Ladies and Gentlemen,
I thank you very much for creating time, once again, for the Second Quarter of 2025 to receive, another briefing from me on behalf of the Growth & Development of Northern Nigeria (GDNN), an entity Incorporated as a Limited by Guarantee on the 7th July, 2022 with Alh. Bashir Othman Tofa (May his soul rest in peace) as our pioneer Chairman whom we lost on the 3rd of January 2022. GDNN was inaugurated as an Association of citizens of the Region concerned about its development challenges in October 2017 in Kaduna. Our current Caretaker Chairman after the demise of Alh. Bashir Othman Tofa is Alh. Abdullahi Ibrahim Halilu supported by a Steering Committee. Our Head Office is in Kaduna.
Objectives of Growth and Development of Northern Nigeria Ltd/GTE.
The following are some of the objectives of GDNN: Promoting and Facilitating Investment in Northern Nigeria;
To be handled under the Invest-In-Northern Nigeria Limited,
A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for Economic & Social Transformation of the Northern Region of Nigeria.
Public Policy Advocacy;
To be handled by a Special Unit within the GDNN to which I am the Acting Secretary,
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR);
To be handled under The Northern Nigeria Development Fund (NNDF) which is already an Incorporated entity to be inaugurated at the appropriate time; and
Any other activity that will promote the well-being of the Region of Northern Nigeria.
Consistent with the above objectives, and in particular our responsibility under Public Policy Advocacy I have been mandated by the 18th Meeting of the Steering Committee of the GDNN of Wednesday April 9th, 2025 to brief you on the following;
The GDNN Steering Committee (SC) deliberated on the progress of it’s three key projects under consideration, namely, but not limited to;
The Queen Amina University in Kaduna, of which the Kaduna State Government has made available 60-Hectres of land for the project and for which the GDNN is grateful to His Excellency Gov. Sen. Uba Sani for his encouragement and support towards the realization of this very important project to him personally and the State he governs.
The Pyramid Commodity Exchange Limited, that is currently on a pilot test phase, &
The Participatory Bank Project, that is in the promotional phase, and the GDNN was satisfied with the progress being made on each of them. It also made additional far-reaching recommendations to Government on topical economic and social issues as follows;
The GDNN Congratulate and commend His Excellency President General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida for the successful launch of the IBB Presidential Library Project of Thursday February 20, 2025 as well as his life History “A Journey in Service” all on the same day. The GDNN however frowns at the various negative comments on only an item in the entire text of the life history while there were so many other important revelations made in the book.
The GDNN rejects the culture of criticising purely for the sake of doing so and not profiling events and their causes over an entire history. For the benefits of those caught in between, late Mal. Adamu Ciroma, late General Shehu Musa ‘Yar Adua (May Allah SWT grant both of them AlJannah) and others were all unjustly banned and disqualified from participation in the then emerging political process and none of those “Human Rights” or “Political Rights” activists, that are today barking that the June 12 electionsfoul on that decision taken on them at that material time.
If what happened to those two gentlemen was “right” why must what followed subsequently be viewed as wrong and a reason to be attacking and criticizing President General Ibrahim B. Babangida or his Government? The GDNN viewed that as not only unfair, double standard but total showcase of selfishness in evaluation of affairs of national importance. The launch of the book has brought out all hidden details and closed that chapter in our history. The GDNN thanks and commends President General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida for his courage on the subject matter.
On a similar case of controversy, the GDNN is concerned that the 3rd most important office of our country, the Office of the Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is systematically being degraded and reduced to one that believes in use of fist to address serious national issues even where laws exist to address them. We are all aware of the controversy surrounding the issue of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduagon, where serious accusations were made by the Senator against the Senate President, which has been swept under the carpet.
We at the GDNN are appalled and concerned that Senators now have no longer rights to speak up or out on issues that are done wrongly but are classified as “Rules Violators” and are quickly dispensed of using “Suspension” as a tool to weed out such “irritants” in the opinion of the few that have constituted themselves in the
The rights of the Constituencies that elected each of them to recall, suspend or even remove completely any erring Senator through imposition of the application of provisions of “Rules” of the Senate to carry out such penalties on duly elected Senators without any legal advice of a wrong doing on its side by the Hon. Attorney General and Minister
of Justice of the Federation. For the benefit of all the Members in the National Assembly, the current President of the United States, His Excellency President Donald Trump was accused of a wrong-doing and he personally appeared in the court room to defend himself along with his legal team.
We have seen several other world leaders go through the processes of law to clear themselves in a similar allegation or otherwise. In our case, the wrongs allegedly committed by the serving Senate President cannot be challenged or investigated. It is indeed the duty of the Minister of Justice to initiate the investigation with a view to establishing the truth of the allegation or otherwise. He too has distanced himself from the entire subject and by extension claiming it has nothing to do with him.
Before the Senator Natasha case there were those of late Senator Nuhu Aliyu, DIG (rtd) (May Allah SWT bless his departed soul), Senator Ali Ndume and Senator Abdul Ningi all ruthlessly dealt with in a manner that was most unpleasant to us as Northern Nigerians and pleasing to the serving Senate Presidents and their “Vanguards”. We must understand that this pattern of behaviour in the National Assembly is undermining democracy and rule of law which the National Assembly is the engine room and the design theatre.
All the Senators whose rights have been abused to date by the same or previous Senate Presidents and their “Vanguards” are from the North and we feel and believe that care and caution must be exercised in display of reckless abuse of executive privilege as it has consequential repercussions. We do not believe the statement allegedly made by Senator Natasha at the UN Women Assembly that she is being persecuted because she’s a “Woman”, we believe that what is happening is a pattern of recklessness and impunity by those of our leaders who should show good examples to the citizens but fail to do so.
That the GDNN is disturbed that the insecurity situation of the Country is indeed not improving. We urge the National Security Advisor to please engage genuinely “Friendly Countries” that have the technological capabilities in assisting