The Director, Media and Publicity, Join Northern Youth Forum, Ashiru Abudullahi stated that the Coalition of Northern Youths should be called to order because of the abusive language they used against Dangote.
The Coalition claimed that Dangote “can never be” among genuine Northern patriots. Ashiru denied the information to be true, given the hundreds of thousands of Northerners earning a livelihood through his vast array of investments in the North.
He says the insinuation that Dangote group of companies is a “financial destination for every corrupt government official” is simply ridiculous because his chain of investments have never been associated with the trial of corrupt public officials that agencies like the EFCC or ICPC has been ongoing for many years. Dangote would not have been recognized by credible institutions like Forbes as the richest man in Africa.
Ashiru makes it known that in accusing Dangote and others of bringing economic hardship to Nigeria ” for the past 25 years” the Coalition has not only ridiculed itself but insulted all those Nigerians who have escaped poverty and hardship courtesy of Dangote’s investments and Corporate Social Responsibility projects.
He says it is also a blatant lie to say Dangote’s investments in the North are “negligible” or that the entrepreneur hates the North; it makes no sense at all.
When the so-called Coalition said its members are not involved with “drug peddling and currency counterfeiting”, what are they insinuating? What business has the respected African entrepreneur got to do with it?
According to Ashiru, it is heartbreaking that a group that profess to be promoting Northern interest would insult a prominent son of the North who provided the highest number of job opportunities in the history of the region.
It is indeed surprising why anyone should associate Dangote to anything politics. It has never happened and anyone who knows Dangote would readily admit that he has been a hardworking investor for decades and not a politician. The Coalition’s bedtime story about Obasanjo ever asking Dangote to run for the nation’s presidency is also laughable indeed he says.
He and the Join Northern Youth Forum condemn in strongest terms the disrespectful manner the Coalition of Northern Youth responded to an unconfirmed remark wrongly attributed to the billionaire investor. And for whatever it is worth, Dangote deserves respect for rebuilding the lives of many young Northerners through his chain of businesses. If they cannot celebrate his efforts to give meaning to the lives of many northerners in particular and Nigerians in general, they should also not cast aspersions on him. He stresses further that it is not in the character of northerners to be involved with insulting elders, especially elders that are enterprising and economically productive.
