Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has attributed institutional failure and socio-economic backwardness in Northern Nigeria to decades of sustained neglect and failure of leaders of the region.
He said insecurity and poverty in the region could have been addressed about 15 years ago had leaders from the region and those who occupied different political and traditional positions demonstrated sincerity and true commitment to end it.
Governor Sani in an interview monitored on BBC Hausa Service by our correspondent yesterday said it was disheartening that decades after independence about 70 percent of the people living in northern Nigeria are multi-dimensionally poor and about 65 percent of them do not have any bank account.
“Northern Nigeria has the highest rate of out-of-school children in the country with about 15 million children not attending classes. This is a failure of all leaders from the region in the last 15 years. It is not only a sign of leadership failure but also the inability of leaders to come together and unite forces to address these problems.
“Anybody from the North who has occupied a leadership position over the last 15 years is responsible for the sorry state of affairs in the North. We should stop deceiving our people.
“The problem is with all of us. We could have addressed problems of poverty, insecurity and education about 10 years ago but we did not and we are crying today.
“Why is it that poverty indices and out-of-school children are at about 30 percent in the South and 70 percent in the North? Didn’t we have northerners who led this country?” Governor Sani said.
He added, “There was no banditry, kidnapping and cattle rustling in the Northwest in 2016. The concern at that time was to contain the terrorism in the Northeast.”
The governor said leaders from the region still have time to make amendments, adding; “We are not late to initiate the process to alter the narrative.”
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