El-Rufai Denies Attacking Bill Gates

John Shiklam

Against the recent reports that he attacked the founder of Microsoft, Mr. Bill Gates, for his comments on Nigeria’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), the Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir ElRufai, has explained that he never attacked United States billionaire.

Gates had at an expanded National Economic Council meeting presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on March 22, said President Muhammadu Buhari’s ERGP does not truly reflect the needs of Nigerians.

The governor was said to have faulted the philanthropist, saying that his comments were not correct.

However, speaking at the end of the state investment summit yesterday, El-Rufai said he never attacked Gates but merely put things in context.

“A few weeks ago, when Gates came to Nigeria and appealed to Nigerian government to invest more in education, I made a comment that was reported widely as attacking him. It was not an attack on Gates, it was merely putting things in context,” the governor said.

He recalled that “Gates observed that in the ERGP, there was no enough moneyforhumancapitaldevelopment, for health and education and I did not disagree.

“What I merely pointed out is that the ERGP plan has numbers that reflected federal government’s investment in health and education,” he said.

El-Rufai explained: “The bulk of education and healthcare investments are subnational because primary education, junior secondary education and primary healthcare where most of the problems are, are all within the purview of state government, just like secondary healthcare are all under the state government.

“What I told Gates is that you have identified the problem correctly, but you are looking at the wrong tier of government to handle it.

“The state and local governments have the responsibilities to invest in education and healthcare.

“So, it is up to state governments to invest more in education and healthcare and I gave example of what we are doing in Kaduna and also urged my colleagues, the governors to do same. Because unless the state governments do so, the country will be clapping with one hand.

“That is what I said, but it was misrepresented to mean that, I was attacking Gates. There is nothing wrong with attacking Gates, we can differ, but that is not what happened, I merely explained the context, where the investment should be”.

According to him, “Gates is a big partner, he has invested $1.6billion in Nigeria and a large percentage of that money was invested in Kaduna state.