The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi, says northerners are on the verge of destroying themselves if they fail to address the myriad challenges facing them.
Sanusi, who spoke at the 60th birthday of Kaduna State, Governor Nasir El-Rufai, in Kaduna on Monday, highlighted the main problems facing the region as poverty, millions of out-of-schoolchildren, malnutrition, drug abuse, Almajiri and the Boko Haram insurgency.
The emir, who insisted that no “true Northern Nigerian leader” was happy with the problems, said the North should stop relying on quota system and federal character, adding that the challenges facing the region must be addressed immediately.
The traditional ruler said this a week after the World Bank in a report said 87 per cent of the poor in the country resided in the North.
The World Bank also described the North-West as home to almost half of all the poor in the country.
Sanusi singled out the Kaduna State governor for praise. He said El-Rufai‘s investment in education would go a long way in addressing poverty.
He called on other northern elites to follow in the ex-Minister of the Federal Capital Territory’s footsteps.
According to him, investing in education is the only way the region will save itself from the imminent destruction.
The ex-Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria lamented that 87 per cent of the country’s poverty rate was in the North, with nine states in the zone constituting almost 50 per cent of the malnutrition burden of Nigeria.