The presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in the 2023 general elections, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has accused the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration of neglecting the North and concentrating the country’s resources on developing the Southern region, where the president hails from.
He spoke in Kano, yesterday during the stakeholders’ dialogue organised by the Kano State government to present the position of the state on 2025 constitution amendment proposals before by the National Assembly.
The event, held at the Coronation Hall of the Kano Government House, was attended by Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, the emirs of the state, heads of the state ministries, department and agencies, members of the national and state assemblies from the state as well as civil society organisations and pressure groups.
This is coming days after credible sources dismissed a media report (not by Daily Trust) that Kwankwaso recently held a closed-door meeting with Tinubu at the president’s official residence.
Speaking at the stakeholders’ dialogue in Kano on Thursday, Kwankwaso accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of lopsided allocation of resources between the South and the North.
He alleged that Tinubu’s administration focused only on developing the southern part of the country where he comes from.
The two-term former governor of Kano State and former defence minister, said, “Let me advise the federal government on the distribution of federal resources. From the information available to us, it is 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,” he said.
Kwankwaso said most of the roads in the North were in a deplorable condition, while the APC-led government continues to allocate huge budgetary allocations to infrastructure development in the South.
“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,” Kwankwaso said.
He urged the Tinubu administration to ensure equitable distribution of 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. I’m
