Former House of Representatives member Hon. Bamidele Faparusi has criticized former Kano State Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso for allegedly accusing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of favoring Southern Nigeria in the projects his administration was carrying out.
A leader of the All Progressives Congress named Faparusi punctuated the assertion by asserting that the North was given much more preference under President Tinubu’s administration when it came to project implementation, much more so than the Southwest, where a major federal road connecting the two regions is currently in appalling shape.
At an event on Friday, the former governor of Kano State and leader of the New Nigerian Peoples Party claimed that President Tinubu’s initiatives favored the southern region of the country over the northern one, a claim that sparked outrage across the country.
When the entire Southwest federal roads, aside from the Ibadan-Lagos Highway, are dotted with craters and gorges, Faparusi said in a statement in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday that numerous road projects, including the Kaduna-Abuja, Katsina-Kano, Sokoto-Katsina, and Sokoto-Badagry super highways, were being undertaken throughout the North.
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Faparusi explained that he was not advocating for a president to be biased against any part of the nation, but that it was clear to all Nigerians that throughout his eight years in office, the late President Muhammadu Buhari gave preference to the North in appointments and projects.
The former legislator pleaded with Tinubu’s administration to take notice of the terrible condition of the federal roads in the Southwest, particularly in Ekiti State, where all 12 of them had collapsed and turned into driving boot traps.
The North is receiving a greater portion of project attention under President Tinubu’s administration, and His Excellency Rabiu Kwankwaso ought to be aware of this.
“There is abundant evidence that the major highways in the Southwest, including Ado-Akure, Lagos-Abeokuta, Ekiti-Lokoja, Ibadan-Akure highway, Osogbo-Ibadan, Ibadan-Abeokuta, and many others, are currently impassable for drivers.”
He challenged the projects carried out in each of the federal government’s geopolitical initiatives to further support his claim, and he requested Kwankwaso to defend the president’s stance on his accusations.
The head of the APC threw down the gauntlet to Kwankwaso, asking him to provide reliable statistics to persuade Nigerians that his assertion was sincere and truthful.
“The trajectory of President Tinubu’s political history was free of unwarranted ethnicity,” Faparusi continued, adding that his cabinet as governor of Lagos State was dubbed a “mini Nigeria” since it had members of various ethnic nations.
Kwankwaso made the statement, according to the former Federal legislator, to inexpensively win over Northern voters, especially now that he mistakenly believes he is the political leader of the North following the death of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“This statement was filled with hatred that President Tinubu’s projects favor the South.” Rabiu Kwankwaso, the former governor of Kano State, could not be stopped by the projects the president and the minister of works presented, unless he could refute the facts.
Because of President Buhari’s passing, the NNPP leader has mistakenly begun to pose as the political leader of the North. I want to warn him to cease acting recklessly.
“If you want to lead, be a responsible person who can bring people together and avoid causing division by saying hurtful things.
Rabiu Kwankwaso, His Excellency, ought to be aware of his desperate attempts to become President of Nigeria, not only the Northern extraction.
President Tinubu chose members of his cabinet from a wide range of ethnic origins when serving as governor of Lagos State. As a pan-Nigerian, he demonstrated it. Even though he didn’t act in an ethnically biased manner as a governor, how can he suddenly appear to be doing so as president? “What?” Faparusi inquired.
Most of the well-known and outspoken Northern critics, Faparusi added, have never accused President Tinubu of favoring the South in the execution of projects; instead, their main grievance has always been that the withdrawal of fuel subsidies has hurt that region of the country more than the south.
