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From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullai Sule, has said that he was influenced to go into politics by President Muhammadu Buhari, even though it was never his intention to do so going on his return to the country from the United States.
He made the disclosure Tuesday at the opening of the 4th Nigerian Diaspora Investment Summit 2021 orgainsied by Nigeria Diaspora Summit Initiative (NDIS) and Nigerian in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), with the theme “Diaspora partnership and Linkages for post-Covid Economic Growth”.
The Governor explained that his initial notion was to stay clear of politics as politicians were not honest enough, he however had a change of heart after a video about Buhari, an incorruptible man coming into politics.
Sule said he was however persuaded to go into politics by an advert that says politics should not be left for bad people.
He said, “I am actually one of you. Went to school in Indiana, USA and I moved to Chicago and then Texas where I had most of my working life.
“When I made the decision to leave the oil and gas sector in the US and return to Nigeria, at the time we came, we set up a company and I knew how difficult it is to set up an institution in Nigeria. We set up a company called Sodiq Petroleum Nigeria Limited. From there we participated and bought AP and I became the Managing Director of AP and after six years in AP, I went to become the Managing Director of Dangote and then became Group Managing Director and three years ago, I left to become a governor.
“I didn’t leave the US to come to Nigeria to become a governor. As a matter of fact, I hated politics. I thought politicians were not honest enough for me to join politics. That was my idea until I saw that video where El-Rufai said, “if good people say we are not interested in politics, at the end of the day, those that are going to go in are the bad people and they are the people to be our leaders. What do you say about president Muhammadu Buhari, an incorruptible individual in Nigeria, who had decided to go into politics. If he says he is not going into politics because it is bad, how are we going to get somebody like Muhammadu Buhari. So I took a challenge from that kind of video and here I am.”
On the investment front, he said Nasarawa state remains an investment destination because of its proximity to the Federal capital City; “is fortunate to have the longest boundary with the federal capital.”
He also explained that the state has the market and so it is the right place to invest as Nigerians in the diaspora move away from remittance to investment.
“You know a lot of us spend so much time remitting funds to people back home and a lot of these people don’t know how hard Nigerians actually work, when you go to the medical centre in Houston and see Nigerians, doctors working as nurses and some driving taxes. Nigerians do so much to survive and we send that money to Nigeria and sometimes we don’t know where that money is going into and it is very painful. So it is time for Nigerians to start deviating from that angle of doing things down to this direction of investment and there are several areas to invest in.”
