World Bank: Junaid Muhammed backs Buhari

A northern elder statesman and Second Republic lawmaker, Junaid Muhammed, has challenged anyone to show a project sited in northern Nigeria by President Muhammadu Buhari since he came into power in 2015.

Muhammed was reacting to the controversy currently trailing the alleged statement credited to President Buhari where he directed the World Bank to focus its project on northern Nigeria.

Muhammed noted that what Buhari was reported to have said was at variance with what he had been doing in government.

Muhammed said, “If Buhari said so categorically, it was a misstatement. If he had said the World Bank should concentrate projects in the region, (then) I have my doubts. Since he came to power as President, there is no single important project he has sited in the North.

“Nothing has been done in the North. I challenge anyone to tell me any project specifically directed to the North.

“We should also be careful about what these international organisations tell us, because they are not particularly friends of this country. If Buhari said the international agencies should concentrate assistance on the North-East, I would support that because that region has been the poorest and least developed, even before the Boko Haram insurgency.”