By Hassan Ibrahim
The Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III has challenged Northern Governors to sit-down and evaluate countless economic investment summits and translate them into real jobs for teaming unemployed youth and development of the region.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Bauchi State Economic and Investment Summit with a theme “Building a Resilient Economy: Optimising Investment and Partnerships”the monarch urged Northern leaders to undertake an honest review of the numerous investment summits that had taken place across the region over the years, stressing that the time has come to evaluate promises against performance.
Abubakar explained, "The many summits we have held in the North East and other parts of the North where professionals and industrialists come together to see how they develop our communities.
How far have we gone with all these investment summits? What have we really achieved, have we sat down and evaluated what we have gotten from these investments summit in the last seven, ten years.
"What have they achieved, are there changes physically. Over the past decade, we have convened countless investment summits in the North. I want to challenge the Northern Governors through the Northern Governors Forum to sit together and evaluate all the investment summits that have been achieved," he said.
“We heard lofty speeches, signed MoUs, and made grand declarations. But where are the results? How many factories have been revived? How many youths have found jobs? How many investors who came to our summits actually stayed?”
The Sultan proposed a comprehensive evaluation of past Northern investment summits, beginning with Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Gombe, and Borno, among others. He said such a review would expose systemic weaknesses from poor follow-up mechanisms and weak monitoring frameworks to the lack of infrastructure, policy consistency, and security challenges that often scare away investors.
“We need to track the journey from promise to progress,” he said. “Every MoU signed must have a visible footprint. Investors should not return home with handshakes alone. We must create an environment where investment thrives with roads, electricity, functional factories and security in place."
The Sultan also charged leaders across Northern states and Nigeria to uphold the fear of God and sincerity in discharging their responsibilities to pave the way for good governance.
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