The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the last election, Mr Peter Obi and his running mate, Dr Baba-Ahmed Datti have awarded a university scholarship to a tricycle rider for returning missing N15m to the owner.
Master Salisu Auwalu the 22-year-old tricycle rider had returned N15m that was forgotten by a passenger who came from Chad to buy goods in Kano after he heard about the missing money on the radio.
Obi announced the scholarship at the ongoing Leadership Awards and Conference in Abuja on Tuesday.
After receiving the award as politician of the year, Obi said there was an urgency to invest in Northern Nigeria.
The former governor of Anambra State who was flanked by the proprietor of the university and his running mate, Ahmed Datti, said Salisu’s feeding, schooling, accomodation and others would be handled by Baze University until he graduated.
He said, “The North has no reason to be poor in Nigeria. We make more money from agriculture than oil. Imagine that Ukraine is giving Nigeria grain in a country that is at war.
“We have land and everything more than them. But they are giving us grain because 60 percent of their land is cultivated and 60 per cent of our own is uncultivated.
“The two biggest states in the North East, Borno and Taraba, have 70,000 and 55,000 square kilometers, which is four times the size of Belgium, but Belgium is exporting what we don’t even export a quarter of.”
He said the only solution to Nigeria’s economic crisis was to create jobs and business environment for the youths, adding that the more young people were out of poverty, the lesser the crime.
