{"id":177993,"date":"2025-09-08T17:38:52","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T16:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power"},"modified":"2025-09-08T18:39:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T17:39:12","slug":"north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power","title":{"rendered":"North Needs Development Not Empty Political Power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Political activist and youths leader, Usman Okai-Austin, has said that what the North needs most is development, not just holding on to political power.<\/p>\n<p>Okai-Austin, who was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for Dekina\/Bassa Federal Constituency in the 2023 elections, revealed this in an exclusive interview with DAILY POST.<\/p>\n<p>He argued that northern leaders have failed to address poverty, insecurity, and the growing number of out-of-school children despite having held power for many years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe North wants development, not empty political power. What is the use of political power when you don\u2019t alleviate the poverty of your people?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo we have good hospitals in the North today? Do we have well-planned schools for our children?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He recalled that former President Goodluck Jonathan, who came from the South-South, built Almajiri schools across the North to modernize the system and take children off the streets.<\/p>\n<p>But, according to the political analyst, the administration that followed did not sustain the programme.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJonathan was a Christian from Bayelsa, but he introduced a programme that directly addressed unemployment and the out-of-school children in the North.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJonathan introduced what we called the modern Almajiri school system in the north. 157 almajiri schools were established during his administration,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Buhari came, those schools were destroyed. Can anybody be more northern than Buhari? A muslim from Katsina, and a former military president. Yet, what did he do for the North?\u201d Okai-Austin asked.<\/p>\n<p>The activist also dismissed claims of northern marginalization being pushed by some politicians.<\/p>\n<p>He said those who left power recently, such as former governors and ministers, had the chance to change things but failed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople like El-Rufai, Babachir Lawal, and Malami were in power. Malami was as powerful as the president for eight years. What did they do? Now they are crying marginalization,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, those truly marginalized are not actually taken along in decision making.<\/p>\n<p>Okai-Austin insisted that the true marginalized people are unemployed youths, women without access to healthcare, farmers who cannot go to their farms safely, and children who remain on the streets instead of classrooms.<\/p>\n<p>He called for a new generation of northern leaders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe younger generation of the North should take over leadership. Those who have been in power have failed. They only use the North as a bargaining chip for their personal interest,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Political activist and youths leader, Usman Okai-Austin, has said that what the North needs most is development, not just holding on to political power. Okai-Austin, who was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for Dekina\/Bassa Federal Constituency in the 2023 elections, revealed this in an exclusive interview with DAILY POST. He argued [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":177992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[254,1712,18676,18675],"class_list":["post-177993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-nigeria","tag-north","tag-okai-austin","tag-political-power"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>North Needs Development Not Empty Political Power - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Political activist and youths leader, Usman Okai-Austin, has said that what the North needs most is development, not jus ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Needs Development Not Empty Political Power\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Political activist and youths leader, Usman Okai-Austin, has said that what the North needs most is development, not jus ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-08T16:38:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-08T17:39:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/09\/sm_1757340739.611823.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"North Needs Development Not Empty Political Power\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-08T16:38:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-08T17:39:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power\"},\"wordCount\":410,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/09\/sm_1757340739.611823.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Nigeria\",\"North\",\"Okai Austin\",\"political power\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/north-needs-development-not-empty-political-power\",\"name\":\"North Needs Development Not Empty Political Power - 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