Life and Business in Northern Nigeria

I am a Nigerian and as anybody will definitely know, Nigeria is divided into two: the predominantly muslim North and the predominantly christian South.
I, am from the predominantly christian south hailing from Oyo state, home to West Africa's largest and Africa's second largest city, Ibadan.
At home, there's the general impression about the North being very backward in terms of development, education and standard of living (Actually, the last two are relatively positive) but, it's quite funny that many years of military dictatorship under Northern Generals saw a bulk of the country's funds invested in Major projects in the North, thus the major states in the North aren't as bad as many will expect.
In the short time i've spent up north, i've visited/stayed in at least 3 states: Kano, Kaduna, Jigawa and Abuja. Without doubt, Abuja being the federal capital is the most developed and advanced state up north; Kaduna, is kinda the military capital of Nigeria with most military installations present there. But no place is more surprising than Kano, the self acclaimed and mostly evident "Centre of Commerce".
Walking around the streets of Kano state, you're prepared to see a mixture of classes, the super rich and the super poor, flashy cars, major markets and the best cuisines (It's well known that the average Hausa man doesn't joke with his stomach).
But most surprising is the volume of trade that goes down in these markets. With big textile markets, big food markets big household items markets and the highest population of expatriates (Mostly Lebanese, Chinese and Indians), Kano is definitely a huge representation of the amount of business that can go down up North. With these levels, it's definitely evident that Kano has a lot of business opportunities with new companies sprawling up everyday (although they are mostly owned by intellectual southerners and expatriates rushing to get the best out of an untapped resource), high rise buildings built by Northerners who have been able to exploit their state's wealth or made their wealth from the old military regimes, and cheap labour and living standards relatively available. It's little wonder why i decided to try out our company's luck up North.
With two government contracts almost within our grasp, there's no reason why we wouldn't spread out our tentacles to other Northern states and make the best of sprawling business opportunities.