Former Kano State Governor and 2023 presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, has accused the administration of President Bola Tinubu of neglecting Northern Nigeria while disproportionately allocating national resources to the southern region, the president’s home base. Speaking on Thursday at the Kano State Stakeholders’ Dialogue on the 2025 Constitutional Amendment, Kwankwaso criticized the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for what he described as a lopsided distribution of federal funds.
“From the information available to us, it’s like most of the national budget is now tilting in one direction in this country,” Kwankwaso said, warning that such imbalances contribute to insecurity and poverty, particularly in the North. “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.”
Highlighting the poor state of infrastructure in the North, Kwankwaso recounted his recent experience traveling by road from Abuja to Kaduna and Kano due to a delayed flight. “It was a hell. Terrible. Very bad road,” he said, noting that the road, initiated years ago under APC leadership, remains in deplorable condition. In contrast, he pointed to significant budgetary allocations for infrastructure projects, such as roads connecting the South to the East, while northern roads languish.
“We support infrastructure anywhere in this country, but a situation where the government is taking our resources and dumping them 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 stated.
He urged the Tinubu administration to adopt a more equitable approach to resource distribution to foster balanced development across Nigeria. “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,” he said.
Kwankwaso’s remarks underscore growing concerns over regional disparities in federal resource allocation, as stakeholders gather to discuss constitutional amendments ahead of the 2027 elections.
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