North under a curse of insecurity, poverty – Ex House Speaker, Dogara

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has lamented that the scale of killings and bloodshed in northern Nigeria has placed the region under a spiritual curse. He warned that the crisis must be treated as a national emergency at this point.

Speaking during a panel session, on Tuesday, at the Nigeria Investment and Industrialisation Summit (NNIIS) 2025 organised by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) in Abuja, Dogara stressed that the situation had gone beyond ordinary socio-political concerns.

“With the kind of bloodletting we are witnessing in the North, if you are a person of faith, you will know that we are operating under a curse because it is human blood,” he said.

He said the insecurity and poverty in the North had reached alarming levels, warning that Nigeria’s overall progress would remain stalled unless urgent steps were taken to address the crisis.

“The development of northern Nigeria is not a regional prerogative. It must be seen as a national emergency. If the vast number of people we have in the North are not developed, Nigeria is going nowhere,” he said.

Dogara called on northern leaders and citizens to abandon a culture of dependence on external solutions and take charge of their own destiny.

“We need to depart from doing business as usual and embrace radical, transformative action. Help is not coming from anywhere — we must take our destiny into our own hands,” he added.