Former Kano State governor and leader of the Kwankwasia movement, Rabiu Kwankwaso, has declared that the federal government’s neglect of northern Nigeria is directly responsible for the region’s escalating insecurity and deepening poverty. “Neglecting the North is the reason for these problems
The Kano State political godfather made the assertion on Thursday when he spoke at a stakeholders’ Dialogue on the 2025 Constitutional Amendment in Kano.
Kwankwaso who was at the State House on Tuesday on a visit to President Tinubu accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of lopsided allocation of scarce resources between the two regions of the country.
He said: “From the information available to us, it’s like most of the national budget is now tilting in one direction in this country.”
“Let me advise those who are struggling by all means to take everything to remember that some of the issues that we have in this part of the country today have to do with the lack of enough resources and mismanagement of the little that comes in.
“That is why we have insecurity, we have poverty and so on. It is happening here mainly, but like a desert, it would go everywhere.”
Kwankwaso said most roads in the northern region remained in deplorable condition, whilst the APC government continued to allocate lump budgetary allocations for infrastructural development in the southern region.
“Yesterday, I was to come by air, but unfortunately, my airline decided to shift our takeoff from 3pm to 8pm. I had to come by road. From Abuja to Kaduna to Kano was a hell. Terrible. Very bad road. This is a road started many years ago, right from the beginning of the leadership of the APC.
“Now, we are told that there is a road from the South to the East. We support infrastructure anywhere in this country…and any other thing that is good for the masses but a situation where government is taking our resources and dumping it in one part of the country and other parts of the country are left just like that, I don’t believe that is the right thing to do by the government itself.”
He urged the Tinubu administration to change for the better and ensure the equitable distribution of scarce resources for the development of all parts of the country.
“This is the time for the government to change, to convince our people that the government is not just on one side of the country,” he said.
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