North has no reason to be poor – Lawan
By Haruna Salami
The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan has decried the high rate of poverty in the northern part of the country.
He said recently the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) stated that about 133 million Nigerians live below the poverty line and most of them are from the northern part of the country and even in the northern part, they are at the fringes in Borno, Yobe, Jigawa, Kano, Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi.
Lawan said: “I believe we have no reason to be that poor. The government, not only this one, but previous administrations too have not invested sufficiently in livestock development in Nigeria.
He refused to be convinced that government shouldn’t fund livestock development because it is a private business.
He said: “What can be more private than banking. Someone will set up a bank, collect people’s money, chop the money, ground the bank then Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) will put it on everybody’s head. That is callous”.
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“If you have problem in Borno, Sokoto, Kebbi someone in Boni, Rivers state who may be enjoying prosperity may be affected. May be they would have been in better prosperity. So, we need to invest in livestock development. This is an industry that has a potential of over N33 trillion and yet the people who are in the place where the livestock are supposed to be are the poorest. Why?
Lawan who spoke with journalists while celebrating his 64th birthday in Abuja also frown at the level of borrowing to fund government expenditures.
He thinks “we have to work hard to improve on revenue generation/collection because it is not looking sustainable that we tolerate people, agencies of government to misapply or not even declare the revenues they collect. We can’t continue with that.
“For us in the Senate, we have decided that for the remaining part, we will continue to engage with revenue generating agencies until we get better outcomes from them. This is imperative.
“Also the concessions and the waivers that government has given to some companies and individuals, we need to review them. Now every kobo counts because we are in a very difficult situation. Where waivers cannot be justified anymore because of our present circumstance, then such waiver should be reversed or renegotiated, but definitely we need to work hard on revenue generation and collection by the MDAs”.
The observed that was his last birthday that he will celebrate talking to press as Senate President.
