ACF: A FORUM AT WAR WITH ITSELF
Northern leaders should do well and end the Arewa Consultative Forum squabble
When the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) emerged in March 2000 from the merger of three Northern groups, at the instance of the late Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido, its constitution set out one core mission: to “foster and strengthen the foundation of Northern unity in the context of one Nigeria”. Other objectives include establishing a machinery for regular dialogue so that disputes likely to cause a breach of the peace are settled amicably and promptly, and enhancing the educational and socio-economic status of Northerners. Twenty-five years on, the forum cannot settle its own quarrels without calling in the police.
The latest twist came on 9th October, when the ACF Chairman, Mr Mamman Mike Osuman (SAN), petitioned Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani, copying the Inspector-General of Police and the Department of State Services (DSS). He alleged that some individuals had entered the forum’s Kaduna secretariat, changed the locks and removed items without the leadership’s consent or a search warrant. It is the latest episode in a feud that has pitted the Board of Trustees (BoT), chaired by a former Minister of Power and Steel, Alhaji Bashir M. Dalhatu, against the National Executive Committee (NEC) led by Osuman and Secretary-General Malam Murtala Aliyu.
Meanwhile, discord is not new to the ACF. In November 2024, the BoT suspended Osuman over remarks on the 2027 presidential election. Tellingly, the statement announcing that suspension was jointly signed by Dalhatu and Aliyu, who now stand on opposite sides. That decision was reversed a month later after a reconciliation committee led by respected former bureaucrat, Alhaji Mahmud Yayale Ahmed intervened.
The present crisis, which erupted soon after the forum’s silver jubilee in Kaduna last November, is of a different order. Dalhatu insists that the tenure of Aliyu and three other officials expired on 10th March 2026; the NEC disagrees. On 5th May, police sealed the secretariat ahead of a NEC meeting. The next day, at an undisclosed venue, the NEC suspended Dalhatu over alleged financial misconduct and ordered a forensic audit. No fewer than 66 BoT members promptly dismissed the suspension as unlawful while some states’ chapters, in turn, passed a vote of no confidence in Osuman.
At the heart of this crisis is money. The 25th anniversary was crowned with the launch of an endowment fund meant to raise N100 billion for education, healthcare and economic empowerment in the North. About N3.9 billion has so far been realised and lodged, on Dalhatu’s instruction, in a dedicated bank account. He insists every kobo is intact. His adversaries ask who controls the money and on whose authority? A fund created to lift the region has become the spoils of an internal war. What makes this spectacle so galling is that the North is not short of elders. It has 19 governors, revered traditional institutions and a long roster of former Heads of State and statesmen. Vice President Kashim Shettima, the highest-ranking Northerner in government, was reported to have waded in, and several reconciliation committees have been set up.
To be fair, the ACF and similar groups have no role under the 1999 Constitution. They emerged in the 1990s and early 2000s to fill the void left by weak political parties, to foster cooperation within regions and dialogue between them. But it is against the objectives the ACF set for itself that its leaders must be judged. The forum promised Northern unity; today the region is riven by ethnic and religious distrust and recurring farmer-herder clashes. It promised machinery to forestall breaches of the peace; yet the North-East has for two decades battled Boko Haram insurgency while bandits operate almost freely in the Northwest. It pledged to advance the education and welfare of Northerners; yet the region accounts for most of Nigeria’s out-of-school children population.
These problems should have preoccupied ACF leaders. Instead, the forum is consumed by turf wars between its organs and contests of ego between some powerful individuals. As well as acrimony over the control of what, set against the needs of the region, are paltry funds. The sooner eminent Northern leaders, the 19 Northern governors, as well as emirs and chiefs, step in to quell this dispute, the better for the region and the country as a whole.