The Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has tackled world’s second richest man, Bill Gates, over his comment on Nigeria’s economy.
At a special and expanded National Economic Council (NEC) meeting on Thursday, Gates said that the the economic and recovery growth plan (ERGP) of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration does not reflect the needs of Nigerians.
He said, “The Nigerian government’s economic recovery and growth plan identify investing in our people as one of three strategic objectives. But the execution priorities don’t fully reflect people’s needs, prioritising physical capital over human capital.”
The Microsoft founder said that this misplacement of priority will put a cap on how far the nation’s economy could grow.
However, el-Rufai said that the ERGP had enough provisions for human capital development, adding that all that was needed for it to succeed was for state governments to adopt similar plans.
The Kaduna governor reiterated that no adjustment to the ERGP was necessary.
El-Rufai said, “On the review of ERGP as suggested by Gates, it is not correct to say that the economic recovery and growth plan does not give primacy to human capital. It is not correct.
“The economic recovery and growth plan has enough provision for human capital. It is a federal government plan. What is needed is for states to have similar plans as well as adequate provisions for healthcare and education.
“Because the bulk of the burden for healthcare and education really rests on states governments. The disease burden of the country is largely at the primary healthcare level and this primary healthcare system is broken completely. We need to rebuild it.
“It is the responsibility of the states rather than the federal government. The federal government incentivise with funding, grants and aids. But essentially, routine immunisation, primary healthcare, is the responsibility of the states.
“So it is not gaps in the ERGP that we are looking at, it is appealing to states governments to provide more money in basic education, primary healthcare. It is not the ERGP that needs adjustments, it is the budgeting that needs to be ramped up in these two key areas because these are where the problems are.
“If a child looses quality education, he is done for life. If a child doesn’t get quality healthcare in the first two years, he is destroyed for life. This is the message that we invest more at the lower level, so that we prevent this disaster from happening.”
The ERGP was launched by Buhari in 2017 to wrest Nigeria from recession.