Former Speaker Yakubu Dogara has said insecurity and bloodshed in northern Nigeria have placed the region under a spiritual curse, warning that the crisis must be addressed as a national emergency.
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has warned that persistent killings and poverty in northern Nigeria have placed the region under a “spiritual curse,” calling for urgent national attention to the crisis.
Dogara made the remarks on Tuesday during a panel session at the Nigeria Investment and Industrialisation Summit (NNIIS) 2025, organised by the Northern Elders Forum in Abuja.
He said the magnitude of violence and insecurity in the region had moved beyond politics and economics into moral and spiritual consequences.
“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,” Dogara said.
He stressed that insecurity and poverty had reached catastrophic proportions, warning that Nigeria’s overall development would remain stalled if northern communities remained underdeveloped.
“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 urged northern leaders and citizens to stop depending on external solutions and embrace transformative action, declaring: “Help is not coming from anywhere — we must take our destiny into our own hands.”