Help backward northern people about electromagnetic measures (9)

'electromagnetic measures' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both human attributes as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?

'help backward northern people about' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'northern' could be 'n' (abbreviation e.g. N. Ireland) and 'n' is present in the answer.
'people' could be 'aces' (ace is a kind of person) and 'aces' is present in the leftover letters.
'about' could be 'a' (abbreviation in Chambers) and 'a' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?