Former Governor of Kano State and 2023 presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has accused the Bola Tinubu-led Federal Government of deliberately sidelining the northern region in the distribution of national resources.
Speaking on Thursday at the Kano State Stakeholders’ Dialogue on the 2025 Constitutional Amendment, Kwankwaso expressed strong concerns over what he described as the uneven spread of infrastructural development, with a clear bias toward the southern part of the country.
He said, “From the information available to us, it’s like most of the national budget is now tilting in one direction in this country.”
Kwankwaso warned that attempts by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to concentrate federal spending in one part of the country could worsen insecurity and deepen poverty in the north.
Naijaonpoint reports that the former Governor said, “Let me advise those who are struggling by all means to take everything to remember that some of the issues that we have in this part of the country today have to do with the lack of enough resources and mismanagement of the little that comes in.
“That is why we have insecurity, we have poverty and so on. It is happening here mainly, but like a desert, it would go everywhere.”
The former Defence Minister also lamented the state of critical infrastructure in the North, citing the Abuja-Kano highway as an example of neglect under successive administrations led by the APC.
He said, “Yesterday, I was to come by air, but unfortunately, my airline shifted the takeoff from 3 pm to 8 pm. I had to come by road. From Abuja to Kaduna to Kano was a hell. Terrible. Very bad road.
“This is a road started many years ago, right from the beginning of the leadership of the APC.”
While acknowledging the importance of development in other regions, Kwankwaso cautioned against abandoning some zones in the name of progress.
He said, “We support infrastructure anywhere in this country…but a situation where government is taking our resources and dumping it in one part of the country while other parts are left just like that, I don’t believe that is the right thing to do.”
Kwankwaso urged President Tinubu to embrace equity in governance and assure Nigerians that his administration is not skewed in favour of his region.
He added, “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.”