By Bashir Mohammed
Kano
Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Mr. Udoma Udo Udoma, has described Kano as “a veritable launch-pad” for assessing the nation’s economic growth.
He added that the World Bank indices in assessing growth took Kano into cognisance in ascertaining whether Nigeria was in good shape economically.
Speaking at the opening of the Kano Second Economic and Investment Summit held at the Coronation Hall, Kano Government House, yesterday, Udoma said the President Muhammadu Buhari administration had “inherited a myriad of economic woes as a result of the abysmal crash in the price of oil globally and the destructive tendencies of the pipeline vandals in the Niger-Delta Region which has made the exploration of crude oil being exported abroad, almost an impossible task.”
He said with the bold steps taken by the Buhari administration to address the rot and restore confidence in the minds of foreign multi-national companies willing to invest in Nigeria’s economy, the federal government had demonstrated its seriousness to bail the country out of the appalling economic mess.
Udoma said when Kano was sick economically, “it has the domino effect on the nation’s economy generally as posited by the indices of assessing growth by the World Bank,” stressing that the federal government conceived the idea of given bail out to states for them to survive the pains of recession.
He said the 2016 budget of the Buhari administration was premised on the pedestal of a strategic action plan geared to focusing attention on “critical sectors of human development such as agriculture, education, electricity and the creation of millions of jobs for the teeming unemployed youths,” adding that with the stunning result recorded so far, “Nigeria can be said to be out of recession.”
He said the federal government had injected substantial fund into the 2017 budget with the aimed of reviving the moribund Kano free trade Zone, pointing out that with the strategic importance of Kano as a sprawling commercial nerve centre in the country there was the compelling need for supporting Kano to forge ahead.
In his remarks, Kano state Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, said the essence of convening the summit was to purposefully convince the outside world that the climate of foreign investment in Kano was strong enough to ginger their confidence that the safety of their investment could be guaranteed.
In his welcome address, the chairman, Local Organising Committee for the Summit, Dr Shamsuddeen Usman, said the Committee had done a thorough job in ensuring that nothing was left to chance in achieving the desired goal.
He added that it was time the North woke up from its slumber and brace up to the gruelling economic challenges for posterity to be ensured.
