The Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, has called for foreign and local investors to come into the state to invest and grow the economy.

Governor Abdullahi Ganduje at the Flag off ceremony of the summit said it is expected that the summit will consider the current status of the Nigerian economy in coming up with a workable communique that will serve as guiding document for the state socio-economic development and progress.

Hundreds of people, traditional rulers including the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, politicians including the Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Ministers of Interior, Budget and National Planning as well businesses men and captains of industries converged on Kano Government House for the formal opening ceremony of the state second edition of economic summit and investments.

“It is also in commemoration of the 50 years anniversary of the commercial hub of the northern Nigerian state of Kano that will seek to define the future of the region’s economic opportunities and to suggest ways by which both foreign and domestic investors will help in reviving the state dwindling economy.

“As a government, we realised that without aggressive reforms to diversify the economy and boost internally generated revenue, all program and projects will remain share dreams, it is for this reasons that we are reducing our dependency on the federation account and adopted a revenue driven budgetary implementation.

“It is worthy no mention that since the inception of this administration our internally generated revenue base has improved from N15billion in 2015 to N40.3billion in 2016, the modest increase is associated with ongoing institutional reforms on the IGR as well as public financial management in the state,” said Governor Ganduje.

Resource persons, investment allies and traditional rulers in the north believed that diversifying the Kano political economy and indeed the northern region, in general, required a very good idea of trade and economic history of Kano and following the path of value creation to include doubling the right output of farmers by given them a real-time access to markets as a critical element of investments.

These people believed that an economic model that focuses on exports certainly misses the points, the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, believed that the problem with Nigeria is that “we intend to import what we can produce and export what we do not produce, so we are a crude oil producing country, we import petroleum product, we have huge and skin and we are importing shoes, we have cotton and import textiles, there is absolutely no reason for that.”

For the Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, the problem of diversifying the Nigerian economy has always been the difficulties in accessing funds meant for farmers which perhaps required a drastic intervention by the federal government and other donor agencies.

“Without funding, agricultural businesses cannot thrive and agriculture is one of the most important sectors of the economy that can up take the teaming youth and women that we have.”

Meanwhile, the Ministers of the Federal Ministry of Interior, Abdulrahaman Danbazau and that of the National Budget and Planning Mr Udoma Udo-Udoma, assured participants that presidential enabling business environment is working hard to ensure that the nation’s economy is stabilising through collaborations with various states government across the federation.

In the next two days to come, it is expected that these group of business men, investors and industrialists will come up with possible ways that will transform the Kano economy and turn its challenges into opportunities for the generality of Nigerians at home and abroad.

(Channels TV)

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