Hajiya Aisha Ismail (Aunty Dada) is the co-founder of the Greater North Initiative (GNI), an NGO working in the area of promoting unity and peaceful co-existence among the members of various ethnic and religious groups in the region, amongst others. In this interview with ADAM ALQALI, she speaks on GNI’s efforts towards uniting the people of the diverse region as well as empowering its youth population and the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)
You are one of the founders of the NGO, Greater North Initiative (GNI). Tell us about the Initiative?
The Greater North Initiative, GNI, came into existence in 2011, in the aftermath of the 2011 post-election violence in many northern states during which many of our youth were killed. We realized that our youth were vulnerable to crisis because of unemployment. Therefore, we sat down to brainstorm on how to help our society by uniting our people in the North and that was how GNI was born.
We also realized that because of the diversity in terms of ethnicity and religion, whenever there was a small crisis, it would easily escalate because if an individual is having an issue with a member of a another ethnic or religious group, they will whip up sentiments and therefore set one religious or ethnic group against another.
This development really gave us a sense of worry and that was why we started the Greater North Initiative to deal with the challenges. At the moment, we are working in the area of youth empowerment, creation of economic opportunities for Northerners, providing scholarship to Northern youth as well as assisting Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North east.
Like you said, one of the major challenges bedeviling the Northern region today is a deep sense of division along ethno-religious lines. What effort are you making as GNI to unite the North?
It seems many people in the North today are worried about the current situation in the region; I mean both the Muslims and Christians, both the majority Hausa-Fulanis and the other ethnic groups. So, from the beginning it appeared many Northerners were interested in what we set out to do.
Therefore, in GNI, we try to bring together our members and brainstorm on how to go abound solving all these problems. For example, when there was a crisis in Plateau State, we sent a delegation to the State to ask for forgiveness from the aggrieved side.
We also ensure that the Muslims and Christians, the Hausa-Fulanis and other ethnic groups all work hand in hand in GNI.
For example, if we are sending a delegation some where we ensure that if a Muslim is leading the delegation, his or her deputy is Christian, likewise if a Christian is leading the delegation, a Muslim will deputize for him or her. So, we work hand in hand with one another, we share our problems with one another, and we ensure no one is marginalized.
President Muhammadu Buhari has made a move many believe is aimed at uniting the North, by appointing a Christian Northerner as the secretary to his government. How do you hope to key into his agenda of uniting the North to achieve your goal?
As GNI, we are very grateful because even our registration was stopped under the past administration but now that Buhari has become president, the group has been duly registered and we are already compiling the challenges facing the various communities in the North and how to assist each and every community solve their challenges. We intend to submit the compiled report to the Northern Governors’ Forum and Mr President.
For example, in Taraba State we have Dr (Mrs) Paninga who helped us compiled all the problems they are facing in Taraba through the office of the Executive Governor of Taraba State.
And that is what we are doing in all the 19 states of the North through our members who are spread across all the states of the region and who are working to ensure that when the governors will eventually intervene, they will do so through GNI.
One of the objectives of GNI is preventing youth restiveness through empowerment schemes. How far have you gone in that direction?
Right now we want to start to bring in expatriates to train our youth. We have 2 programs including Waste to Wealth project, under which we are going to get experts from Kenya to come and train our youth on how to use various waste products to produce useful items. For example, we went to Kenya and saw how they were utilizing used sachets water packs to produce various forms of bags.
We also saw how they were utilizing used cloth to produce bags of various shapes. So, this is what we want to replicate here in the North.
Secondly, for those youth that want to go to school, GNI will support their education by paying their school fees. And as GNI grows bigger, we also want to have our own school, a sort of pivotal school in which Northerners will be trained in various skills like carpentry, electrical works, tailoring etc. We have already sent a group of youth from the North to a farm in Osun State where they were trained in various aspects of farming.
You said GNI is also working with Internally Displaced Persons of the Boko Haram crisis in the Northeast. What kind of assistance do you provide to them?
Really, we have been providing various kinds of support for the IDPs including clothing materials, feeding and even taking care of and sponsoring the education of children displaced by the crisis. For example, we are sourcing for used clothing materials of various sizes, for infants, children and adults from people in various places which we package and every Thursday we would send them to the various IDPs camps in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states. We have our members in the various states that help us with the distribution of the materials to IDPs in their various camps.
We are also paying for the upkeep of displaced children by handing them over to individuals willing to take care of the children. We pay them N2, 000 monthly for the upkeep of every kid.
There is a man who is taking care of about 10 such children and we pay him the sum N20,000 every month. We have also relocated some families whose kids have been so traumatized by the killings of their colleagues in schools by Boko Haram insurgents such that they have refused to go back to their schools – to various places outside the Northeast including Abuja – so that their children will be able to go back to school. For example, there is a particular family of a man with his 2 wives whom we relocated to Abuja, enrolled about 10 of his kids in school and give the man capital to start business.
This is what we do to the families of kids that were so traumatized by the activities of Boko Haram and so are refusing to go back to school in their home towns.
At the moment, we are planning to organize a summit with particular focus on the most endangered members of our community such as youth & women. The summit will look at how we can help women and the youth regain their active and self-reliance skills. Our goals are to learn from one another, and to work together to implement short & long-term strategies that will help reduce or eradicate the impact of the crisis particularly on the youth and women and improve their wellbeing and unity by empowering them for self-reliance while in IDPs camps or transitioning to normal livelihood.
Therefore, the two-day summit will explore the social challenges that face the youth and women in IDP zones in North Easters Nigeria and will discuss social, structural and policy interventions to mitigate their impact. The summit will feature research findings (on the IDPs needs/pressing issues) as well as full day training on short & long term strategies to end IDPs crisis. The summit will highlight how critical these interventions are to effective local and national responses the crisis and to addressing IDPs in the North East
You seem to have very lofty goals, how do you source your funding?
For now, our source of funding is limited but we are planning to start training youth to produce items which will be sold at the end of which we will give the youth capital and keep the remaining money which will be given to another set of youth as capital. So, we want to use our trainees to generate and recycle funds to be able to sustain the project.
However, we are open for assistance from well-meaning individuals and organizations. At this juncture, I will like to call on well-meaning individuals form the North to come forward and support our cause, I will particularly like to call on our traditional rulers and statesmen like His Excellency Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who is from the North East, to come forward and identify with this cause of helping the people of the North East.
So far, how can you assess the impact of the activities of GNI in the North particularly as regards uniting the region?
Sincerely speaking, it is impressive because GNI has become so much accepted that where ever we go for our peace mission we are well received and after our mission you rarely hear about any incident again. So, I am happy that we are making impact.
What is GNI’s vision for the North?
Our vision for the North is that of a place that is united and peaceful, where everyone will want to be. We want our youth to be self-reliant and have something doing so as to be able to cater for their needs and not be engaging in all sorts of vices including violence and begging.
