The Emir spoke at a lecture he delivered on the occasion of the graduation and annual lecture of the Katsina Vocational Training Centre.
Agaju Madugba, Katsina
The Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, has blamed Boko Haram insurgency and other security challenges across the country on poverty and poor ideology among youths, due to lack of access to quality education.
Emir Sanusi, particularly, lamented the ranking of northern Nigeria as harbouring “the poorest population” in the country and attributed the development to what he described as “corruption and bad governance.
“The 10 poorest states with more than 50 per cent of their population as destitute are, Borno, Kano, Taraba, Gombe, Katsina, Sokoto, Jigawa, Kebbi, Bauchi and Zamfara, which has the highest of population as destitute, 74.1,” Sanusi said yesterday, in Katsina.
The Emir spoke at a lecture he delivered on the occasion of the graduation and annual lecture of the Katsina Vocational Training Centre.
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In the lecture tagged: “Youth, security and national development in Nigeria,” Sanusi warned that Nigeria may not be able to overcome certain threats to national security, unless the authorities address the twin issues of ideology and lack of access to quality education.
On the question of poverty level, Sanusi said, “the national percentage is 34 per cent, but, no state in the South has 30 per cent. The highest percentage in the South is Ebonyi State, with 26.6 per cent.
“The best state in the North is Kwara, with seven per cent, and it ranks 10th in the country. The best in the country is Lagos State with 1.3 per cent. Therefore, the bulk of the poorest people (destitute) in Nigeria are concentrated in Northern Nigeria.
“Many of the security challenges Nigeria is facing are as a result non-involvement of youths in the productive sector of the economy.
“The insurgents in the North East and the Niger Delta regions recruit youths, who cannot be productive to society because of their ideology or lack of education.
“Most of those who joined the insurgents are economically disadvantaged. This threat to national security cannot also be overcome, unless issues of ideology and lack of access to quality education are addressed.
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“Corruption and bad governance are prevalent in some states of Nigeria; this, invariably, affects the quality of education, science and vocational education and other aspirations of the youths.
“But, why is poverty not evenly distributed? The simple reason is that the people in the southern states give high priority to education at private and community levels.
“In most of the North, people depend on the state to fund education. For example, there are less than 500,000 pupils in public primary schools in Lagos State, and almost 3 million in Kano State, with an estimated one million roaming the streets as beggars. This means that most parents in Lagos State sponsor their children.
“Since independence, Nigeria has been overtaken by other countries that were behind it in the 1960s, especially the Asian countries; South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia, not to talk of other tigers, such as Taiwan and Singapore.
“Although these countries are more homogeneous than Nigeria, they took a developmental path which was more realistic, while Nigeria remained trapped in the natural resource quagmire. Hence, many youths have remained unemployed because the rate of economic growth is lower than the rate of population growth.”