…Commends el-rufai For Steps To Develop Kaduna
The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Mohammed Sa’ad III, on Wednesday urged Nigerians to vote out those governors that are building airports and other white elephant projects against the provision of basic amenities for the people comes 2019 elections.
In his goodwill message at the second edition of the Kaduna Investment and Economic Summit organised by the Kaduna State government in Kaduna,Sultan,warned political leaders to focus on projects that would better the lives of ordinary Nigerians and not the programmes that only benefit the elites.
Sultan advised elected political leaders to keep politics aside and focus more on development issues that will improve the living condition of the masses.
He decried that some governors were constructing airports and other white elephant projects that have no use to the common people who massively voted them instead of fixing the poor condition of roads and provision of basic infrastructure.
Sultan said:”So let’s put the building of airports and other white elephant projects aside and face issues that will bring water, food, good health, peace, security and make people go about freely without molestation.
“Therefore, let’s do politics of development, because I know very, very soon, 2019 is around the corner” the traditional ruler said. We will use our votes to vote out those governors that refused to work for us. If you think 2019 is far, it is not far, it is very much around
the corner” he maintained.
Sultan who commended Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s programmes aimed at developing Kaduna State said all must come together to make Kaduna which is the headquarters of northern region great.
According to Sultan: “I have always talked about programmes that will touch the lives of the common man in the village, on the streets pushing trucks, carrying water to sell to survive.
“We want programmes that will touch the lives of these people, not programmes that will touch lives of the elites alone. There are governors building airports worth billions of naira while our roads are a death trap. Governors building airports when we don’t have functional clinics. Governors are building airports just for their private jets.
“I want to assure our political leaders that when we advised them, we do so with the fear of Almighty Allah, because if we don’t advise them, we will account for our own actions.
“Therefore, my fellow citizens of the world, for those governors that work for us, we will vote them back, for those that have not work for us, we will tell them to go back home and learn how to govern us better and try their luck next time” the traditional ruler said.
Sultan noted that the project must succeed, emphasising that “we don’t have any other option than to make sure that this project being put together by the Kaduna state governor succeeds and for this to succeed, there must be peace. Nobody will invest in a place where there is instability”
On his part the emir of Kano and former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN), Muhammadu Sanusi II, said that cultural and religious dogma that is not in tune with the realities in the rest of the Muslim world has contributed to the backwardness of the north.
The emir his address with the theme ‘promoting investments in the midst of economic challenges’, said the north needs to understand the root cause of its problems.
Sanusi said the north should invest more in education, health care, noting that “ we are in denial, the north west and the north east demographically constitutes the bulk of Nigeria’s population