Africa’s richest man and President, Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote said on Thursday that he will invest $2.3 billion in sugar and rice production in the northern part of the country.
Dangote told the World Economic Forum in Abuja that creating employment was key to ending an insurgency in the region.
He also said he would invest $12 billion in Nigeria and $4 billion outside the country over the next four years.
It would be recalled that a coalition of Nigerian business leaders including Dangote and Jim Ovia among others working with the United Nations Special Envoy on Education and former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, had on Wednesday voted $10 million towards making schools in Nigeria, especially in the crisis-ridden North- East, safe for learning.
The initiative, tagged “Safe Schools Initiative”, which was launched on the first day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) taking place in Abuja, is in response to the growing incidence of attacks on the right to education, including the abduction of over 200 girls on April 14 at Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.
“There is a desperate need to assure Nigerians that the school children are safe to go to school. As a result, the Nigerian business community has earmarked $10 million with a pilot of 500 schools.
The initiative wants parents and teachers to come up with what safety measures they need, but government too should be involved,” the former British PM said. Brown said most of the 500 schools would be from the North, adding that parents and teachers were free to ask for the kind of support they need like provision of guards.
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