At the conclusion of the Independence Youth Talk on the theme “Fathering the Orphaned Arewa Towards Nigeria’s Development”, a communiqué was issued, which contains the following resolutions:
1. That Northern Nigeria is urged to live up to its responsibility by mobilizing and harnessing the precious resources at its proposal, which include internally generated revenue and foreign exchange earnings to provide physical and social infrastructure, education for about 9 million out of school children, etc.
2. That Northern Nigeria should be directly involved in the development of agriculture through a mechanized system of farming, industrialization and import substitution programmes so as to discourage its over reliance on oil, which forms the fulcrum of the national economy, as well as importation.
3. Northern Nigeria should take its constitutional responsibilities to ensure maximum security for citizens and their properties through the legitimate use of the instruments of law enforcement against insurgency, banditry and kidnapping, which bedevil the region.
4. Northern Nigeria is urged to take a leading role through social engineering and the implementation of viable economic policies to ensure an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
5. The Almajiri system of education, which has raised a number of issues to the governments of Northern Nigeria must be reformed instead of being banned.
6. It is resolved that a special conference should be convened in the North on its economy and security so as to address the challenges of Neo-liberal democracy and the crises of development in the region.
Name and Signature of Chairman, Society for Arewa Development and the convener, Independence Youth Talk.
Sahabi Sufiyan
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