Tinubu not marginalising any zone in the North, Uba Sani counters Kwankwaso

Kaduna State Governor, Senator Uba Sani, has dismissed claims that President Bola Tinubu’s administration is marginalising the North in favour of the South when it comes to federal project allocations.

Speaking after a closed-door meeting with Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, over the weekend, Governor Sani stressed that northern Nigeria is adequately represented in the current administration, referencing several key appointments.

He also urged northern leaders and stakeholders to shift focus to human capital development, education, and healthcare, areas he identified as the region’s most pressing challenges.

Addressing earlier concerns raised by Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) regarding perceived imbalance, Sani said: “We all agree that no zone in the North was marginalised on the basis of facts, data and statistics. But of course, a lot of people speculated that northern Nigeria was marginalised.

“You cannot be talking about marginalisation when you have the Minister of Defence, both the main Minister and Minister of State, they’re all from northern Nigeria.

“The National Security Adviser is from northern Nigeria, the Chief of Defence Staff is from northern Nigeria, the Chief of Air Staff, even the Controller of Immigration, she’s from northern Nigeria. So, for me, you cannot be talking about marginalisation.”

The governor referenced a recent northern stakeholders’ summit held in Kaduna, describing it as historic.

He said, “It was a meeting that, for me, was very important, was critical, and of course, it was commendable, because that was the first time in the history of our country where about 80 members of the government from northern Nigeria would come together, sit down in one room, invited all the major stakeholders to come together and discuss holistically the problem of northern Nigeria.”

Sani argued that rather than perceived political exclusion, the real issues in the North are developmental.

“The most important area we need to address in northern Nigeria is human capital development. Namely, there were a lot of children that are not in school.

“Today, we have a lot of problems in terms of issues of health care, child-maternal mortality rate in northern Nigeria is increasing, which is very worrisome. The issue of poverty is increasing,” he said.

Governor Sani also briefed the President on progress in Kaduna State, particularly in education, healthcare, and transportation.

He announced the commencement of a cancer centre at the 300-bed specialist hospital in Kaduna and highlighted progress on the Kaduna-Abuja road reconstruction project.

“We are working closely toward starting our library project in Kaduna to complement our BRT project that has started about six months ago.

“So we are partnering with the Federal Government [on] our library project and I came to greet Mr. President about the progress,” he explained.

On road infrastructure, he said: “We have already discussed with Minister of Works (Dave Umahi), because the Federal Executive Council has also allocated some money for the project… we’re looking at finishing it even within eight months, because of the importance of the project and the importance of that road.”

Speaking on security, the governor noted the recruitment of 7,000 vigilance personnel and emphasized the need for a holistic strategy.

“They have really helped us in the issue of intelligence gathering and sharing… the issue of security, we cannot win it using kinetic approach.

“Mostly we need non-kinetic approach to address it, because the pull ups [of] insecurity in the Northwest is more of an economic issue.

“So we need to be able to extend some support, social economic intervention to the people at the grassroots level, particularly in the rural areas,” he said.

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