Emir of Kano Sanusi Lamido Sanusi ll has said the northern region is at the verge of destroying itself, if the leadership attitude does not change.
He sounded this warning to northern Nigerian leaders while speaking in Kaduna on February 17 during an event to commemorate the 60th birthday celebration of governor of the state, Nasir el-Rufai.
Emir Sanusi expressed that real development will continue to elude the North except the leaders rise up and do the right thing.
He said;
The real change in the North will come from those considered mad people because you look around and say if this is the way we have been doing things, and this is where we have ended up, maybe we need to do things differently.
The Emir added that;
If the North does not change, it will destroy itself. The country is moving on. If we don’t listen, there would be a day when there would be a constitutional amendment that addresses these issues of quota system and federal character. The rest of the country cannot be investing, educating its children, producing graduates and then they watch us, they can’t get jobs because they come from the wrong state, when we have not invested in the future of our own children.
The outspoken ruler, who was a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria expressed that;
When we talk about birthday, we talk about happiness. Just last week, someone asked me, are you happy? And I said I am not. And the person was surprised. No leader in Northern Nigeria can afford to be happy with the current situation today with about 87 per cent of poverty in Nigeria being in the region.
He noted that the North has millions of out-of-school children with nine states in the North contributing almost 50 per cent of the entire malnutrition burden in the country.
In his words, the Emir stated that;
You can’t be happy with the drug problem, you can’t be happy with the Boko Haram problem. You can’t be happy with political thuggery. You can’t be happy with all the issues; the Almajiri problem that we have. We have been saying this for 20 to 30 years. If the North does not change, the North will destroy itself. The country is moving on. Quota system that everybody talks about must have a sunset clause.
Emir Sanusi also said the real change in the North will come from those who are considered crazy and who would do things differently.
