By; FUNMI ADERINTO, Kaduna
The Governor of Kaduna State, Senator Uba Sani on Monday, said that Google which is one of the leading companies in the world, has decided to partner with Kaduna Government by training 5,000 women.
The governor stated this when he met with the Senior citizens who came to Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, in Kaduna to discuss matters that bring growth and development to the state.
Senator Uba Sani thanked the respected elders for taking their time to be there, saying, “this is our second meeting, the first meeting was two months ago, we had a very frank discussion here, and after that meeting, we became extremely committed to most of the things we resolved.”
According to him, “that meeting gave us some of the encouragement and also addressing some of the key problems our state is facing at the moment.
“I will like to share with you some of the steps we’ve taken in various areas from education to healthcare, security, our promise to address rural infrastructural development in our state, as well as supporting our small businesses.
“Generally, we also look at the position of Kaduna State in terms of the statistics and how we can be able to address the problem of poverty in our state,” he said.
Senator Uba Sani pointed out, “we believe the current statistics is unacceptable, our rural areas at the moment are facing serious crisis, 85 per cent of those living in the rural areas are living below the poverty line and that is unacceptable in a state like Kaduna.
“Consequently, for us, we alone in government cannot address it, we need the support of everyone, most especially our elders to put heads together with government in addressing those problems.
“Ater our meeting, I proceeded by being the first governor in Nigeria to sign executive order to be able to address financial inclusion in our state.
“The statistics from the Central Bank and NDIC clearly show that, in Kaduna, about 70 per cent of those living in rural areas are financially excluded and by implication, we are having about 2.5 million people that are vulnerable, who are underserved because they are financial excluded completely.
“Certainly it is the reason why we are having 85 per cent of people living below poverty line, and because of that, we became very proactive and I signed executive order to ensure that at least one million are captured.
“If we don’t do that, most of the social support, federal government approach to looking at social register, they will miss out.
“The social intervention by the federal government which of course in the past, the record before us clearly shows that most of this interventions went to the wrong people, because the right people are financially excluded.
“In the next few weeks, we will come up with those captured as they will benefit from all the support from the state and federal government.
“How do we address the SDGs goals. When I accompanied Mr President to the United Nations, I was fortunate to be among the two governors in Nigeria that sat by the president, I took that as an opportunity to also make case for Kaduna State with President Bola Tinubu. Virtually all the developing countries in the world have similar problems that is why the leaders spoke in one voice.
“We as the sub national, governors and presidents believe that we have to look at how we will partner to bring investments into our own state, because of the efforts here in Kaduna, some of the partners have began to support our own state particularly the Qatar Charity fund, they have decided to build economic city in Kaduna at least 500 thousand underserved, underprivileged and poor will benefit with houses free and they are going to build two boreholes in every ward, 255 boreholes that translate to 600 boreholes built free.
“Also, they are going to sponsor 5,000 orphans. I am calling on you our elders that the right people are to benefit, hence government will share most things with you.
