If Nigeria is broken into components, North will be poorest – Emir of Kano

Emir of Kano

Emir of Kano, Sanusi Muhammad II noted that if Nigeria were to break up into different region today, the Northern part would be the poorest countries in the world.

The Prominent Monarch said this in his address at the opening ceremony of Kaduna State’s Investment and Economic summit (KADINVEST), entitled ‘Promoting Investment Amidst Economic Challenges’ in Kaduna state on April 5, 2017.

Emir insisted that it would be a disaster to use the standard of living of Nigerians living in oil rich Niger Delta or commercially workable Lagos and business oriented south-east, to compare that of those in the North.

According to Sanusi, the North East and North West regions are the poorest regions in Nigeria and even globally.

He said: "As far back at 2000, I looked at the numbers, Borno and Yobe states, UNDP figures, Borno and Yobe states, if they were a country on their own, were poorer than Niger, Cameroon and Chad.

“Nobody saw this because we were looking at Nigeria as a country that averages the oil-rich Niger Delta, the industrial and commercial-rich Lagos, the commercially viable southeast, and you have an average.

“Break Nigeria into its component parts, and these parts of the country are among the poorest, if it were a country.

“And we do not realise we are in trouble.”

"Other Muslim countries have pushed on. We are fighting culture, we are fighting civilisation. You tell me that you should not write love book in northern Nigerian. What is the crime of those books?” Sanusi Asked.

He condemned the burning of science books in some parts of the Northern region owed to religious beliefs.

Speaking on the culture of marrying more than one wife and producing children without proper Family planning, the emir asked: “Of what benefit is it to the north, having three million children roaming about?”