The Emir of Kano, Mallam Muhammadu Sanus II has blamed the nation's economic woes on what he termed briefcase billionaires and illiteracy. Sanusi made this known on Thursday while making a presentation at the end of a three-day Northern Regional Conference on Security, Justice and Development: Effective implementation of intervention measures,’ organized by Prisoners Rehabilitation and Welfare Action.
In his speech, the Emir said the culture of allowing people to become millionaire without working or requisite investment was disastrous for the nation's economy.
“When people just get wealth they didn’t work for, what that signifies was that, many injustices were permeating round many quarters of the society, meaning there is something wrong in the system that was put in place for a very long time of our national history.
How many of our briefcase billionaires can show you their business plants and the number of people they employ in their companies? The companies are non-existent in the first place. So, what are we talking about?” he queried. He said if the situation is not addressed, more Nigerians would become impoverished.
We need to build an economy that looks at people; not that which further creates gaps, unimagined gaps between people. You cannot call this capitalism either. It is through such kind of arrangements that end up in creating an insecure society. We all created the insecurity we are suffering from. Justice is one of the key and fundamental issues that can address our predicaments.”
He also called on the government to address the issue of illiteracy as education could assist the country in resolving the issue of poverty and economic stagnation.
“Our children are suffering from malnutrition, illiteracy; our women are suffering from poor health care delivery. We created our insecurity ourselves. We have nobody to blame but ourselves. So, whenever we talk of poverty we need to look at the nature of our economy. We need to ask ourselves the kind of society we are producing.”
