Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, has faulted the report of the National Bureau of Statistics rating his state as one of the poorest in the country.
Tambuwal said that the rating of the state as indicated in the NBS report was not a true reflection of the situation.
The governor stated this on Monday while receiving a report titled, ‘Sokoto Development Plan: 2020-2025’ at the Government House in Sokoto.
The NBS in its April 2020 Nigerian Living Standards Survey report covering the year 2019, says nine of top 10 poorest states in Nigeria are from the northern region with Sokoto, Taraba and Jigawa as the poorest.
According to Tambuwal, “I do not intend to join issues with the NBS, but I appeal to them to come clear on their variable(s) and how they do their assessments of poor states in Nigeria; and then how they arrived at Sokoto being the poorest.
“When you look at the programmes we are implementing in Sokoto State, they are people-friendly. They are promoting and supporting the vulnerable, the poorest of the poor.
“Even what we are doing through Zakkat and Waqf Commission (SOZECOM) alone, I am not aware that there is any state that is doing as much.”
The Sokoto governor said his administration had spent N4bn on the uplift of the businesses of over 200 small scale traders across the 23 local government areas of the state.
“We believe that we are not poor and in due course it will unfold. We shall monitor the NBS and see what it will come up with in its next report, whether they will actually reflect the true position of Sokoto State in Nigeria in terms of rating of poor states,” he said.