{"id":19373,"date":"2019-07-07T09:22:57","date_gmt":"2019-07-07T09:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=19373"},"modified":"2019-07-07T09:22:57","modified_gmt":"2019-07-07T09:22:57","slug":"el-rufai-nigeria-is-two-countries-with-a-backward-less-educated-and-unhealthy-north-and-a-developing-largely-educated-and-healthy-southern-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=19373","title":{"rendered":"El Rufai: Nigeria is two countries with a backward, less educated and unhealthy North and a developing, largely educated and healthy southern Nigeria."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By <strong>Mohammad Tijjani<\/strong> (<strong>NAN<\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasiru El-Rufa\u2019i, on Saturday described the Northern part of Nigeria as backward, uneducated and unhealthy.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">El-Rufa\u2019i said during the Northern Youth Summit organized by Northern Hibiscus Initiative in Kaduna, that the region has made Nigeria a country of nations.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cLooking at the statistics, Nigeria appears to be a middle income country, but if we segregate those statistics across states and zones, you will see that in terms human development indicators, Nigeria consist of two countries; there is a backward, less educated and unhealthy Northern Nigeria and a developing, largely educated and healthy southern Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe theme of this summit, \u2018Awakening the Arewa Spirit\u2019 is very timely. When we talk about awakening the spirit, it means the spirit is either sleeping or dead.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have to speak the truth to ourselves and ask why is it that, northern Nigeria has development indicators similar to Afghanistan, a country still at war.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNigeria has the largest number of poor people in the world, most of them in northern Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNigeria also has the largest number of out of school children, virtually all of them in Northern Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNorthern Nigeria has become the centre of drug abuse, gender violence, banditry, kidnapping and terrorism.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have also been associated with high divorce rate and breakdown of families.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThese are the challenges that confront us. This is the naked truth that we have to tell ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe must therefore as leaders at all levels have conversation about the way forward for our part of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBecause increasingly, as many of you must have seen on social media, we are being considered as the parasite of the federal economy, even though, that is not entirely true.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis is because Northern Nigeria still feeds the nation. The richest business man in Nigeria is still Aliko Dangote not someone from Southern Nigeria, thank God for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He however noted that in spite of the negative statistics, northerners are generally considered to be more honest and less corrupt than other Nigerians.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat is something we should be proud of.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn addition, our demographic superiority gives us a very powerful tool to negotiate in politics and that is something we should be proud of and we should preserve. So, we have every reason to unite and not be divided.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSo, we still have a lot to be proud of. We should be proud of our culture and tradition, as well as unity.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou hardly can find someone from Northern Nigeria convicted of 419 or being a Yahoo boy. That is something we should be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">El-Rufa\u2019i said youth account for 80 per cent of the northern population as such the future of the region lies in their hands, \u201cnot in the hands of Dinosaurs like me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to him, people of his age ought not to be in leadership if the youth will unite to assume their rightful place.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn my view, we are here to prepare the next generation of leaders. That is why the agenda for this summit is very important.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSo, you should take the panel discussions very seriously and come up with very clear and implementable decisions that you will circulate to all of us elected to lead in Northern Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He said that the outcome of the summit should be forwarded to the Chairman of Northern States Governors Forum.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have to do something about the situation of Northern Nigeria and we must do so as a group of 19 Governors, not individual state Governors.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI am however persuaded that, this gathering and its panel discussions will find solutions to the problems.\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">El-Rufa\u2019i appealed to the organizers to&nbsp; make it an annual event, assuring that the Kaduna State Government will be happy to partly sponsor it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Mohammad Tijjani (NAN) Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasiru El-Rufa\u2019i, on Saturday described the Northern part of Nigeria as backward, uneducated and unhealthy. El-Rufa\u2019i said during the Northern Youth Summit organized by Northern Hibiscus Initiative in Kaduna, that the region has made Nigeria a country of nations. \u201cLooking at the statistics, Nigeria appears to be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}