Rabiu Kwankwaso, former governor of Kano, has accused the federal government of concentrating resources in one part of the country while neglecting other regions.
The presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) in the 2023 elections spoke on Thursday at the Kano state stakeholders’ dialogue on the 2025 constitutional amendment.
Kwankwaso said mismanagement of resources at the national, state, and local levels has worsened poverty and insecurity, especially in the north.
“I believe the issues we face today in this country, particularly in this part of the country, have to do with the mismanagement of resources by leaders at the national and state levels, and even at local government levels,” he said.
“We have seen situations where our members were given the opportunity to truly represent their constituents, but, unfortunately, on many occasions, they were compromised.
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“We have seen situations where the rich in the country work so hard to raise large sums of money to bribe members of the national assembly, especially those representing us, and, as a result, we now have a tilted arrangement in terms of resource sharing in the country.”
The former governor asked legislators to take a stand when voting on the proposed amendment.
Kwankwaso also criticised what he described as a “lopsided allocation of the national budget”.
“From the information available to us, it seems most of the national budget is now tilting to one direction in this country,” he said.
“Yesterday, I was supposed to travel by air. Unfortunately, my airline shifted our departure from 3 pm to 8 pm, so I had to travel by road.
“From Abuja to Kaduna to Kano, the road was terrible—very bad. This is a road that was started many years ago, right from the beginning of APC’s leadership.
“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 when government takes our resources and dumps them in one part of the country, leaving other parts behind, I don’t believe that is the right thing to do.
“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.”
