A Plateau State based journalist, Na-Allah Mohammed Zagga, has blamed Northern elites for the current state of the North, saying their hypocrisy has succeeded in breeding hatred and religious bigotry among their followers whom he said, they manipulate like robots.

He said the North was once regarded as a powerful reputable region, but which has now been reduced “to killing fields, a sorry spectacle, and a laughing stock to rest of the world.”

He said knowing how religious theory followers, these elites have been using religion to manipulate their followers by preaching hatred in private, whilst pretending to be good people in public.

Zagga whom many respect for his rational thought process, made the lamentation in a post shared on his Facebook account.

He wrote, “Arewa was once a formidably united political entity, so united that it used to be referred to as the “monolithic North.” It’s no longer so. Today Arewa is a caricature of its former self. Northern Nigeria is now reduced to killing fields, a sorry spectacle that reduces us to a laughing stock to rest of the world.

“Our fate is bad enough to make Sardauna Sir Ahmadu Bello turn in his grave. Our present catastrophe is a failure of leadership. Our leaders in the country publicly pretend to promote the ideals of national unity based on mutual respect, justice and equity, but privately they appeal to ethnic and religious prejudices in order to gain power and relevance. They encourage intolerance while publicly pretending to be nationalists.

“Our leaders have failed to rise to the challenges of statesmanship. When you exlpoit religion and ethnicity for political advantage, you can’t control the Frankenstein monsters that may spring up from your selfishness and wicked manipulation of your followers.

“Our religious leaders are no less guilty. When you listen to what they preach privately, you may wonder if these leaders have a grain of conscience in their souls. They preach hate and bigotry while publicly pretending to be patriots.

“They turn their followers into robots of hate. The hatred they promote degenerates into such intensity that adults have no hesitation hacking an infant to death in the frenzy of religious bigotry. When you preach hate and intolerance, you inevitably produce monsters that have no respect for the sanctity of life. It sucks!”