TheCable

The African Development Bank (AfDB) says it will spend $563 million on rural roads, transport infrastructure, water, sanitation and agricultural productivity in Nigeria.

Akinwumi Adesina, AfDB president, said this when he paid a condolence visit to Aliko Dangote, chairman of Dangote Group, over the death of Sani, his brother.

Adesina, who also made a courtesy call to Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of Kano, said the state would get $110 million out of the earmarked amount.

“We are spending $110 million in Kano for our programme on special agricultural industrial processing zone. We are, in all, having about $563 million that will be dedicated to that project in various states of Nigeria,” he said.

“With this $110million that will be used for Kano State, just imagine what we could do. Investing in rural roads, transport infrastructure, water and sanitation, we will also invest in agricultural productivity to raise production of food.”

The AfDB boss also said that the fund would enable the creation of job opportunities and boost rural infrastructure development.

“With this programme of hundreds of US dollars, we will help develop consolidated infrastructure in rural areas,” Adesina added.

“That will allow private sector food and agribusiness companies to reduce the number of losses they have, create a more competitive value chain, transform the rural areas from the zones of misery to the zone of economic prosperity and increase the number of resources the state has.”

On his part, Ganduje assured Adesina of the cooperation of his government for the successful implementation of the projects.

“This is what we mean by genuine development when institutions are strengthened and individuals or groups of individuals are directly impacted, this is what we mean by genuine development,” Ganduje said.

“My dream is to promote Kano into a megacity, which is not only a collection of the population but also, a collection of an environment where things are working, where traffic flows, where health services are excellent.

“This is aimed at reducing medical tourism abroad and where you can have security using technology.”