Kaduna State Governor, Nasiru El-Rufai, has described the Northern part of Nigeria as backward, uneducated and unhealthy.

He said during the Northern Youth Summit, on Saturday, that the region has made Nigeria a country of nations.

His words: “Looking at the statistics, Nigeria appears to be a middle income country, but if we segregate those statistics across states and zones, you will see that in terms human development indicators, Nigeria consist of two countries; there is a backward, less educated and unhealthy Northern Nigeria and a developing, largely educated and healthy southern Nigeria.

We have to speak the truth to ourselves and ask why is it that, northern Nigeria has development indicators similar to Afghanistan, a country still at war.

Nigeria has the largest number of poor people in the world, most of them in northern Nigeria. Nigeria also has the largest number of out of school children, virtually all of them in Northern Nigeria.

Northern Nigeria has become the centre of drug abuse, gender violence, banditry, kidnapping and terrorism. We have also been associated with high divorce rate and breakdown of families.

We must therefore as leaders at all levels have conversation about the way forward for our part of the country, because increasingly, as many of you must have seen on social media, we are being considered as the parasite of the federal economy, even though, that is not entirely true.

This is because Northern Nigeria still feeds the nation. The richest businessman in Nigeria is still Aliko Dangote not someone from Southern Nigeria, thank God for that.”

He however noted that in spite of the negative statistics, northerners are generally considered to be more honest and less corrupt than other Nigerians.

“That is something we should be proud of,” he added.