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From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani has said that the Northern region has the human resources required to address its development challenges if its elites work together with unity of purpose.
Sani stated this when the leadership of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), led by its Board of Trustees’ chairman, Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu, visited him at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, yesterday.
He said that in spite of years of identifying issues, such as poverty, education gaps and healthcare deficits, the time had come for northern leaders to move from complaint to action.
“We have many successful Northern professionals across different fields, including business, academia, medicine, entrepreneurship and others. The missing link is bringing everyone together,” he said.
The Governor said the ACF was well positioned to help the region harness the expertise and resources of its leading figures for the benefit of the population.
He commended the forum’s plan to establish a central endowment fund and advised that skills acquisition and economic empowerment should be prioritised to make citizens more self-reliant.
He expressed concern over the high level of financial exclusion in the North, stating that many people lacked bank accounts and were unable to access the government’s social intervention programmes.
The governor recalled that one of his first actions in office was signing the Executive Order on Financial Inclusion, through which more than 2.1 million poor residents had been onboarded into the formal financial system within one year.
He also urged Northern businessmen to invest more in the financial sector to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs), saying many local government areas had no bank branches.
“Today, there are over 4,000 branches of national banks in Nigeria. But, only Kaduna and Kano have about 100 branches between them.
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“Some southern states with far smaller populations have more branches than Kano, which has 44 LGAs,” he said.
He described ACF as a neutral platform capable of addressing many of the region’s challenges, adding that its lack of synergy with Northern governments and political office holders in the past had limited its impact.
He, however, commended the forum’s renewed efforts to build unity.
He also praised the ACF for initiating engagement with other regional socio-cultural organisations, such as Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo, to promote trust, understanding and national cohesion.
Earlier, Dalhatu said the delegation visited the governor to formally notify him of the forum’s 25th anniversary celebration scheduled to hold in Kaduna on Thursday and Saturday.
He thanked the Kaduna State Government for allocating a permanent office space to the forum, saying it was the first time the ACF had operated from a property it owned outright.
Dalhatu said Vice-President Kashim Shettima would attend the anniversary as the special guest, adding that ministers from the North had also indicated interest to attend the event.
“As chief host, your excellency, we seek your support to invite your colleagues to give the celebration weight and harness opportunities for meaningful exchange of ideas,” he added.
He disclosed that the forum had visited key traditional rulers, including the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, engaged leaders in the National Assembly and Mosques’ leadership across the region.
He said Alhaji Aliko Dangote would serve as the guest speaker and had been given the option to speak on any topic, including his personal journey, which he described as a source of inspiration.
He added that the ACF had resolved to establish an endowment fund to transition from advocacy to implementing tangible, community based projects aimed at improving social and economic conditions in the North.01
