Billionaire businessman, Aliko Dangote has called out governors of the northern region of Nigeria with claims that they are responsible for the huge rate of poverty in the region.
Dangote made this known while speaking at the 4th edition of the Kaduna Investment Summit (KadInvest 4.0) in Kaduna on Wednesday.
According to him, the people of the region are blessed with vast arable land for agriculture and it is sad that they to live in poverty.
“Nigeria is ranked at 157th out of 189 countries on the human development index. While the overall socio-economic condition in the country is a cause for concern, the regional disparities are in fact very alarming.In the North Western and North Eastern parts of Nigeria, more than 60 per cent of the population lives in extreme poverty.
It is instructive to know that the 19 Northern states which accounts for over 54 per cent of Nigeria’s population and 70 per cent of its landmass, collectively generate, only 21 per cent of the total subnational IGR in the year 2017. Northern Nigeria will continue to fall behind if the respective states governments do not move to close the development gap.
“And that is why we are always saying the biggest challenge that we have and what we have been praying for is to have 10 governors like Mallam Nasir El-Rufai to move the northern Nigeria forward. Closing the gap requires multi years investment and government will not be able to raise the require capital funding, only the private sector can raise the capital to fund the level of investment that this country needs”, he said.
