The Sultan of Sokoto Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, and Northern governors yesterday called for drastic measures to tackle hunger, joblessness, and insecurity.
The revered monarch, who spoke at the sixth executive committee meeting of the Northern Traditional Rulers Council, which he chairs, said the region was sitting on a keg of gunpowder with youth unemployment.
The meeting had the theme: “Enhanced security as the panacea for stability and development of the North.”
Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani expressed concern about worsening insecurity, saying the North must unite to arrest the situation.
The Sultan, flanked by the Emir of Kano Alhaji Aminu Ado Bayero and the Emir of Katsina Alhaji Abdulmumini Kabir, said: “Insecurity and the rising level of poverty are two issues that we cannot fold our arms about and think everything is okay.
“I have said it so many times and at so many fora that things are not okay in Nigeria and in the North.
“We owe it a duty to the teeming millions of people that believe in the traditional institution, to bring solutions to the various problems facing them. We will not fail in doing that. We will do our best.
“I have said so many times that we don’t lack solutions to our problems. What we lack is implementation.
“We meet and bring out so many beautiful ideas on how to solve our problems; but we go back to our various places and go to bed, leaving such solutions here in this conference hall. So, how do we implement them?”
