value leaves our borders. We should create Northern Mineral Development Corporations, with community equity, to partner with investors, enforce standards, and build processing plants. Australia built entire towns around mining value chains. The DRC, despite its challenges, is leveraging cobalt for global battery supply. The North has no excuse to remain a pit and a passage.

Fourth, intelligence and security must be married to livelihoods. A young man with no farm, no job, and no hope is the easiest recruit for a bandit. The Trust Fund should therefore earmark at least 40% of its resources for economic resilience: irrigation schemes, rural roads, solar-powered cold rooms, and vocational training. Security operations must be judged, as Chairman Yahaya said, by protection of lives, not meetings. But lives are protected when there is something to protect and something to lose.

Fifth, traditional institutions must be funded to lead community policing and early warning. The endorsement by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, is crucial. Emirs, chiefs, and district heads know every compound. They should be equipped with communication tools, data systems, and stipends to coordinate with the new board. Kenya’s Nyumba Kumi and Rwanda’s community policing models show that trust is the cheapest and most effective security technology.

Sixth, we must fix the corridor economy. Banditry thrives on highways where there is no light, no patrol, and no commerce. The governors should prioritize 10 critical economic corridors linking farms to markets and mines to ports. Light them, secure them, and insure trucks that ply them. When goods move safely, prices fall and jobs rise. When goods don’t move, desperation rises.

Seventh, education and deradicalization must run parallel to kinetic action. Almajiri reform, girl-child education, and out-of-school children programs are not “soft” issues. They are hard security. The board, with members like Prof. Usman Tar from Borno who understands the insurgency’s ideological roots, should push for a Northern Education Emergency Fund to get 10 million children into classrooms within 3 years.

Eighth, data must drive us. The board should build a Northern Security and Economic Observatory that maps attacks, drought, grazing routes, mining sites, and poverty in real time. Without data, ₦1bn monthly becomes politics. With data, it becomes precision. Morocco’s agricultural and security planning uses satellite and ground data to target interventions. We have the capacity.

Ninth, regional trade must be unlocked. The North borders Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. Instead of closing borders during crises, we should formalize cross-border cattle, grain, and mineral trade with standards and tariffs that benefit our people. The Sahel is a market of 150 million people. We are treating it like an enemy instead of an opportunity.

Tenth, accountability must be ruthless. The Trust Fund must publish quarterly reports: money in, money out, projects delivered, lives saved. It must not become another meeting club. Credibility is its only currency. The people of Katsina, Zamfara, and Benue are watching, and they are tired of promises.

Eleventh, climate adaptation must be central. Farmer-herder clashes are climate conflicts. We need grazing reserves with water and fodder, ranching pilots with private investment, and massive tree planting to combat desertification. The Great Green Wall cannot remain a slogan. Senegal and Burkina Faso are showing that green infrastructure reduces conflict.

Finally, let this be the moment the North chooses production over palliative. ₦1bn a month per state will help, but it will not end the war. Only jobs will. Only factories will. Only value chains will. Gen. Agwai and Alhaji Yayale Ahmed are coming with wisdom, networks, and discipline. If the governors match that with economic courage, the North will not just be safer. It will be prosperous.

The gun can secure today. Only the farm, the factory, and the mine can secure tomorrow.

Danaudi, Writes From Bauchi Via danaudicomrade@gmail.com