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A flight of fancy: That proposed Airline by North-East governors, by Ayodeji Kolawole
By Ayodeji KOLAWOLE “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (“Let them eat cake!”). Widely attributed to Marie Antoinette, the phrase came to mind when the NorthEast Governors’ Forum (NEGF) announced at its October 3, 2026, meeting in Maiduguri that it planned to establish a regional airline. The governors said they had secured N10.8 billion of the N15.8 billion in funding needed for the proposed North-East Air Shuttle North-east governors announce plan to establish regional airline | TheCable. The announcement should outrage everyone concerned about the North - East region and Nigeria in general. Marie Antoinette, wife of the French monarch, Louis XVI was reported to have wondered why the masses were protesting another bread shortage during the reign of her husband when they could simply eat cake! Bread was a staple for France’s peasantry and working class, while brioche, bread enriched with butter and eggs, was for the upper class. It was insensitive and out of touch for the Queen, who the French referred to as Madame Déficit due to the impact of her extravagant spending on French finances, to think that people who could not afford ordinary bread would magically afford the luxury of brioche. Both her and her husband later lost their heads to the guillotine during the French revolution. The remark came to symbolise how disconnected the ruling class could be from ordinary people. Like Marie Antoinette, the NorthEast governors seem disconnected from their region’s realities and the daily struggles of the people they claim to govern. In a region ravaged by terrorism and underdevelopment, is a new airline really a priority? The governors must answer a few questions: What is the fate of the children whose education was disrupted by the Boko Haram insurgency, are they enrolled in education or skills programmes today? What psychosocial and economic support is available for the millions of victims of terrorism? How many local government areas, not to talk of wards have functioning healthcare centres? Can farmers safely return to their farms today? What is the state of roads and public transport? These pertinent issues seem to be flying over the heads of the governors for them to think a regional airline is priority now. Given the region’s profound development challenges, spending N15.8 billion on an airline to serve the governors’ tastes rather than people’s needs is unconscionable. By almost every development indices, the Northeast lags painfully behind. High levels of poverty and huge infrastructure gaps, compounded by almost two decades of terrorism have left the region below already troubling national averages on key humandevelopment and socio-economic indicators. While the six NorthEast states account for about 15% of Nigeria's population and almost one-third of its landmass, they contribute a paltry 3.5% to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and account for only about 5% of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) by states. All the six states fall below the national average of 0.560 in Human Development Index (HDI), with four of the six states posting less than 0.5 (Gombe: 0.466; Borno: 0.464; Yobe: 0.439 and Bauchi: 0.372). The Poverty Rate in the region is about 70%, against the national average of 61%, with states like Gombe and Yobe recording multidimensional poverty rates of between 80%–86%. Unemployment rate in the region averages about 32% against a national average of 24%. https://blueprint.ng/north-east-development-commission-between-promises-and-human-capacity-building/ As The Economist noted recently about Borno state, but symptomatic of the region, “violence has wrecked the economy, leaving young people jobless and traders without customers. One 27-year-old in Maiduguri complains that he is forced to travel to neighbouring Chad to sell his grain, as locals cannot afford it.” https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/10/01/nigerians-dislike-their-president-but-may-re-elect-him-anyway Some may argue that states have little control over these macroeconomic indicators, though that claim is debatable. Examining the state of public education, health, transportation, areas firmly within state control, give little cheer. Life expectancy across the zone is less than 55 years, with residents facing severe acute undernutrition despite the region being rich in agricultural potential. This severe undernutrition impacts over 40% of children under the age of five. In a recent report by The Economist, the paper highlighted the sharp increase in the number of malnourished women and babies admitted over the past three years in a clinic for starving people; it reports July 2026 as the worst month since the clinic opened in 2016. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/10/01/nigerians-dislike-their-president-but-may-re-elect-him-anyway …
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